Cloud scares me!

portchieboy

I feel I ought to back everything I have to cloud, as whilst I do have a seperate HD, I like the idea of safe storage, and access from my desktop, laptop, Galaxy 2 phone, and possibly remote computers?

Have looked at lots, and thing Google Drive, or Just Cloud may fit?
I want to back up music, pictures (in Picasa) and all files, but am basically scared to commit. Guess I really don'[t fully understand any of the services.

Are the any easy walk throughs that anyone knows of please, or comments/advice?

DCFC79

How much would you need/want ?

Some of the free options ive heard of only offer small amounts of space say 2GB but if you want more then you pay for the extra, google drive is 5GB which isnt bad plus if you already have a google account then no need to register for anything else.

portchieboy

I think the Google option would cover my needs. Is it straitforward, does it do want I want?

officeguru

DCFC79 wrote: »

How much would you need/want ?

Some of the free options ive heard of only offer small amounts of space say 2GB but if you want more then you pay for the extra, google drive is 5GB which isnt bad plus if you already have a google account then no need to register for anything else.

Thanks for the heads up with the google drive.. I'll use my betterhalf's space as well so that would give me 10gb. I've just googled it and it looks simple enough to use.

Cheers

officeguru

I went to install google drive, and I have already used it 2 years ago! I obviously forgot all about it ..

Cheers

smos585

I will say I do my own backups on external hdd's. I am happy to be convinced otherwise.

My concern is that I have over 100gb backed up, and max adsl of 6mbps. How long would it take to restore my system if it needed a restore?

Another advantage is I have control. Disadvantage maybe cost of the hdds, and the lack of offsite storage (but I do have a copy - not so upto date - located elsewhere)........

S0litaire

Depends on what you NEED to download for a restore.

Is all that 100GB your files or is it things like C:\Windows\ that's in the backups?

I just backup my documents and files. If i need to restore from bare metal, the time it takes to reinstall the OS is quicker than downloading the full system backup.

Though I use SpiderOak for my "off-site" backup of my documents and settings.

also it would probably take 48-52 hours to get all +100Gb
on your connection ^_^

officeguru

I back up to an extermal drive plus I use my old tower computer as a backup as well.. but if I took the trouble to clear out all the software and old files, I would only need the external drive, but I seem to keep stuff for far too long.. I was thinking of using the google drive purely for music and photos so that I can take them off my laptop..

smos585

S0litaire wrote: »

Depends on what you NEED to download for a restore.

Is all that 100GB your files or is it things like C:\Windows\ that's in the backups?

Sorry I should have been more clear, 100gb is our stuff, excludes all the windows/program stuff etc.

also it would probably take 48-52 hours to get all +100Gb on your connection

Thank you, I thought it would be something like that which is the reason we didn't really consider it.

S0litaire

Gotcha!

Some of the better on-line backup companies will send you out a blank USB drive for the initial backup that you send back.

So all the backups after that are small and quick.

Then if you need to recover the data, they can send it out to you on a USB drive (usually overnight courier)

But it's costly!! Some charge $250 (around £150) for this service.

Jakeandme

portchieboy wrote: »

I think the Google option would cover my needs. Is it straitforward, does it do want I want?

Did strange things to my computer, changed some desktop icons and gave error codes when shutting down.
I think i read it was still in Beta.