Online file backup services?

Scott-Copywriter

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May 11, 2006
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I'm presently uploading everything to IDrive to see how that pans out.

I think I'll give Dropbox a try as well. You can never have enough backups in my opinion!

PS: Does anyone know of any UK based backup services? Every decent sized company I've come across is based in the US. That could be due to the price differences in server space, bandwidth and so on I'm presuming.
 
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davek17

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May 14, 2009
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Drop box is absolutely fantastic.

You get 2GB free to test and you can create folders, users and even direct quick links for your customers to download from temp folders.

I can;t tell you how many times I have found this useful when on the road and someone just dropped files into my dropbox which I can link to in my iphone, ipad or PC.

It also has an audit trail and you can rewind the file system if you accidentally delete stuff.

Its not a hulking great file system but its works superbly.
 
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stugster

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I am intrigued - what are people backing up on these services?

Crucial business information that if lost they couldn't continue operating.

The issue for me is that internet transfer is just not up to the capacity / speed needed yet. I would need to back up around 8 - 10 TB and that is just not possible online...

Aye, 10TB is a lot... how much of that though is just images/vectors you dont need?

also wary about giving someone else control of my data...

Alasdair

It's encrypted before sent over tinternet :)
 
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KM-Tiger

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Crucial business information that if lost they couldn't continue operating.

Yes, the stuff that your Disaster Recovery plan says you must have.

Typically that is <50 GB, though even that will take a long time at ADSL upload speeds. Some services offer 'USB Disc by courier' to get the first backup and after that it's increments only, which will be well within the capacity of even a slow internet connection.
 
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Scott-Copywriter

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May 11, 2006
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I am intrigued - what are people backing up on these services?

The issue for me is that internet transfer is just not up to the capacity / speed needed yet. I would need to back up around 8 - 10 TB and that is just not possible online...

also wary about giving someone else control of my data...

Alasdair

10 TB. :eek:

Ahh yet another welcome benefit of being a copywriter. Text files don't take up much space. :p
 
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10 TB. :eek:

Ahh yet another welcome benefit of being a copywriter. Text files don't take up much space. :p


ah - very true...

but I own a design business (think graphics / movies / images)
a photography business - think large numbers of files (16mb RAW & PSD & Tiff & Jpg versions!)
a historic photo collection - 80,000 images, of which 13,500 are scanned (that takes 2TB!)
and it seems to be increasing all the time!!!

Alasdair
 
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W

Waveney Books

I've been considering these online back-ups too. Mainly for thousands of photos.

What always stops me from looking into it is.............what happens if the company goes bust and all my online photos disappear:eek:

Am I simply being a pessimist?

Tina
 
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stugster

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What always stops me from looking into it is.............what happens if the company goes bust and all my online photos disappear:eek:

Am I simply being a pessimist?


Not at all Tina! You're being very sensible!

What you need to remember is that it's a backup service in the event your main copy for some reason disappears. Should you find out that a business is going into administration, then you simply find a new provider. As long as you don't let the period between the old provider going under and the new provider getting your data, you'd be fine.

Do you want a free 30 days playing around with our online backup solution?
 
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Ceco Solutions

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I am sorry but i wouldn't upload any business related matters onto the cloud.

Its like some stealing your home keys your house is at their mercy until you change the locks by that time its too late.

So if someone guess your password or resets your email account password then they will have access to everything.

Uploading trade data is a risky step specially if your rival gets hold of it.
 
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I am sorry but i wouldn't upload any business related matters onto the cloud.

Its like some stealing your home keys your house is at their mercy until you change the locks by that time its too late.

So if someone guess your password or resets your email account password then they will have access to everything.

Uploading trade data is a risky step specially if your rival gets hold of it.

it depends on the data, i wouldn't put up any secretive information or data protected information, simply business to business web updates, a contract between myself and a client, things that wouldn't interest a competitor or be of any use to anyone.
 
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stugster

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I am sorry but i wouldn't upload any business related matters onto the cloud.

Its like some stealing your home keys your house is at their mercy until you change the locks by that time its too late.

So if someone guess your password or resets your email account password then they will have access to everything.

Uploading trade data is a risky step specially if your rival gets hold of it.

But:
1) The data is encrypted, so you're not going to have that problem
2) You're not at their mercy because it's a "backup" not a "move everything and work from there"
 
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Ceco Solutions

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But:
1) The data is encrypted, so you're not going to have that problem
2) You're not at their mercy because it's a "backup" not a "move everything and work from there"


What i am saying is if you have all your data in the cloud it cause problems and headache's .

Encryption is fine but if you got your encryption password in your emails then your asking for trouble.
 
