Online backup service?

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Thinking about doing online backup (Carbonite, Mozy, etc) for one work computer. Any recommendations?

[Whoaru99]

Why not local to an external drive?

[fishnowworknever]

Yep I would stay local...no reason to have it out on the cloud unless you want to access it from somewhere else.

Especially if it's personal, sensitive information then I would be very hesitant to keep it out there.

[Lowblazah]

SugarSync is free up to 5GB. Otherwise I use Mozy with great results.

A local external harddrive will not protect your data incase of a fire/flood/lightning/natural disaster...just saying.

[fishnowworknever]

SugarSync is free up to 5GB. Otherwise I use Mozy with great results.

A local external harddrive will not protect your data incase of a fire/flood/lightning/natural disaster...just saying.

If you have your external hard drive sitting out on your desk then you're right, but then why even back it up in the first place?...put it in a lockable fireproff/waterproof safe and you're good to go.

I don't trust any type of public cloud computing for sensitive data.

[Whoaru99]

Yeah, I see your point about off site concept in general. That said, nothing stops you from not keeping the local backup elsewhere.

My backups are a bit less typical though, consisting of full and incremental disk images so they tend to be quite large and cumbersome for online/cloud based.

[Whoaru99]

If you have your external hard drive sitting out on your desk then you're right, but then why even back it up in the first place?.

Hardware failure, inadvertent deletions, malware, etc. IMO, more likely to get your data than fire, flood, or theft.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

I'm not very good at backups, that's why I was thinking cloud.

[Whoaru99]

I use a program called Shadow Protect Desktop that does it automatically.

I have it set to make a full backup (actually a complete disk image) once per month, and an incremental every day at Noon (except Sat and Sun). Once the backup routine is established it's virtually transparent.

The full images take some time, roughly an hour, give or take. But the incrementals are fast, maybe a minute, give or take, depending on how much change since yesterday. It all works in the background.

The thing I like about images versus just file backup is that if (actually when) the computer crashes restoring the image puts the computer back exactly as it was, programs and all, at the last incremental image point or any incremental image point back to the original full one. Plus, if I accidentally deleted a file today I can just mount yesterday's image and get the file if it existed at that time.

[MN Mike]

Mozy allows the cloud backup AND local Ext Drive backup at the same time. In the past I've spent HOURS restoring data because of slow internet connections, with the local backup, restoring is much faster and you're still covered with the cloud backup incase something bad happens where your computer is located.

Mike

[itchmesir]

External Drive .. At least then you are only to blame if you lose all of your data.. If one of these sites goes down.. you're SOL.. with hacktivists out and about attacking big corporate websites and businesses.. the external hdd is by far the safest option imho

[CAMAN]

Wish - Is this for backing up your CAD/CAM models and programs? I know of a few people that purpose Carbonite for this purpose and a couple of them have needed to use it to retrieve data. For the most part they have been happy with it, it does take a while to retrieve everything. Expect atleast a day depending on connection for retrieval; though for one guy it took almost a week to retrieve everything, and he was on a blazing fast Verizon FiOS connection(probably some hiccup on Carbonite's end).

[upnorth]

Personally I wouldn't put any kind of sensitive data on any remote site, especially the free ones. The only way I would even consider it is if the data sent is encrypted. Both during the send process and once it is there. Places getting hacked all the time and not to mention you data is residing on a system controlled and managed by someone else. Once it resides on someone else's server if there is no encryption anyone can snoop on it. And I would look at the fine print very closely again especially on the free sites.

I will be buying a NAS (network area storage) here shortly after the end of the year. You can get a TB size device for under $200 and it sits on your network and you can copy or access any time you are on your network. Can also be used for network file sharing so not all PCs need to be up and running all the time.

Anytime availability would allow for unattended scheduled backups.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Yes, this would be for the CAD/CAM data. I've always read that redundancy is the best way to go when considering backup options. I would still use my external drive too. I see SOS backup allows more then one pc for a pretty good price. I would not backup my accounting data, or other sensitive files online.

Other then the previous posts, what do you guys use for external backup software? I like the idea of mirroring the drive too.

[Whoaru99]

Since the topic came up, I'll just put it out there that mirrored/RAID drives in and of themselves aren't substitute to/equivalent of backup.

