TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

You get what you pay for. Yet another 2nd/3rd tier cloud storage company based in CA. I cannot find that they have geographically separated multiple copies of your data (which the major providers do) to protect your data in the event of a disaster in their area or their data center, which is a key factor in the security of data in the cloud. And over the years, they have been mired in lawsuits with patent trolls. Sorry to be negative, but there are better, safer choices.

captainbinary

That's fine – I agree (about there's no free lunch) and am not tempted. I'm cloud-averse anyway and spend my cash on local storage.

DJphoto Loc: SF Bay Area

I would have to assume that you don't live where there are any natural disasters, such as fires, floods, tornados or other such issues, or that you're OK with losing your data.

captainbinary

Fair point, but I just prefer things under my own control. Fire or theft are the biggest concerns in this location.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Unfortunately, fires, theft, floods/water leaks, power line surges, lightning strikes, power supply failures, (double) disk failures, viruses, accidental deletions, file system corruption, and ransomware attacks are not all under your control, hence the reason for an off-site disaster recovery copy of your data, BUT only if your data is important to you.

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

I've been using CrashPlan for several years now. I can only use it on one computer (given the subscription I have) but no problem. If there's something important on my laptop I just copy it onto my desktop (for which the subscription is active) and it gets into the backup. If I'm short of room on the desktop I just delete it a day or two later.

As far as local storage is concerned I have a couple of book-sized external drives, 3 TBytes each. One is always on my desktop and the other is somewhere else. They get synchronized when I get a round tooit. When synchronized, they are swapped so they both get similar levels of usage.

In addition, there's another disk in the desktop. It is backed up with the CrashPlan software so I have a local version of my cloud storage. That is my first level of go-to for restoration of files. Writing to this disk is included in the CrashPlan software.

The cloud is only there for real disasters.

levinton

I am a pants and suspenders type. Use a hard drive, Carbonite ($60 a year stills only), and Google Drive (free). I have a large library of scanned 35 mm slides. Backup in cloud has become a major comfort, but Carbonite’s auto backup facilitates the comfort.