Online backup solution?

Marley's Ghost · #1 02-03-2010, 07:38 AM

I am up to 5 pc's in the home network and manual backup is becoming cumbersome. Can anyone recommend a cheap online or local backup solution?

MJ5150 · #2 02-03-2010, 07:43 AM

Mozy, $5 a month. They are owned by EMC, a very powerful and trusted name in enterprise storage solutions.

-Mike

**baba** · #3 02-03-2010, 07:46 AM

The ones that I have seen are at least $30 a year. With the dirt cheap cost of external hard drives, why not just drag and drop to one of these every once in a while? It can't be any harder than dragging and dropping to the cloud.

Selta · #4 02-03-2010, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baba

The ones that I have seen are at least $30 a year. With the dirt cheap cost of external hard drives, why not just drag and drop to one of these every once in a while? It can't be any harder than dragging and dropping to the cloud.

External drives are not a good backup solution at all...

MJ5150 · #5 02-03-2010, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

External drives are not a good backup solution at all...

They are as long as DNSPROMO&DOAGOODJOBBACKINGUP completes properly.

-Mike

**baba** · #6 02-03-2010, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

External drives are not a good backup solution at all...

Ok, I'm ready to learn. What gives? Is it virus threat since it could just get to the drive?

MJ5150 · #7 02-03-2010, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baba

Ok, I'm ready to learn. What gives? Is it virus threat since it could just get to the drive?

Ignore Ray. He doesn't know anything about computers. He just does a cut and paste from various websites. But he is an authority on pickles.....especially the MRVLASIC's.

-Mike

anyonefortennis · #8 02-03-2010, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

External drives are not a good backup solution at all...

Care to expand on that?

Aside from someone breaking into your home and taking your drive or a power surge frying EVERYTHING, I think they are ok.

Selta · #9 02-03-2010, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anyonefortennis

Care to expand on that?

Aside from someone breaking into your home and taking your drive or a power surge frying EVERYTHING, I think they are ok.

How is a single hard drive in an external enclosure any safer than your internal drive (which is the exact same drive type)?

Answer; it's really not. They're both prone to failure. They're a moving mechanical item with zero redundancy.

Best answer to cheap backups on-site (i.e. in your home) would be one of those home NAS devices that at least has some RAID capability. That way you can have any single drive fail and not lose data.

Best answer to backup overall is something off-site (i.e. online, co-lo or similar).
Personally, I have two NAS devices that replicate data between each other every 12 hours. They're both behind UPS devices on high quality surge protectors. In essence, it would take a lot for me to lose the data I have at my house.
On top of that, I keep things on an online backup solution, Amazon's S3 ($0.15/GB for the first 50TB).

BassEyeDoc · #10 02-03-2010, 09:50 AM

Cobian Backup is a great app to automate backup with. I've only used it local, but you can also back up via ftp if you want to and have remote space somewhere.

JW

Selta · #11 02-03-2010, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MJ5150

Ignore Ray. He doesn't know anything about computers. He just does a cut and paste from various websites. But he is an authority on pickles.....especially the MRVLASIC's.

-Mike

Did you ever finish your DCPROMO?

MJ5150 · #12 02-03-2010, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

Personally, I have two NAS devices that replicate data between each other every 12 hours. They're both behind UPS devices on high quality surge protectors. In essence, it would take a lot for me to lose the data I have at my house.
On top of that, I keep things on an online backup solution, Amazon's S3 ($0.15/GB for the first 50TB).

You're also an IT geek. I'm guessing noone in this thread knows what NAS even is.

Yes, DCPROMO is done. I added the &DOITRIGHTRIGHTNOW switch.

-Mike

Selta · #13 02-03-2010, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MJ5150

You're also an IT geek. I'm guessing noone in this thread knows what NAS even is.

Yes, DCPROMO is done. I added the &DOITRIGHTRIGHTNOW switch.

-Mike

Well, if not...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-attached_storage

I hate to see people rely on an external drive for backup, only to have that drive or it's enclosure fail on them and lose everything.

Good switch to use. I bet it didn't complete though.

L-A · #14 02-03-2010, 10:07 AM

I have one external hard drive that I back up to. That makes two copies of everything I have.

Very important stuff goes to a folder that I burn to DVD when it reaches the right size, or when it's been a while since the last backup.

There's no absolute protection, and the cost of a proper RAID setup does not match the degree to which I need to keep my data safe.

anyonefortennis · #15 02-03-2010, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

How is a single hard drive in an external enclosure any safer than your internal drive (which is the exact same drive type)?

Answer; it's really not. They're both prone to failure. They're a moving mechanical item with zero redundancy.

Best answer to cheap backups on-site (i.e. in your home) would be one of those home NAS devices that at least has some RAID capability. That way you can have any single drive fail and not lose data.

Best answer to backup overall is something off-site (i.e. online, co-lo or similar).
Personally, I have two NAS devices that replicate data between each other every 12 hours. They're both behind UPS devices on high quality surge protectors. In essence, it would take a lot for me to lose the data I have at my house.
On top of that, I keep things on an online backup solution, Amazon's S3 ($0.15/GB for the first 50TB).

Well yeah - All storage solution are prone to failure - that's why you have multiple points of failure. If I back up anything to an external drive the data is on both my local drive and external. If either one failed, the data is still recoverable.

Personally I have a windows home server set up with 2 drives where you can set up certain folders to be mirrored so my data is on 3 drives at the same time (my laptop and 2 drives on the server). That lets me sleep at night although a power surge or a thief could leave me without data.

Marley's Ghost · #16 02-03-2010, 11:08 AM

My big issue is that my wife and 3 kids' computers need to be set up with automated backups. Anything manual is going to be a problem.

**baba** · #17 02-03-2010, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

I hate to see people rely on an external drive for backup, only to have that drive or it's enclosure fail on them and lose everything.

I guess I still don't understand. If I have my internal PC drive, and I back up important files on a second external drive, I'm at n+1 redundancy. The odds of both failing at the same time are HUGE, right?

playinpearls · #18 02-03-2010, 01:50 PM

I use carbonite. it works great...

but i dont have 5 computers...only 2. I backup everything on the laptop to my PC, and have that on the carbonite account. Puts little green dots on anything that is backed up and orange dots on pending... set and forget...

sloasdaylight · #19 02-03-2010, 02:19 PM

Yea, we use carbonite @ work and it does a pretty good job for $50 a year or whatever it is.

Hugh9191 · #20 02-03-2010, 04:03 PM

a single usb hard disk wouldn't be too bad coz the chance of the internal computer hard disk and the usb hard disk failing at the same time is very very low, specially if you unplug the hard disk's power when not in use.

personally I have 2 hard disks in my server, one backs up onto the other weekly using SyncBack. I also occasionally take a backup of the server onto my desktop in case something takes the whole server out (like a power supply failure taking out both disks).