• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Online backup recommendations?

C

Charles Kozierok

Elite Member
I've been with Carbonite for a couple of years, but recently noticed that the speed at which new files are backed up has slowed to a glacial crawl. I did a bit of research and discovered that once you go over a certain amount of storage, your "unlimited" backup becomes effectively limited due to a severe throttling of upload bandwidth by the company itself.

My subscription is up in a few weeks so I'm wondering if there are better options out there. Any suggestions? Thanks.
 
Yeah, because houses burn to the ground all the time! Go stick a NAS box or two anywhere with a wol setup and be your own cloud. Total control, total security, no monthly fees, no data breaches.
 
kleinkinstein said:
Yeah, because houses burn to the ground all the time! Go stick a NAS box or two anywhere with a wol setup and be your own cloud. Total control, total security, no monthly fees, no data breaches.
Click to expand...

And RoI is about, what, 15 years? Not to mention the configuration and maintenance that non-power-users don't want to deal with.

I hear Backblaze doesn't throttle you like that. Although that was about a year ago.
 
kleinkinstein said:
Yeah, because houses burn to the ground all the time! Go stick a NAS box or two anywhere with a wol setup and be your own cloud. Total control, total security, no monthly fees, no data breaches.
Click to expand...

Uh huh. Tell that to all the people in New York where their NAS's are underwater (still) or their houses burned down. You may not value your data but some people do.

Security: Maybe but most people don't have the know how to do it properly.
No monthly fees: These things need power and cost money to buy.
No data breaches: This would be under security but there is no reason why a machine at home would be "more safe" than a cloud provider that knows what they are doing. Local access is just as risky if not more risky. That trojan that is wrecking your hard drive? It can also access your local NAS backup.

Your statement above shows your lack of experience with truly valuable data.
 
Thanks for the responses.

I already use external disks for backup. This is an extra precaution.

kleinkinstein, thanks for those suggestions. Unfortunately, with the amount of data I have, they would be cost-prohibitive.

This discussion is making me consider another alternative: using my own server. I'll contact my hosting company and ask them what it would cost to get a larger drive.
 
Another approach is to work on segregating your active and not active data. That can help with huge uploads as it only needs to be uploaded once in awhile. I of course have no idea how much you are generating nor your requirements however. There is often a point where a tape drive and a contract with Iron Mountain does become cheaper than online uploading.
 
I've have a windows home server backing up all my computers to the server and then the server backing up to Carbonite. I don't notice the Carbonite throttling because the server is working in the background. Unlimited backup data is more important to me, just got back from holiday vacation with approx. 15 GB of new videos and photos.
 
I was using Mozy under their now-removed unlimited plan. Once they prevented renewals with unlimited data, I moved to CrashPlan. They offer an unlimited data plan as well as ways of free data backup to other computers either at your home location or at an offsite location (friend or family member, etc.).

Also, I think they are running a 'free switch' deal for Carbonite users: https://www.crashplan.com/carboniteswitcher/
 
I was going through this a couple of month back thinking on "backblaze" but then; how do I know if the service will still be around in a couple of years? Other services like Google, for sure but for 2T of data (and growing ) is going to cost me a lot so I decided to buy a couple of HDD for now.
 
imagoon said:
Uh huh. Tell that to all the people in New York where their NAS's are underwater (still) or their houses burned down. You may not value your data but some people do.

Security: Maybe but most people don't have the know how to do it properly.
No monthly fees: These things need power and cost money to buy.
No data breaches: This would be under security but there is no reason why a machine at home would be "more safe" than a cloud provider that knows what they are doing. Local access is just as risky if not more risky. That trojan that is wrecking your hard drive? It can also access your local NAS backup.

Your statement above shows your lack of experience with truly valuable data.
Click to expand...

You're simply incapable of thinking different. Keep your online solution, it fits you.
 
kleinkinstein said:
You're simply incapable of thinking different.
Click to expand...

Heh. You sound like your pouting over the Internet. I am quite capable of thinking differently when there is a need for it. In this case the OP wanted online and your solution stated no benefits for him. Your stated benefits are also false. The fact that you laugh off the possibility of loss due to fire / flood / theft and then offer up a solution that potentially has a negative ROI indicates that you may have trouble thinking differently.

I would guess that CharlesKozierok is uploading items with more value to him than his "MP3 collection" or "BitTorrented Movies" because if he wasn't willing to pay to get the stuff why would he pay to back it up. I suspect that it is mostly truly irreplaceable information and/or business BCP type files, hence an online copy is a good move short of off-site data though some other method.

CharlesKozierok said:
This discussion is making me consider another alternative: using my own server. I'll contact my hosting company and ask them what it would cost to get a larger drive.
Click to expand...

This can be a good idea if you use something rsync. My thought is that in the long run you might lose the ability to do incremental backups / restoring a file at different times. I would also wonder about the TCO.
 
Last edited:
You know, with my people, I usually try to lay out the differences, pros, and cons between local backup (small 2-drive NAS appliance and automated backup software) and offsite backup (via Carbonite, etc.)

People go for about a 50/50 split, and it's about what's important to them, ultimately. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.

Personally, I have a local setup for incrementals, but have my purchased media (iTMS and Amazon MP3s) on the cloud, and a few important things (tax returns, etc.) in a DropBox account.
 
The only major advantage of a cloud storage service is that you can get access to your data anywhere; it does not mean your data is 100% safe. My company recently lost data due to synchronisation issues between local PC’s and the cloud service provider LiveDrive. (Check out the comments on this review, we were not alone: LiveDrive http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/software/1278955/livedrive-backup)

Apart from the fact that a cloud service provider can lose your data when things are supposedly working correctly:
· What happens if the service provider goes bust?
· Is uploaded data integrity checked against the original files?
· Does the service provider store data at one location or multiple locations?
· If stored at multiple locations does that mean stored data is replicated between locations or is it split between different locations?

