Disadvantages of online back up?

Pythagorous

I use the online backup provider called Carbonite to take care of all of my file backups, but was wondering why some people still opt for using USBs or hard drives?

Online backup software is so cheap, automatic and hassle free it seems a no brainer to me unless I'm missing something!?

Marty_J

Pythagorous wrote: »

I use the online backup provider called Carbonite to take care of all of my file backups, but was wondering why some people still opt for using USBs or hard drives?

Online backup software is so cheap, automatic and hassle free it seems a no brainer to me unless I'm missing something!?

I use both on and off site backups. On site backups are certainly faster to access, and if someone has a download/upload limit on their broadband, backing up all their stuff online is not really an option.

The question of what happens if your backup provider goes out of business inevitably raises its head. Privacy is also a concern for some, and you can't always be sure that someone else will be as careful with your data as you would.

LeeSouthEast

I use Humyo (same thing, different provider). The main downside is the speed. Local backups are much quicker.

I keep local backups on a RAID-1 drive (*everything*), and the really-cannot-lose-ever stuff is also backed up to Humyo for peace of mind.

pendulum

Pythagorous wrote: »

I use the online backup provider called Carbonite to take care of all of my file backups, but was wondering why some people still opt for using USBs or hard drives?

I have hundreds of gigabytes worth of stuff I'd like to keep. How long do you think it will take me to upload all that at my current upload speed of about 40kb/sec?

And then, when I need to access that backup, it will take me a very long time to download it again.

To me, using hard drives is the no brainer. There are so many disadvantages to online backup. Do you know who you're sending your data to? Really?

LeeSouthEast

pendulum wrote: »

Do you know who you're sending your data to? Really?

I encrypt it all before it goes anyway, so it doesn't matter too much

Pythagorous

Interesting thanks for the replies.

As for the speed issue, I never even notice it being an issue as it is running in the background and any new material tends to be word docs and excel spreadsheets which are generally small.

I think I might change to Humyo (along with a 6 monthly HD back up) as its free for under 10GB. My music files (which are the only files over 10GB) can be backed up via an external HD.

@ Lee - How do you encrypt before sending?

LeeSouthEast

I just dump it all in a truecrypt container before uploading.

RobTang

Im more worried about them loosing my data rather than somone looking at it and what if for some reason your internet connection is unavaliable.

Either way my daily (home) server backups are 10gb each (incremental), theres no way thats going over a home connection. in addition to that is 10tb san which really really (although not anywhere close to full) isn't going over a home connection.

Online is great as part of a backup solution, but it is still only a part of the solution.

ps RAID is NOT a backup solution.

LeeSouthEast

It is when it's another copy of the data.

RobTang

Its not a copy of your data its a mirror of it which is subtly different.

OK so say I have a Raid 1 config and I acidently delete a very important word document, file recovery progams are only recovering corrupted version of the file.... exactly how do I recover this file from my "backup" copy.

or say ive been keeping my files on a computer in the basement, due to global warming it is now flooded and both raid drives are trashed how do I recover my document ?

Raid ONLY protects you against hard disk failure, even then I doupt most of the software controllers that come with most comsumer pcs will even do that.

LeeSouthEast

It's a copy of my data (it's an external drive). It is therefore a backup.

I know what you're saying Rob, you're preaching to someone who already knows though