Experience with on-line backup providers?

[psindrup]

Hi all

I am looking for feedback from people with personlal experience with on-line backup providers?

I am in particular looking for two things.

Firstly - and very important - they have to support rsync
Secondly, I would prefer a provider that provide a flat-rate fee policy.

Thanks a million

Peter

[feppe]

Hi all

I am looking for feedback from people with personla experience with on-line backup providers?

I am in particular looking for two things.

Firstly - and very important - they have to support rsync
Secondly, I would prefer a provider that provide a flat-rate fee policy.

Thanks a million

Peter

By flat-rate fee policy I assume you mean unlimited plans. Backblaze has it and so does Crashplan, Mozy doesn't have them, Carbonite limits bandwidth and file sizes.

I used Mozy for about a year until the pulled the rug on me and a lot of others by discontinuing their unlimited plan. I chose Crashplan and have been very happy with their (much better) software. Their feature set is the most complete of the several ones I've looked at as well.

I don't know what rsync is, but this is what google says about it and CP.

[JimAscher]

I have recently subscribed to Carbonite.  It has a 15-day trial plan, which they extended 15 extra days for me and gave me a 10% discount for reasons unrelated to the quality of their service.  One thing I was totally unprepared for was the slow pace of the initial back-up (even with high-speed cable internet).  They estimate it to be about 3 Gig a day!  With over 200 Gig of data on my harddrive, I am still backing up after leaving my PC on for over a month, and still counting.  The initial back-up may well take over three months!  Whichever service you may ultimately choose, you may wish to look into their stated back-up speed -- although all the services may have the same limitations. 

[feppe]

I have recently subscribed to Carbonite.  It has a 15-day trial plan, which they extended 15 extra days for me and gave me a 10% discount for reasons unrelated to the quality of their service.  One thing I was totally unprepared for was the slow pace of the initial back-up (even with high-speed cable internet).  They estimate it to be about 3 Gig a day!  With over 200 Gig of data on my harddrive, I am still backing up after leaving my PC on for over a month, and still counting.  The initial back-up may well take over three months!  Whichever service you may ultimately choose, you may wish to look into their stated back-up speed -- although all the services may have the same limitations. 

As I pointed out above, Carbonite limits their bandwdith. In fairness, they are upfront about it.

Crashplan or Mozy don't. Your own bandwidth is of course also a limiting factor.

[psindrup]

I am still backing up after leaving my PC on for over a month, and still counting.  The initial back-up may well take over three months!  Whichever service you may ultimately choose, you may wish to look into their stated back-up speed -- although all the services may have the same limitations. 

This is exactly why rsync is so important to me

I have decided to use onlinestoragesolution.com, because they are the only ones I have been able to find that both supports rsync and has a flat rate fee.

My plan is to have my picture directory copied/synced from my work station to a NAS, and have the NAS copy the images to the on-line backup service via rsync.

I will report back when I have my NAS up and running ...

Peter

[schrodingerscat]

Seth Resnick relates in Where's My #*@@ Pictures an experience he had with a 'cloud' backup. The company decided to throw in the towel, and he had to scramble to retrieve his data. Could very well have lost much, if not all, if he hadn't gone to great effort and expense.

Myself, I'd never rely on a web solution, especially in this day and age of corporate fickleness. Companies vanish in the wink of an eye, or get absorbed by a bigger fish who may not have the best interests of the established customer base in their plans.

You are also trusting the security of your data to a third party, with virtually no control, who's primary concern is the bottom line.

[psindrup]

My external backup is only mend as "last resort" (third copy) and I have no sensitive data to protect.

The chances that my PC, my NAS and my backup provider goes south at the same time is negligible. 

Peter

[feppe]

Seth Resnick relates in Where's My #*@@ Pictures an experience he had with a 'cloud' backup. The company decided to throw in the towel, and he had to scramble to retrieve his data. Could very well have lost much, if not all, if he hadn't gone to great effort and expense.

Myself, I'd never rely on a web solution, especially in this day and age of corporate fickleness. Companies vanish in the wink of an eye, or get absorbed by a bigger fish who may not have the best interests of the established customer base in their plans.

You are also trusting the security of your data to a third party, with virtually no control, who's primary concern is the bottom line.

Fully agree. I use the cloud as another form of redundancy, in addition to local online and offline backups, and offsite offline backup (external HDD at the office refreshed every month).

[mbalensiefer]

Can you tell me what the advantages are with RSync over normal FTP? Thank you.

[Kirk Gittings]

The real issue is how effective it is to rebuild your system from their backups. Try and find reliable info or comparable tests about that on the web. It doesn't exist.  I quit using online backups because no one could give me reliable info about this issue. OTOH, I have used W7 system image backup and Carbon Copy Cloner on Macs and with both system rebuilding was a snap. Can the online systems say the same?

[DeeJay]

I have so called unlimited webspace for my website. I upload crucial work as a 4th backup. I would never trust a third party with my only backup. Anything via web is just too intangible.

[feppe]

The real issue is how effective it is to rebuild your system from their backups. Try and find reliable info or comparable tests about that on the web. It doesn't exist.  I quit using online backups because no one could give me reliable info about this issue. OTOH, I have used W7 system image backup and Carbon Copy Cloner on Macs and with both system rebuilding was a snap. Can the online systems say the same?

Agreed: trusting an online service for system backup is probably not advisable. I only use it for redundancy of image (and music and movies) backup. I do also backup my system files, but that's just for versioning.

Which software do you refer to win7 system image backup? Does it work with computers which are on 24/7, ie. I would prefer not to bring it down daily for system backup.

[martinreed22]

Which software do you refer to win7 system image backup? Does it work with computers which are on 24/7, ie. I would prefer not to bring it down daily for system backup.

Have been using ShadowProtect Desktop for quite a while, have found it to be very robust and unintrusive. Aimed more at the business market so trades off bells and whistles for getting the job done well.

http://www.storagecraft.com/shadow_protect_desktop.php

Regards, Martin

[Kirk Gittings]

Which software do you refer to win7 system image backup? Does it work with computers which are on 24/7, ie. I would prefer not to bring it down daily for system backup.

"Create System Image". Its the last thing I do every day. Takes a minute to set in motion (to an internal drive dedicated just to this) and head for the shower and bed. I have rebuilt my system a couple of time from this effortlessly.

[mbalensiefer]

By chance is there any imaging software you may have experience with that will only image an OS--and that can ignore certain directories?

Michael

[psindrup]

By chance is there any imaging software you may have experience with that will only image an OS--and that can ignore certain directories?

Michael

I think the easiest way around that challenge is to plan your directory-structure so your data/pictures resides "outside" of your OS files/directories

In my case I have all my OS and program related stuff on C:\ and my secondary drive D:\ is for data only

Peter

[mbalensiefer]

Hello Peter. Nice to meet you.

 Is your "D" drive a partitioned part of your "C" drive, or is it an external drive?

Michael

[psindrup]

Hello Peter. Nice to meet you.

 Is your "D" drive a partitioned part of your "C" drive, or is it an external drive?

Michael

It is an additional drive. Actually it is 4 drives configured as an RAID5 setup - but still internal in my PC/workstation.

Peter