For my personal data I back up periodically to two external HDD’s and every year I put one HDD at a different location. Between periodical backups to HDD I put anything important on a local drive and also Drop Box and or Skydrive.
 
I thought I was safe with a local 2TB mirror, and that illusion poofed in less than an hour of seemingly innocent beeps and reboots. I do still hope to recover, but I don't see how my 15/ .1 cable connection to the net would be a practical way to back up regardless of the provider of the storage, upload is too slow.

I am upping the quality of drive for the local raid to WD RED, then supplementing that with regular backups to drives that will be rotated and kept offline. I also intend to prioritize my data so that things that are not possible to replace from external sources get a double dose of better back up, burning DVD's or one of these cloud things maybe.
 
mikeford said:
I thought I was safe with a local 2TB mirror, and that illusion poofed in less than an hour of seemingly innocent beeps and reboots. I do still hope to recover, but I don't see how my 15/ .1 cable connection to the net would be a practical way to back up regardless of the provider of the storage, upload is too slow.

I am upping the quality of drive for the local raid to WD RED, then supplementing that with regular backups to drives that will be rotated and kept offline. I also intend to prioritize my data so that things that are not possible to replace from external sources get a double dose of better back up, burning DVD's or one of these cloud things maybe.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is why either you have multiple copies or you separate and only save online the important stuff. I wouldn't backup my DVD rips online but I sure do send up encrypted copies of my taxes etc.
 
Thanks for the responses.

CrashPlan looks like a good option.. are they reliable? I also wonder if they'll change their policies later on, the way Mozy and Carbonite did.

Didn't someone respond with another service? Maybe it got deleted as spam.

My hosting site may have a solution for me as well, that, while not automated, could work better.
 
Ao1 said:
The only major advantage of a cloud storage service is that you can get access to your data anywhere; it does not mean your data is 100% safe. My company recently lost data due to synchronisation issues between local PC’s and the cloud service provider LiveDrive. (Check out the comments on this review, we were not alone: LiveDrive http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/software/1278955/livedrive-backup)

Apart from the fact that a cloud service provider can lose your data when things are supposedly working correctly:
· What happens if the service provider goes bust?
· Is uploaded data integrity checked against the original files?
· Does the service provider store data at one location or multiple locations?
· If stored at multiple locations does that mean stored data is replicated between locations or is it split between different locations?

For my personal data I back up periodically to two external HDD’s and every year I put one HDD at a different location. Between periodical backups to HDD I put anything important on a local drive and also Drop Box and or Skydrive.
Click to expand...

Syncing, to the cloud or otherwise, isn't a backup.

If the cloud explodes tomorrow, I still have my local copy, and when the internet comes back on, my computer isn't going to erase its own HD to keep in sync.
 
Well, I've only been using CrashPlan for about one month, and they've been 100% up for me in that time - which is the only meaning of reliable I could comment on - who knows what the future will bring for any company. As for past history however, I became aware of them from several technology folks, who are highly regarded in their field, who spoke highly of CrashPlan and have been using them for some time.
 
dave_the_nerd said:
Syncing, to the cloud or otherwise, isn't a backup.

If the cloud explodes tomorrow, I still have my local copy, and when the internet comes back on, my computer isn't going to erase its own HD to keep in sync.
Click to expand...

Fair comment, but for some people keeping everything locally and in the cloud is not necessarily an option if it involves a really large amount of data or if multiple devices are being used, which was the problem with the work PC’s. What I was trying to say is that putting data on the cloud does not take away the possibility of data loss; it just changes the reasons why it can occur.

For me the bulk of data I want to keep does not change it just grows, so keeping the majority of that static data on external HDD’s at different locations is the cheapest and lowest risk option for my needs. All I have to worry about is making sure I don’t lose updated data before I do periodical backups and for that I duplicate data locally and on the cloud.

If data is not static and you want to access data from multiple devices my solution is not much good. Horses for courses 🙂
 
Thanks for the testimonial, Infinite.

I have another option at my disposal now, courtesy of my long-time web host. They'll upgrade me to a 2 TB drive for a flat price of $300. This includes a shadow drive, essentially real-time mirroring. Of course I would then have to manually update my backups. (Is there software out there that would do this -- sync between a server and a PC?)

Anyway, I'm strongly considering that option. Then I get online backup and keep control over the data and the speed at which I upload.

But I may try CrashPlan as well.

Any further thoughts appreciated.
 
I've been a Carbonite user for about five years and don't have any complaints, but I've never had to recover data either. I do like the fact that any deleted items are kept for 60 days, jsut in case. I also do local incremental backups and mirror data files to a NAS nightly. Since I had the NAS and only a laptop, it's my cobbled together version of RAID. Now that I have built a desktop , I'll probably move to a more traditional RAID setup (and yes, I know that Raid isn't a backup plan 🙂 )

One option I've been meaning to explore more is Amazon Glacier. It seems like a good solution to simply park a copy of my photos and home videos for safe keeping. I can't imagine how horrible I would feel if I lost those in a disaster/computer crash.
 
Last edited:
Rsync will do it. Synctoy, robocopy etc. You will lose your "history" though. Backups are important for going back in time as well. Your backup won't do you any good if you get "super hack virus Q 2013"!!! that was encrypting your files and your backup already synced up the changes. Also there is a the risk that your files could be exposed and tools like rsync won't encrypt them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top