# Recommendations for online backup?



## Carol (Apr 7, 2010)

Does anyone have any recommendations for an online backup service?  

What I would like to back up are my photos.  File sizes are typically very large (15MB - 50MB).   I don't expect to be doing a lot of transferring back and forth, I expect I'll be more likely to load the images up and keep them there.


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## Haakon (Apr 7, 2010)

I would recommend buying an external hard drive (2 is even better) and not trusting online backup. You will never know when they might go out of business, close their doors and all your data be gone - it's happened before, more than once.

http://mozy.com/ seems to get a positive reviews, and they've been around for several years...but I would still rather rely on redundant external hard drives at home than any online service.


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## Bob Hubbard (Apr 7, 2010)

A 500 GB external is about $80, and usually comes with fair backup software. You can always manually drag the files over as well.


On the cheap, get a gmail account and email yourself the files. Gmails up to 7GB of storage now.

For online
http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,4798,00.asp
http://online-data-backup-review.toptenreviews.com/


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## Xue Sheng (Apr 8, 2010)

Speaking as an overly suspicions, I dont trust anyone with my data, computer guy. And as you have already been told get a good external hard drive. I do not trust online backup services with my data. 

For around $100 you can get an External Hard Drive that holds a Terabyte of data. Our production people (photos, adds and TV commercials) usually go with Terabyte drives to keep large amounts of data backed up in a secondary place off of the severs, which are primary.


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## Bill Mattocks (Apr 8, 2010)

I agree with everyone who has suggested an external drive.  I would add that depending on how important your photos are to you, you might wish to consider more than one drive - both with identical copies of your photos.  Store one offsite.  A storage locker, safe-deposit box, relative's house you visit often, that kind of thing.

The goal is to prevent a single point of failure (SPoF in my industry).  I keep duplicate copies of my photos and I exchange drives every time I visit the remote location where my other drive is stored.  That way the most I could lose, even if my computer crashed AND my backup failed or was stolen or damaged (flood, fire, burglary, etc) would the be the photos between the last time I exchanged drives and now.

It can be a chore; not everyone wants to go to so much trouble.  My photos are that important to me, but others may not feel the same way about theirs.


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## Haakon (Apr 8, 2010)

That is more or less what I do with my photos Bill, although I have them on 2 computers and 2 external drives with one drive kept in a detached shop. I figure the odds of all of that going at the same time and me not going with them is pretty slim.

For me *robocopy.exe* works well for quick backups to external drives, just tell it to copy from the root folder and anything that is new or changed gets copied over.


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## Steve (Apr 8, 2010)

Depending on how you want to go, you might look into getting on with a respected hosting company. I've been with hostmonster for a while now and am extremely happy. My own domains, I use google apps for email (free for personal use up to 50 email addresses per domain) and "unlimited" ftp storage, which would be very helpful for you. 

They automate the backup process, so you can keep local archives of your online content/websites.  They also support mozi along with a ton of other scripts.


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## Carol (Apr 15, 2010)

stevebjj said:


> Depending on how you want to go, you might look into getting on with a respected hosting company.




A respected hosting company.  Why...I happen to know an excellent hosting company, one that specializes in the needs of martial artists     This is a fantastic idea Steve.

Hey Bob...I think you know the respected hosting company I do.


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## Steve (Apr 15, 2010)

Carol said:


> A respected hosting company. Why...I happen to know an excellent hosting company, one that specializes in the needs of martial artists   This is a fantastic idea Steve.
> 
> Hey Bob...I think you know the respected hosting company I do.


I've been with www.hostmonster.com for a long while and am extremely happy with the service.   Not to undercut Bob, but you might also check them out.   They have been rock solid for me.

Unlimited gb transfers, setting up domains is a snap and I've had great support for my questions through their 24 hour live chat.


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## The Last Legionary (Apr 16, 2010)

I'd like to see this "HardDrive of Infinite Holding" they are using.


