cloud backup?

[Tom7227]

My external drive went kaflooey and I am thinking about buying into one of the cloud based systems.  Anyone have an advice on the wisdom of this?  Recommendations?  I use Xfinity as my internet provider and they may have something.  But with two computers I need maybe 500 Gb of storage.  Checked on line and the prices are all over the place.

Thanks for your time.

Tom

[delcecchi]

Be sure about the business stability of the cloud provider, especially if you are going to store stuff there only and not keep a copy on your computer.  Backup isn't so concerning since if the company goes under you probably won't need that backup anyway. 

I have no experience with online backup.  I am too cheap.

I see Carbonite has an unlimited plan for $59 per computer per year.  That is only a little more than buying an external drive every few years. 

[upnorth]

I would be sure of the reputation of the provider.  I work in It field and have for years.  One concern I always have is security.  Once it is on someone else's disk you are at their mercy as far as the security and access to your data is concerned.  If it is sensitive in anyway make sure of their reputation or purchase you own back up system.  I have a NAS here where I can back up and access from multiple devices on my own network, About $150 and works well.

[delcecchi]

If you want to you can get the multiple drives, high reliability, hot swap thing. 

RAID of whatever flavor is for you.

[BobT]

Be sure about the business stability of the cloud provider, especially if you are going to store stuff there only and not keep a copy on your computer.  Backup isn't so concerning since if the company goes under you probably won't need that backup anyway. 

I have no experience with online backup.  I am too cheap.

I see Carbonite has an unlimited plan for $59 per computer per year.  That is only a little more than buying an external drive every few years. 

At $59 wouldn't it be more economical to just get a good USB flash drive or external hard drive and run a backup program?

[delcecchi]

Can't put 500GB on a flash drive, but yeah a new external would be cheaper.  The 59 bucks would probably by a Terabyte external. 

On the other hand, a place like carbonite is no fuss no drama it's there. 

And it is off page so if there were to be a fire or other natural disaster, your data is protected. That is probably the biggest thing in the cloud's favor. 

[Tom7227]

I bought a Seagate external with a T of storage for $59.  Of course the external I had was also a T Seagate. 

I use both a laptop and a desktop.  The desktop conked out and while I was trying to put the last desktop stuff onto the laptop the external drive went belly up.  Shop said the external is unrecoverable at a reasonable price.  This time Seagate offered a 2 year plan for $10 that they would recover everything from an external that failed.  I bought it and hopefully won't have to use it.

[Sandmannd]

I use a Zyxel on my network at home. I have two 2 TB drives in it. One is setup as a mirror to the second. This means it backs ups up the first drive continually. I set this up as a cloud so I can access it from outside the home via my phone, other computers, etc. Best investment ever and it was under $200. I put my music and some movies on there as well as backup to it. I can stream from it and everything.