Local Backup vs Online Backup: What Say You?

[janosh]

IMO you should consider Google Docs as one of your backups (only makes sense for your fully post-processed JPEGs). I need to get another external HD. DVDs are too slow to be the primary backup for RAW.

 

[Stephen G]

Problem was not external drive.
Data resides on primary drive.
I was booting off a backup to run a disk check.
Primary disk was unmount and thus triggered remote, and later local deletes.
This was also a day after my time machine drive died too.
3 copies all hosed.

Ugh. A terrible bug* indeed, but it also seems like Sugarsync doesn't support one-way sync... which does make sense, and it's important to note that there are different types of cloud hosting providers - some are "store stuff in the cloud and access from anywhere" (think iCloud, Dropbox, synchronizing in both directions), some are more for backup - nothing more than a remote hard drive with no built-in magic. For important backups, I'd be wary of the former kind.

* Although they do write: "It's very important that you sync data stored on internal hard drives. Syncing from external or removeable drives is not supported by SugarSync." (still, no excuse)

I have a couple of external drives stored in two different locations that I update every now and then. I'm going away for a while so I'm just about to set up some online backup for the Really important stuff (e.g., the _good_ pictures, which shouldn't take up much space...). I'll dump it to Amazon S3, or maybe use TarSnap (encrypted backup built on top of S3).

 

[JourneyMan13]

I have a 1TB drive that I keep unplugged unless I'm saving data to it. No power or USB, unpowered HDD's don't get corrupted easily. I backup important files when I'm done working on them. An external HDD is the best way to go, as long as you use it correctly. DropBox's EULA says that they own everything hosted on there servers, but I haven't read all the different sites EULA's.

 

[bwcolor]

I think that it is prudent to use both local and off-site. I am a big fan of both drobo and self-assembled Ubuntu Linux Servers. I have a four drive Drobo upon which I store important data and it can lose one drive, plus allows you to update storage size while running. It is actually a pre-configured Linux server. I also have a network Drobo which can survive two drives going bad. This serves as a backup to the first Drobo. I also have a Ubuntu Server in a different part of the house, which uses Crashplan.. again everything backed up. Crashplan allows me to place another server.. in another location, like a friends house .. and I can backup to it for free. You can also buy their central underground server farm service. I have both. All is automated. I've had office staff induced data failures where staff tried to recover, but actually destroyed two backups. Luckily I had a third backup. Now, I have four using various programs and never through the same modality.. ie all USB..etc.

Yes, I'm a glass half-full sort of guy.

 

[kanzlr]

Typical RFF answer: get both.

+1 🙂

I do almost daily Time Machine backups locally and have all my important documents (in a truecrypt container) in a team-dropbox, along with the final (print ready) JPGs my more meaningful photo sessions 🙂

 

[Richard G]

Not guilty.

 

[wolves3012]

One thing that would concern me in using online storage - who owns the data? The likes of Google are well known for retaining data that they have no moral right to keep.

The other issue is what redress do you have if they do lose it or if they keep it against your wishes? That one opens up another minefield.

I think I'd rather trust the on-site approach, if needs be keeping one or more additional copies elsewhere. A lot depends just how important this data is to you.

 

[kanzlr]

"the likes of google"?

google is one of the few that actually accepts freedom of data as important and who give you the option to delete your data.
facebook is another story...

if you do not want that
1. get an online backup solution where you can accept the contract details
2. put your data in crypto containers