Blogs Just Cloud: a terrible backup service

I <3 SpiderOak. It's awesome. There was a couple of teething issues with it, but otherwise it does the job.

 

My work uses crashplan to secure grant-funded research data. Works great.

 

my work gave me a 32gig flash stick to use as backup. lol

 

I have 150Gb+ backed up with Backblaze for $5 a month. What was it that Just Cloud were offering that was worth the extra?

 

Can we get a proper Bit-tech review on cloud storage and which is best for value/rare use/frequent use etc?

That's the sort of thing you guys would do well

 

It's a blog piece???

 

I prefer the "backup at parents house" Method

 

I hate the idea of a cloud service not owned or administrated by me... so I concur. But it's not for everyone.

I personally think it is good that blogs like this exist. Whether people think it is an opinion piece or not, this users experience would not be heard amongst the drudgery of marketing social media and Press Release spin for all the Google weighting in the world they generate. Sites like this are independent and, within certain categories, reputable, with demonstrably knowledgeable readers.

So not only does the article establish some "cons" washed over by less convincing sources, but the contribution by readers adds more value than leagues of those one sided comparison charts that marketing inevitably use. I should know... I've written a few in other industries. Luckily for me though, my company(that I work for) is platform agnostic, so I have the complete opposite task assigned to me; create balance where there is some and "for god's sake Lawrence, don't piss anyone off."

 

I can't recommend a backup service but I can name one to stay away from - Jungle Disk. It's a collaboration between Rackspace and Amazon EC1 and seems to have been very popular in the past, but prices have been steadily going up while support and development are pretty much at a standstill now. Avoid.

 

I can speak from experience that the quality of any cloud service is very heavily dependent on the quality of your Internet connection and the software they provide. Packet loss and instability have actually caused just as many problems as a lack of bandwidth and I've found that the software provided to upload to cloud backups is extremely immature compared to "real" convention backup programs.

The most common problem I've had is my client's scheduled backups stalling without any kind of notification that anything went wrong, or other issues that have gone unlogged and unnotified that any backup system worth it's salt would have kicked up a massive stink about. I've no doubt that this will get a lot better over time, of course.

 

I use Elderly Parents' Study. EPS does require some initial investment; I bought two identical SATA hard drives with matching removable caddies, and fitted one of them to a spare 5.25" bay in my tower case. By the ingenious technique of Visiting Elderly Parents At Least Once A Month, one drive is retrieved from Elderly Parents' Study whilst the other is deposited. The peak data transfer rate is as close to SATA-II as my motherboard and drives will allow, although there is some considerable latency as I drive the 50 miles up the motorway to visit them. The service provides additional benefits which prolong the life of Elderly Parents; these include Checking The Best Before Dates Of The Food In Their Fridge, Checking Their Central Heating Works and Encouraging Them To Use The Bus Rather Than Letting The Myopic Old Dears Drive, but unfortunately these are manual processes. There is a long-term plan to relocate the datacentre to somewhere more convenient, whilst remaining outside any potential incident radius, but there is a considerable negotiation protocol which needs to be processed first.

 

I note I'm the second person on this thread to use this technique (see post from Xir above). It really is very, very effective and thoroughly recommended.

 

I go for the Leave In the Office methodolgy personally. I'm required by my boss and wife to attend the off-site (almost) every day so backups can be refreshed at smaller intervals.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a bag full of usb sticks.

 

Lol, + rep.

 

If you have your own server you want to use, OwnCloud..

You own the HDDs, as much space as you can afford to purchase.

Do note you need access to a server....

 

I'm still using Floppy Disks, am I missing something here?

 

upgrade to the USB movement

 

I've been using JungleDisk for years .. They have a fairly simple service, bill by used GB, and depending on which disk space provider you pick (Amazon US/Amazon EU/Rackspace), maybe for transfer too. The only "issue" I've had with them is the transfer speeds, but iirc we're still talking about hundreds of kilobytes per second .. that would likely be faster too if I switched from Rackspace to Amazon S3 EU for the disk space.

They support incremental backups and de-duplication, and they also encrypt your files using AES-256, but not sure if that's a properly safe encryption or if they have the master keys stashed for their own use.

Also I don't know what that previous comment about Jungle Disk's prices going up are about, they've been dropping steadily since I started using it. In terms of support, I've never needed to contact them so I wouldn't know how good or bad it is.

 

I use google drive's cheap-as-free 5GB option, just about enough for uni crap and family photos. There are bigger free accounts about, but I always figure at least with google, they aren't likely to go bust/nag me/accidentally my data.

 

Considering all the hacks that have occured over recent years, I'd rather go with physical backups stored offsite. Besides, under the reign of King Obama, you never know whether your online data will be seized. And people used to worry about Bush, LOL!