ksgcslater

I'm trying to figure out how to back up my pictures and I'm debating on another external hard drive or an online storage site. I know alot of people like Carbonite but I don't keep all my photos on my computer, they're all on a external drive (backed up on DVDs) and I don't want to spend $100/year to backup both the computer and external drive. I was looking at CrashPlan. It's gotten several favorable reviews and is reasonably priced. What has been your experience with this company?

Leicaflex Loc: Cymru

Be careful with some on line storage sites at the moment. Due to the financial situation, several have gone into liquidation, then management hedge funds take them over and charge an extortion fee to recover them. Others just go bust and you have lost your photos.
There are plenty of alternatives. For your treasured photographs use archival DVD/CD's, a Seagate Free Agent external hard drive does not cost the earth, and you can set it on auto-backup.

sarge69 Loc: Ft Myers, FL

You mentioned $100 a year towards protecting your photos.

Is that too high of a price for guaranteed protection of your memories/business photos ?

Sarge69

normsImages Loc: Alabama for now

I use two external drives one stays at home the other at work. I update one take it to work and bring the other one home and update it, once a month unless I do allot. I don’t like the online because they can go out of business with out warning or get hacked and it’s easier for “BIG BROTHER” (homeland security) to see what you are doing. I know they can get into your computer but not as easy as one stop shopping on the cloud.

charles brown Loc: Tennesse

As far as I am concerned anything on in or otherwise near the cloud is just asking for eventual trouble. I much prefer back up hard drives kept in separate places. Ideally keep one in a bank safe deposit box. Just a thought.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

Take a look at Jimmy Drive $6.00/month and you can back up all your hard drives internal and external http://www.jimmydrive.com/. Carbonite only allows you to back up one external drive. I have switched from Carbonite to Jimmy Drive and am very happy since I have 6 external drives. The only thing with d
Jimmy Drive is that it will not back up drives greater than 2 GB but at the cost of Drives that is not a problem

Photogdog Loc: New Kensington, PA

I just purchased a Seagate Backup-Plus 2 terabyte drive that I have hooked up to my main laptop for photos and documents. I got it through Staples (on sale) at $119.00. It was REALLY easy to set up (download the installed software) and since it holds WAAAYYY more than the three systems I have running, I figured it was a pretty good deal. By the way, I have all of my systems and the backup drive plugged into surge protectors. DO THIS!!! It's cheap insurance.

You may want to do a little research first. I originally bought a Seagate GoFlexHome Network backup drive but you needed a wireless router that the ethernet cable could hook in to. I'm with Verizon & have a little wireless unit that doesn't have a jack for the ether net cable. Staples took back the old unit and gave the right one (at a substantial savings).

Good luck!!!

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

I have had those back-up hard drives fail, so always have a second-line of backup such as your DVD's, which should be kept physically separate, like in a safe-deposit box. I am building a new desktop computer. Many new CPU boards have the ability to use two hard drives in what is called a RAID format. You don't get twice the storage - what you get is an instant backup of everything - the two hard drives are clones, and faster access when you are using your computer. Then if one hard drive fails, you simply replace it and all your information is still right there. But it would make sense to still do occasional DVD back-ups. Best wishes.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

This is an interesting question. We never appreciate that until it is too late. I use carbonite at home because of the convenience and that it is off-site. That is very important to me because if anything happens at home like fire or theft, then I am totally out of luck. Another benefit is that I can access files from work.

RAID is a good way to go because it backs up your entire system, not just your data. I use it. One drive goes down, the other stays up and running and you do not lose a heart beat.

We have become so dependent on computers and keep so much vital information on them. I recommend both local and remote storage. Local can be cd, dvd or hdd. Unfortunately, Leicaflex's warning about vendors may be all too true.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Thanks for reminding me to run a backup now.

I use two 1TB external hard drives. One for storing the images after I'm done with editing and the other for backing up the first. I think I paid between $50 and $70 each for the drives. My plan was to purchase one more drive to make another duplicate of the backup so I can store it in my fire proof safe or off site somewhere in case of fire or theft.

KW Conch Loc: USA

I use Carbonite and then just to be safe, I save the memory cards after I fill them up. Then I keep them in a secure place.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

I very expensive way of backing up that requires a lot of organization.

KW Conch Loc: USA

It is also almost foolproof.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I favor my own external drives. It's unlikely that they will all fail at the same time, yet a major house fire would wipe them all out. Still, paying someone an annual fee, one that rise over time, does not appeal to me. I remember all those rustproofing companies that were out of business by the time someone's car got rusty.

Online backup is a good idea that works for thousands of people, but I don't want the expense or the worry of them going out of business.

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

I must admit, I thought the same thing... $100/year is NOTHING for a good data backup solution. I guess it all depends on how valuable your data is to you. Obviously, the OP isn't that concerned, but at least she is thinking about it. Many just wait until they lose years of memories before the light bulb goes on. :-)

You say you are debating over another external hard drive OR an online backup solution? Personally, I think you need both, but again, this is your choice. Here is what I would recommend in terms of an online solution...

If you are backing up strictly photos, why not buy into a service like Zenfolio or SmugMug? I don't know much about SmugMug, but with Zenfolio you can have unlimited (up to 36MB per photo) uploads for only $50/year. This is half of what you think is expensive. The added benefit is that you can also share or display your photos with friends, family or even clients if you are a pro. If you want to use the site as a backup ONLY, then you can disable anyone from viewing your shots---or just selectively enable the shots you do want to share. For photo backup it's a pretty darn good deal.

Of course, if you need to backup other stuff too, then Carbonite or some other online backup service would serve you better, but "cloud" computing still hasn't captured or convinced me that my data is 100% safe yet for various reasons I won't go into. Good luck with your decision.