Ed Chu Loc: Las Vegas NV

have read on web, but still don't really discern the differences. I have used Carbonite for more than decade; only
real problem I foresee, that if need be ( haven't had to backup from it, yet ), it might take a day or more to restore my new hard drive from a Carbonite backup

Thinking of also engaging Sync.com ( just became aware of it ); anyone use it? can I run Carbonite and Sync.com at the same time ( OneDrive would make me disconnect Carbonite ) ?

HawaiianEye Loc: Haleiwa, Hawaii

Given the prices of large capacity HD's or even 1TB SSD's today, if rapid restore is a concern, why not back-up locally?

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

It's wise to have both an offsite backup and a local backup in case your house burns down or something.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Local backup is primary. It's there. No bandwidth issues. Doesn't require you to be online. You are betting that your ability to maintain your copies is good enough to preserve your stuff. You are betting that a disaster will not affect your computer, your office, your house, or your off-site storage.

Cloud backup is secondary. It's online all the time. Some bandwidth issues. Requires you to be online or to get a loaner disk with your stuff (for large restorations). The cloud provider will maintain the storage media using professionals. The cloud provider will duplicate your stuff across countries if not continents to avoid regional disasters.

Local backup is convenient.

Cloud backup is safe.

Use both.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket

Here is my set up. Provides me with speed and redundancy in case of failures and also I have a local copy of everything if I screw up a file or a drive fails.
D: drive: internal Solid State. Where all of my data is.
E: drive: internal solid state. Copy of my D. Immediate and fast restore capability. I use goodsync to backup and sync my D: Drive.
E:Drive: Also use this for my scratch disk
C: Drive: Internal boot and program drive. I do not store data on my C: drive.
G:Drive: external USB drive. Not necessary but I had one, so why not use it? I use this for focus stacking and large files that I do not really need.
Cloud Backup: I use this for security of off site back up and availability of photo files I want when traveling.
SugarSync Cloud: I use this to sync all of my non photo files. I have multiple computers in multiple locations and SugarSync keeps “my documents” on all of computers synchronized in real time, with all of my data files so if one dies, I still have many to use without any down time. My office computer, my home computers, my laptop and my vacation home computer are all up to date with all of my latest files, always. It also provides multiple versions to restore from in the event of ransomeware.

I hope this is helpful. I have learned the hard way and losing data is a very scary and expensive experience.

Bayou

dirtfarmer said it best.

iDrive offers a cloud product that offers BOTH sync and backup in the same application...works like a charm.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

I suspect the time to restore might be limited by your internet speed. Even if you divide your files into 2 parts and have each backed up separately, the internet speed will probably wind up being the same to restore all.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

Internet Storage - Very slow

External drive - much faster to restore. SSD will the fastest but less reliable for long term storage than HD.

gouldopfl

I always backup to my NAS and my NAS uploads to idrive

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Even if one splits the files into groups, the total time for all groups will be about the same as one large group.
Smaller groups won't make the files transfer faster. The data transfer rate will be the same for all.
Four groups at one hour per group or one group at four hours.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

I don’t think he meant only locally. Best practice is to have a local backup and an off-site backup. These days the offsite backup is usually a cloud service.