DaveHam Loc: Reading UK

A lot of the comment on this topic is biased toward the cloud as a means of storage. Internet storage is nothing new; on line backup has been around for fifteen years and has failed to take off because of the pitifully slow internet speeds most of us are blessed with.

The cloud is intended to be more than this. The objective is to have us all get our applications hosted as well. Software houses see this as being good; no more license copying, ease of management (release and update, bug fixing) and the ability to rip us off as and when they feel like it.

It is not beyond the ability of anyone who can master the operation of a modern camera to create a simple and inexpensive backup solution to protect their work against anything short of cataclysmic destruction (when I suspect photo backups will be the least of your worries). What we are all going to be forced in to is our programs / applications are going to be sourced from the cloud and therefore only available in those few places on the planet where the internet has acceptable speed. Try using Office 365 (a relatively successful cloud app) with an internet connection of 56 mps - you will die of old age before you open a document. This is the real worry.

Maybe the cloud proponents are going to pull together the trillions necessary to create the infrastructure necessary for acceptable internet access everywhere (like the comms companies promised mobile phones would work - still waiting for that!). If they do guess who will be footing that bill? And then the cost of use of the cloud will make us all hark back to the simple days of buying a license and a CD.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

We all feel sympathy for the folks in Moore and wish them a speedy recovery.

If all you have is five or ten gigabytes to upload then you don't have much at risk and the Cloud might work out for you. A thumb drive might also be all you need. Most of us have a lot more stuff than that.

I recommend off-site backups. I just don't recommend spending six months of your life uploading several hundred gigabytes to the cloud and then paying a huge annual fee to keep it there for as long as the vendor might happen to stay in business.

There are more economical solutions available over which you can have complete control and that don't leave you at the mercy of strangers.

DragonsLady Loc: Los Alamos, NM

strikerazde, Thank you for your explanation. It made much more sense to me. I'll still probably stay with Adobe Cloud for my Adobe products; I like the continual upgrades for the price. I may try to figure out how to get BackBlaze to include one of my external harddrives as a secondary back-up (maybe it's my third level, I'm not sure now.) I know it will take a while but I'll be able to buy from them an EHD with all my files then if I experience catastrophic failure. Again, thanks for the explanation in terms I could understand.

strikerazde Loc: Phoenix, AZ

While it is true an initial backup takes considerable time (My 2TB took 3 weeks on a heavily used system) incremental and differential take a lot less time. Furthermore one does not have to stop using their computer during this time. Also Carbonite is $59 per year, I would not call that a Hugh annual fee.

Saying they may not stay in business is a snowman argument. That can be said of any company and yet you spend money with them. You bought a camera didn't you? What is to say they will be in business a year from now. So what if they go out of business, you move on to the next company. If they do go out of business it's probably because they are not meeting their customers needs. Shumpeter called this "the creative destruction of capitalism" It's probably a good thing they go out of business if they are not meeting needs. Think of it like paying for insurance, hoping you never use it of course, but good to know you have it when you need it.

Yes you an keep a backup drive at Aunt Bee's house (Hope you both don't live in Moore) I'm sure there are cheep alternatives to Carbonite, but I can't think of many that are that inexpensive, even a safety deposit box will cost more.

I'm glad you recommend off-site backup, we agree on that. I try to not recommend any brand over another, brought Carbonite into this discussion. Would like to hear other solutions you recommend.

BTW - the only reason I like services like Carbonite and others is because it takes the manual effort out of the equation. I find if it's left to the manual practice of copying and placing a HD in storage or safe deposit box, people get complacent and their backups soon are not happening because they just don't have time. A weekly BU turns in a yearly backup leaving them at risk. I think this is human nature somewhat!

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Three things in error here.

First, one should not use a cloud service as their only backup. You should always have two backups of files. One would be an external hard disk and the second would be cloud backup. Then you have a backup hard disk that could feasibly be lost in a disaster or it could destroy itself but also have a cloud backup that won't. Or the cloud company could go out of business and you still have your hard drive version.

Second, you should only need to backup to a cloud service once as a very long upload and it should automatically compare and synchronize only new additional files in the background without having to do a long full backup upload each time.

Third, cloud services ARE inexpensive. If you choose to go into using something like a free DropBox and move up to paid service from there, that's a lot different than $60 for 12 months of Carbonite, or $50 for 12 months of several other competing services. For the price of one dinner for 4 you have cloud storage for a year.

Besides that, I got an e-mail from Flickr yesterday that I can now put 1TB of full-resolution photo files there for free. I don't even have 500GB of important photos so that is plenty for me at this point. I could also have a Flickr account for my work photo files with one 1TB and another Flickr account for my personal photos with a second 1TB.

Industry moves like that mean cloud service will be coming down in price over the next year or two. I wouldn't be surprised to see unlimited cloud storage for $20 a year before too long because of competition between the service providers.

The one thing I DON'T like is cloud software because you are at the mercy of having a high speed Internet connection to use it and they'll find a way to force you into buying updates when they tell you the old version won't work anymore after a certain date. If I can have local software on my hard drive, local DVDs, and local MP3s but have free backups of them sitting on the servers of the companies I bought them from for protection, that's beneficial, but not the cloud versions being the only copies available.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

I agree that $59/year is not an unreasonable charge. Carbonite may be an adequate off-site alternative if you have only a single computer, but that rate is $59 per computer and it does not include additional hard drives. This might be OK for many of you.

In fairness, I should disclose that my wife and I have 5 computers between us (of which three are active) and four external hard drives. We would have to elect the most expensive option to cover multiple computers and only 500GB for $600/year. Since we need more than 500GB, we would have to strike a custom deal with Carbonite which would likely be even more expensive.

