Technology & Social Media Cloud based File Backup

Discussion in 'Living Room' started by GentleChief, 13th Jan, 2019.

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  1. GentleChief

    GentleChief Well-Known Member

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    Hi Everyone,

    Just the worst case scenario happened to my neighbor unfortunately.

    All the pictures and videos of his 3 kids (16, 11 and 8 year old) have been wiped clean from the hard disk. Everything Gone, Forever! Quite Devastating.

    So I am currently in the market for a Cloud-based File Backup provider urgently.
    Was using Google Drive until recently - but personally, I am not a Big Fan.

    So here I am, looking for a Cloud-based Backup solution.
    Many people recommend iDrive or BackBlaze.

    So a question to all the smart geeks out there - what service do you personally use to back up all your files on the Cloud? And how much do you pay for it?

    Just FYI - I use a Windows-based PC
     
    Last edited: 13th Jan, 2019
  2. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

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    I use Dropbox for all my personal files (excluding photos), and Google Drive for all my business files.

    I use CrashPlan for Small Business for my main workstation computer - but mostly only for historic reasons - I used to use CrashPlan personal edition but they discontinued that and I have 3TB of photos/videos backed up there, so it was just easier to swap to the business edition rather than swapping to anything else.

    I use BackBlaze for all my other computers, including extended family members who I manage computers for (previously all on CrashPlan, now all on BackBlaze).

    I also have local backup of all my photos/videos to my NAS (using FreeFileSync) and also use Macrium Reflect to do bare-metal-backups to my NAS.

    I suggest using both a local NAS and BackBlaze for backing up your files.

    I've also heard pretty good things about iDrive - but have no personal experience with them.
     
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  3. geoffw

    geoffw Moderator Staff Member

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    I had to look up NAS, I didn't know what it was. I googled NAS backup.

    For private purposes, I'd still be concerned about a drive failing. I've had one catastrophic failure on a laptop hard drive, but I had almost all of my files in cloud storage.

    I've used Dropbox. I use Google Drive for collaborating with colleagues as well as other storage.

    For a good amount of storage, there is a monthly subscription. If you already have a subscription to MS Office, there's a good amount of storage included on OneDrive.

    I did use Flickr for photo storage. It was a bit slow, but it included a massive amount of storage for free. However they've now been taken over by Yahoo and have limited their free storage.
     
  4. Scott No Mates

    Scott No Mates Well-Known Member

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    We used dropbox but had a bad experience. Their customer support is US based & only works M-F core business hours. For some unknown reason all of our files self-deleted on a Friday afternoon. No support for 3 days :eek:

    No files for a week :mad:
     
  5. hammer

    hammer Well-Known Member

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    Does your router have a USB port? If it does, it's likely that you can plug a portable hard drive into it and turn that into a network backup drive.

    That's stage one.

    Once you've done that sign up to any cloud based storage and use that as well.

    Data doesn't exist unless it's in two or more places at the same time!
     
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  6. geoffw

    geoffw Moderator Staff Member

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    @GentleChief - while we can comment based on our own experiences, we can't comment on how it may suit your requirements.

    You have some suggestions to start investigating - but you will need to know how much space you will need for data, what your upload speed is, what your budget is, what the support is like.

    Make sure that your data is safe in the worst case scenario - if your office caught fire, would you have complete records? How long would it take to restore? Will you need to restore software to your computer, and not just files?
     
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  7. LibGS

    LibGS Well-Known Member

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    Partially unrelated to the OP...

    I've been looking into Amazon Glacier for long term cloud backup. Cheap to backup and store but pricier to access files. $0.005 per GB / Month is not to bad.

    Amazon Glacier Pricing ā€“ Amazon Web Services
     
  8. House

    House Well-Known Member

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    A NAS and Backblaze are what I use and find that to be more than good enough.

    Also have a few portable 5tb drives that I back up regularly that are then stored offsite.

    Has your neighbor tried all the restore programs like Recuva? Iā€™d be surprised if it was all unrecoverable,
     
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  9. chi.lam

    chi.lam Well-Known Member

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    We use an external hard drive to manually backup our photos/videos on a quarterly basis which we store offsite (at work). The drive is fully encrypted with Windows Bitlocker in case someone gets their hands on it. We also have a copy on our NAS and laptop at home. It requires a little bit of work to copy from phone to laptop/NAS/external drive each quarter but it saves on subscription costs
     
  10. euro73

    euro73 Well-Known Member Business Member

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    I back up all media files to 2 NAS devices . One is Netgear. The other is QNAP. All Music. Video. Photos are backed up to the NAS devices . Both NAS devices are 2 drive , so I have redundancy in the event of 1 drive failing. The NAS devices also provide for DLNA media streaming as a backup to Airplay streaming and musiccast streaming . The QNAP also offers cloud storage and all kinds of apps so that data can be accessed at your convenience - provided you can get internet access.

    I back up all work related files to Dropbox , which also integrates with my CRM software, which is very handy. Dropbox is super easy to use and works brilliantly. Again , I can access or share files anytime , anywhere Internet access is available.

    I then back up all of the above , plus all PC and laptop drives , to CrashPlan . CrashPlan is also cloud based and accessible anywhere you can get online.

    This provides multiple levels of redundancy .

    But if your friend just wants a small amount of cloud storage - Dropbox , google drive , one drive ....iCloud - all free for a very basic amount of data . Beyond that , subscription fees apply.
     
    Last edited: 20th Feb, 2019
  11. PandS

    PandS Well-Known Member

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    what did he do? as long as the disk can spin data be recovered, if he accidentally format it
    take the disk out of the computer and don't write anything else on it, data on there can be still be recovered

    Cloud backup: google photos can back up all your photos and video for free forever and there is no limit
     
  12. geoffw

    geoffw Moderator Staff Member

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    Google photos will backup for free if you allow them to compress your photos, usually straight from your phone, a max of 16MB per photo is allowed; videos are compressed to 1080p. Without this compression, 15GB is allowed for free (including Gmail and other Google Drive files).
     
  13. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

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    Never use a photo storage service as a backup for your photos.

    Store them on generic file storage where they can be kept in their original format and not manipulated by the service.
     
  14. Andrew Allen

    Andrew Allen Well-Known Member Business Member

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    Something we do now and then (should do it more often) is to compile a usb stick of the best photos from a trip or the last few months, take it down to an office works or photo printing place and print lots of physical photos. The kids love making albums out of them with their own captions and also great for the grand parents.

    Nothing is permanent, so diversification with storage options is good. Single point of failure involving computers is bound to fail at some point. Using dropbox and NAS myself however still have some data on 3.5inch diskettes lying around.. so it's never certain how long anything will last or even if it will last longer than a printed photo :)