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stugster

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What i am saying is if you have all your data in the cloud it cause problems and headache's .

Encryption is fine but if you got your encryption password in your emails then your asking for trouble.

What I'm saying is that you've not got all your data in the cloud. You've got a backup of your data encrypted in the "cloud" (if we must use this term).
 
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I am intrigued - what are people backing up on these services?

The issue for me is that internet transfer is just not up to the capacity / speed needed yet. I would need to back up around 8 - 10 TB and that is just not possible online...

also wary about giving someone else control of my data...

Alasdair

We run an online backup service. We have some customers with reasonably large amounts of data (1TB-2TB) so not as much as you have. For these customers we would normally install an onsite backup appliance with offsite background replication. This can be throttled so as not to impact on normal Internet access. It does depend on the number of daily changes you do and the type of data (i.e. how well it compresses for transfer) but these customer are able to backup and keep a remote copy on to date on a 2Mb leased line.
 
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I am sorry but i wouldn't upload any business related matters onto the cloud.

Its like some stealing your home keys your house is at their mercy until you change the locks by that time its too late.

So if someone guess your password or resets your email account password then they will have access to everything.

Uploading trade data is a risky step specially if your rival gets hold of it.

I can't comment on others backup services but we always know exactly where our online backup data is stored and we also keep a replicated copy.

We do not use cloud based storage which it's impossible to identify (location wise that is).

Not sure about the the comparison with someone stealing your house keys but we would never e-mail out a plain text password to a customer. Passwords cannot be reset by simply typing in an e-mail address and getting a new password.

There is no problem with uploading sensitive data. We have pretty sensitive data uploads to our service by solicitors, IFAs, etc. The only person who can restore the data is the person who has the password. Data is encrypted using a specific password and cannot be unencrypted without it. Not even we are able to get someone's data unencrypted without having the password. This is why we always make a point of telling customers just how important their password is.
 
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Scott-Copywriter

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I am sorry but i wouldn't upload any business related matters onto the cloud.

Its like some stealing your home keys your house is at their mercy until you change the locks by that time its too late.

So if someone guess your password or resets your email account password then they will have access to everything.

Uploading trade data is a risky step specially if your rival gets hold of it.

Someone could break into my house tomorrow and steal my computer. There's always a possibility that anything like that could happen, and we have to deal with it.

You just need to do your best to make sure it won't happen. Don't use a password which can be guessed, and make sure they can't access your E-mails under any circumstances.

Right now, my main priority is to ensure that I have ample backups in case of any kind of hard drive damage or hard drive failure. That's much more of an issue than someone somehow guessing my very complex password.
 
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Alicatt

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Feb 1, 2008
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Scott,

Have you managed to sort something out?

I use Perfect Backup who I believe are UK based. It's quite slow (we have about 10GB) so it's set up to run overnight.

The advantage of backing up over the internet over using an external drive is that you can't forget to take it off premises. Having suffered flooding in 2007, I'm scrupulous about backups - I was able to get up and running within 2 days despite losing both my computers to sewage.
 
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Doug

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May 29, 2009
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I am sorry but i wouldn't upload any business related matters onto the cloud.

Its like some stealing your home keys your house is at their mercy until you change the locks by that time its too late.

So if someone guess your password or resets your email account password then they will have access to everything.

Uploading trade data is a risky step specially if your rival gets hold of it.

If you use a reputable provider then these issues don't apply as much as most think. The hosting company we work with have invested millions upon millions to ensure data is safe.
Access to the building is controlled, access to various rooms and server cabinets is reserved for certain engineers only. On the technical side they use intrusion prevention systems meaning that it is very difficult for anyone to get in to your data.

They as well as other business provide a much much higher level of security than any SME can create on their own premises.

Any data that they have if a client decides to stop using them is destroyed using a MOD approved process.
 
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Scott-Copywriter

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Scott,

Have you managed to sort something out?

I use Perfect Backup who I believe are UK based. It's quite slow (we have about 10GB) so it's set up to run overnight.

The advantage of backing up over the internet over using an external drive is that you can't forget to take it off premises. Having suffered flooding in 2007, I'm scrupulous about backups - I was able to get up and running within 2 days despite losing both my computers to sewage.

Things like that are my concern too. You just never know what could happen to your hard drives. In fact, I'm sure this hard drive I'm using is about half a decade old now, so I cant expect it to be completely reliable forever.

I've just backed up all my files on IDrive which took overnight. Now though I can simply schedule backups of any changed or new files everyday as they appear.

With that in place I'm now thinking about a secondary online backup just to play it super safe.
 
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