But even if you go for only the base plan you ought to maintain your own personal backup for the reasons I have stated in earlier posts.

strikerazde Loc: Phoenix, AZ

I feel your pain
It's a work-a-round but if you know how to mount a drive to a folder you can back up all computers and drives under one $59 plan. I backup my internal 2TB drive and 2 external 1TB drives all for $59. Grant it Carbonite does not know these drives are external. Its beyond the scope for me to tell you how to do it here, but if you Google make carbonite backup up my external drives there are yutubes on how to do it.

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

And from what you are saying, all in one place...again trusting "MY" data in the hands of others...Nah, I think not.

I'll stick to my 20 year tried and true 3 set backup plan. Daily incrementals, on 2 external 2 TB drives, one backing up the other, at the end of each week a total data backup is made on yet another external 2 TB drive that is kept off site and that drive is switched with a forth 2 TB drive every other week. No data files are kept on my 2 computers, 2 laptops, system drives are backed up internally on a 4 drive (and growing) Raid 0+1 through a network. Plus all my photos and drawings are burned to disk just for S@%ts & giggles. I keep a copy and my customer usually gets a copy depending on what it is.
In days of tape backup we (the company I did work for) used a different tape/s daily, then weekly totals (which entailed as many as 5 tapes per set) of which we had 3 sets (15 tapes) 2 sets of totals were kept off site , one set was and still kept in an in house walk in fire proof vault. One was kept in a safety deposit box and the 3rd kept at my bosses house. Those were rotated weekly. To this day I think they still do the same but with removable network drives. I guess you could say I copied the way they did it. Not that anything is 100% full proof, but if something goes wrong, I can at least beat the crap out of myself, not some cloud ( that I can't see or touch and have no idea where it is) that at any point can go off line or worse...out of business.

strikerazde Loc: Phoenix, AZ

No wrong, it should have been inferred from my post and the fact that I mounted external drives that I am backing up backup drives. Carbonite is only one of many backups, else why would I need external drives. Smugmug also gets a copy of all Full size jpegs.

While your way definitely works, it is very laborious, and most people will not have the discipline to pull this off. I bet if you run the costs of fuel dropping copies of drives here or there, safe deposit costs, and we all have to consider our time as a cost, you are spending many more $$$$ than the $59 I spend for a service. And I don't need to rotate drive, switch tapes or do anything except leave my computer on. It's all done for me.

and if you don't know what services like Carbonite and others are doing with your data, it's only because you didn't ask. I know exactly how many data centers it is in, I also know how it gets replicated there, I know it is backed up at Iron Mountain, because I asked them.

There are cheaper competitors to Carbonite out there won't mention the names. But I can't get a straight answer where they store this data, in the basement, do they rent space from another service, is the data replicated, backed up etc? I can't find out, so no backup there.

Laborious is fine if it works for you, it won't for most people. I for one would rather be shooting than rotating drives, going to and from safety deposit boxes. Shooting helps pay the bills, backing up is a cost and does not produce any income. Therefore I take the path of least resistance!

Bruce with a Canon Loc: Islip

Rolling Stones said in 1965 or so

"Hey, You, Get OFFA MY CLOUD"

I listened

cgchief Loc: Jarrettsville

Thanks, Chris.

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

I realized you have external drives you are backing up, but no mention of system files which you could be backing up to externals also, don't know...I have and needed system images before, so there's one advantage. Laborious, not at all, everything is automatic except my swapping of one total drive at the weeks end, that en tales unplugging a USB drive and plugging one back in...for some I can see this being a chore. I already had the safe deposit box and have been going to it weekly some 30 years, so no more extra cost there and the bank..a whole 10 minutes. OK I'll give you gas mileage 1.3 miles worth. My schedule isn't quite that tight to be spending maybe 15 minutes a week protecting MY data...as I suspect it isn't with anyone else on here. According to you, Externals plus the $59, sounds to me you are spending more than I am. My SD box is only $150 a year. Shooting for me is supplemental income & enjoyment of photography, but my drawings, do pay the bills......thats why my work is valued at more than $59. And as mentioned...Tapes were used before current backup methods, ya know back when nobody but companies/corps. backed up. So there is no swapping of tapes anymore. Albeit, ta zeach is own.... :)

strikerazde Loc: Phoenix, AZ

Great, so lets work this out. according to your figures, you spend 15 minutes a week on your backup and 150 a year for a safe deposit box, even leaving out costs of drives, mileage. If we just take labor 15 minutes a week divided by 60 minutes per hour at even just $10 per hour and you get $130 + 150 for the safety box=280. If we add in costs of drives, I counted 3 that you use now you are climbing up in costs. The labor costs alone are 3 times what I spend for BU.

Don't get me wrong, I am very pleased to see someone so diligent about their backups, and if it works for you - perfect. There is no perfect BU except the one that works for you. But I see so many people who have this irrational fear of a cloud. Perhaps It's not really the cloud they fear, but change itself. I just hate to see this fear perpetuated. I saw the same fear when digital cameras came into fashion, Elvis Presley, Betamax, PC's, floppy drives, DVD's. All irrational fears.

I used to work in computer repair, I can't tell you the number of people I charged a large sum of money to recover their drive because they had no BU. Most people if it is too complicated will not BU. That's why these services are good, the automation of it makes it well worth the $$. I talked to hundreds of folks who walked in the shop and found most do not have a BU plan. Of the ones that do nobody ever tested their plan.

BTW - if you sent an email in the last 20 years, you've been using the cloud. It's not anything new, we just have a new term for it, and once again the sky is falling.

jkm757 Loc: San Diego, Ca.

The only thing that should be stored in the clouds is rain.