[CAMAN]

purpose Carbonite for this purpose

What was I drinking last night??

[MN Mike]

Yes, this would be for the CAD/CAM data. I've always read that redundancy is the best way to go when considering backup options. I would still use my external drive too. I see SOS backup allows more then one pc for a pretty good price. I would not backup my accounting data, or other sensitive files online.

Other then the previous posts, what do you guys use for external backup software? I like the idea of mirroring the drive too.

We use SOS at our office, so far so good.

There's a company out there called Future Systems, they make a product call Casper 7.0 that has some neat features.

What Whoaru says is right also.

Mike

[delcecchi]

Yep I would stay local...no reason to have it out on the cloud unless you want to access it from somewhere else.

Especially if it's personal, sensitive information then I would be very hesitant to keep it out there.

The reason to use the cloud is to get the data off site so if the building burns or floods or blows away in a tornado, the data is still available out there somewhere.

If if were me, I would pick a large company that is going to be around.

[fishnowworknever]

As a network admin I fully understand the purpose of cloud services. I do not trust my data in the hand's of another company. Once that data is out there, it's vulnerable.

We use an offsite location/host to backup all of our organizations data on a nightly basis. The difference is we own that location and the redundant servers, no one else has access to it.

If you're willing to pay big bucks for data backup you're probably going to be OK, but unless you're just backing up pictures of your latest fishing trip or some music...the free 5gb / month or even the cheaper backup services don't cut it for me,

[Borch]

Google drive works pretty well with up to 5g free. Changes of files in the drive are backed up almost instantly with an internet connection.

[delcecchi]

As a network admin I fully understand the purpose of cloud services. I do not trust my data in the hand's of another company. Once that data is out there, it's vulnerable.

We use an offsite location/host to backup all of our organizations data on a nightly basis. The difference is we own that location and the redundant servers, no one else has access to it.

If you're willing to pay big bucks for data backup you're probably going to be OK, but unless you're just backing up pictures of your latest fishing trip or some music...the free 5gb / month or even the cheaper backup services don't cut it for me,

Is the data such that if someone were to break the encryption that it would be an economic loss? Or are you just trying to guard against something happening to your data and causing loss to your business?

I thought it was CAD files and such.

If the data is important the backups need to live off site, even if it means carrying external drives home or burning DVDs or using the cloud.

He can encrypt the data himself if it is that proprietary. It sounded like it was more valuable to him than to a hacker.

I wasn't trying to school you, but bringing up a point about off site.

If you keep the data onsite and someone steals the computer it is on, or there is a natural disaster or fire, there goes the data and the business. Not everyone realizes the importance of off site storage of backups.

[CAMAN]

Wish, a couple of the above posts bring up a good point. Would your customers like you backing up "their" data on somebody else's hard drive? I can almost guarantee if you have any government, military, or other highly confidential contracts they probably would frown upon it. But on the other hand if you're doing your own stuff, or less confidential contracts where having a chance of outside eyes seeing it won't really matter then it shouldn't be an issue.

[bobbymalone]

I'm guessing a lot of companies contract data storage out.

[upnorth]

Yes offsite data storage is getting to be a fairly big thing in the business world. But safe, secure and reliable doesn't come cheap.

If you are a company and you store any private data of your customers, name, dob, ssn cc numbers or anything like that you have to be totally aware of the federal regs that cover that data and what you need to do to protect it.

I was at a technology expo in Duluth and a woman from a small charitable organization came up and started talking to myself and another network pro I was talking to. She asked how she should back up some data their org had. We of course asked what kind of data, O CC, name, address, telephone. We asked how she was storing it now, she says a spreadsheet on here PC. We both had to catch our breath a little and the next things out of our mouths was delete the thing as soon as you get home and then read up a little on PCI. That kind of stuff is nothing to take lightly. The penalty fines can run up to $50,000 plus for violations of how you handle certain types of personal data of others. And as usual ignorance is not a valid excuse for violations.

[itchmesir]

Google drive works pretty well with up to 5g free. Changes of files in the drive are backed up almost instantly with an internet connection.

Any company that is willing to give out your personal information to agencies and organizations should be avoided like the plague