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## The Last Legionary (Apr 16, 2010)

Ah, they don't have one. 



> Unlimited Hosting Space. HostMonster.Com does not set arbitrary limits on the amount of disk space a Subscriber can use for the Subscriber's website, nor does HostMonster.Com charge additional fees based on an increased amount of storage used, provided the Subscriber's use of storage complies with these Terms. *Please note, however, that the HostMonster.Com service is designed to host websites. HostMonster.Com does NOT provide unlimited space for online storage, backups, or archiving of electronic files, documents, log files, etc., and any such prohibited use of the Services will result in the termination of Subscriber's account, with or without notice.* Accounts with excessive number of files negatively affect the performance of the server and HostMonster.Com may request that the number of files be reduced to ensure proper performance.


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## Steve (Apr 16, 2010)

LOL... you mean they can only use one at a time?   Good catch, though, Legionnaire.  Looks like strictly using their servers for archive is verboten.


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## Carol (Apr 16, 2010)

stevebjj said:


> I've been with www.hostmonster.com for a long while and am extremely happy with the service.   Not to undercut Bob, but you might also check them out.   They have been rock solid for me.
> 
> Unlimited gb transfers, setting up domains is a snap and I've had great support for my questions through their 24 hour live chat.




Its always good to have an alternative. :asian:

I'm already a loyal Silver Star Web Designs customer, I got the owner on speed dial


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## The Last Legionary (Apr 16, 2010)

stevebjj said:


> LOL... you mean they can only use one at a time?   Good catch, though, Legionnaire.  Looks like strictly using their servers for archive is verboten.


I so want the "Unlimited Drive".  It would make organizing my porn collection so much easier. Well, if I had one. I don't. Really.  Never saw any of that stuff, ever. Not even in high school. Honest. Would a guy in a skirt wearing bronze leggings lie?


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## Bob Hubbard (Apr 16, 2010)

Unlimited is unfortunately a marketing buzz word, like 100% uptime. Truth is, use too much space, eat up too much bandwidth, put too much strain on the cpu or suck up too much ram, and they "encourage" you to move.  That's why I pay a few hundred bucks a month for the dedicated server MT is on.   If I could host this site at a $6 host....

Not to say you can't get good service from them, but budget hosting isn't my target market, and my plans are based on actual reserved space in the megs, not gigs.  Different market.  We also don't allow our plans to be used as file storage, and I'd hazard you'd be hard pressed to find any of the budget guys who allow it either.   Just not good business sense. There is little individual profit at that price point and who would drop $100-200 for a hard drive so someone can store their MP3's on em and take 15-30 months just to break even?

HM's got a decent rep and are one of the "biggies", so is 1&1, and a few others.  So, if low price hosting's what you need, they are decent options.

File backups, not so much so.  
$90, 500GB USB drive.  Backup software included.  Buy 3.  Each month do a backup, store somewhere else.  Do daily backups with other 2 drives, each weekend exchanging the drives in a set rotation.  $300, peace of mind.   

If you pay $25/mo to an online company, you break even in 12 months, and have added security knowing exactly where your data is, and who has access to it.


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## Carol (Apr 16, 2010)

Hard drives are good.

However, I have a specific need for online backup in particular.

Bob - hope to chat in the next day or two about this.


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## Senjojutsu (Apr 16, 2010)

Carol, 

I have used Mozy Basic (as in free) for a few months with no problems - but they have a limit of under 2GB for free, and I only use it for some key spreadsheets/financial data files.

Their MozyHome service starts at $4.95 per month with some long-term discounts available.

One thing - for us paranoid types - is that to really protect your data from prying eyes (_held internally at any hosting service_) you will need to encrypt files before sending them up.

Has anyone mentioned *Carbonite?*
They certainly spend money advertising on the AM radio waves.

Again external hard drives aren't really backed-up safely at your home unless your store it in a waterproof & fireproof safe/cabinent.


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