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Any comments on an online backup service, like the Carbonite or similar offerings ?

Do these services offer somthing akin to an incremental (only new file) backup or is it an all-or-none model ?

I'd like to backup doccuments and a fair amt of photo/image files-- probably 20-25g or so to begin with. That amt will increase over time.

I have them on the pc hd now, with a copy to an external USB drive. Eventually, I'd like to get a good amt of them off the PC HD completely, yet still have a copy.

I have been using Sugar Sync for 11/2 years. Love it. Auto sync. Web access and they have a Iphone app so i can access all my files and pics on the road from my I- phone. I can modify and email from any computer and they are working with docs to go so you can modify from the I-phone. http://www.sugar" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; sync.com. They are more expensive than carbanite but I am ot willing to switch right ow.

I use Mozy and love it. $54.95 a year for unlimited storage.

My opinion is that if you want to give your personal data to someone you don't know, you may as well give it to me!

Seriously, I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind using any of those services.

pbwalker wrote:I use Mozy and love it. $54.95 a year for unlimited storage.

+1

@AEA - the data is encrypted - offsite backup is very popular, tens of millions of people use these products.
Think through the scenario where your computer or server is stolen - what's to keep the thief from stealing the local backups as well ? Assuming you actually have recent local backups. Which is one of the biggest advantages of the online backups - they are set and forget applications - no tapes to change - no cds to burn - no USB drives to connect - nothing to remember

@Piney - See your other post on the same topic for helpful suggestions - threads merged now

AEA wrote:My opinion is that if you want to give your personal data to someone you don't know, you may as well give it to me!

Seriously, I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind using any of those services.

Millions of people do it...heck, if they didn't, Amazon EC2 / S3 and Jungle Disk wouldn't exist.

You can encrypt your data for an added layer of security, but the data is already encrypted at the provider as 92f-fan stated...

Comcast now has a monthly limit of 250gb. In these days of huge hard drives, the initial backup would result in the warning letter from Comcast.

Should I need to restore, which would result in the second violation of their limit, my service could be terminated.

Is this not a consideration?

Mike1951 wrote:Comcast now has a monthly limit of 250gb. In these days of huge hard drives, the initial backup would result in the warning letter from Comcast.

Should I need to restore, which would result in the second violation of their limit, my service could be terminated.

Is this not a consideration?

Sounds like a lame ISP limit. The only caps I have are around the speed, but not total data transfer. I've got roughly 400GB of data that gets backed up and it took close to a month to upload. After that, it's incremental.

You can control how much goes out, so if you have a data transfer limit, I'd break it up over a month or two to avoid the ISP Gestapo.

Mozy +2 - remember it's for backing up your data files, not your entire system. You still need make regular system backups to a local USB drive or NAS device.

If you are worried about storing files offline you can simply encrypt the entire file, or even a "drive" then upload that

http://www.truecrypt.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

With this, you can even encrypt your entire hd on say your laptop...so if someone steals it...w/o the password..they will not be able to read any data off of it!

This one is good too
http://www.checkpoint.com/products/datasecurity/pc/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Carbonite did the job for me when I managed former employer’s network. 25 users backing up, plus 2 servers file storage.

I use Backblaze.
It's a yearly fee, it's unlimited, and it does it on schedule.
I do photography, and a hard drive is not reliable.

The online backups are nice, but I agree with another poster, your stuff is out there if one goes that route. I found a 1TB external drive for sale online this morning, for $29. That should be enough space for the average user and your stuff is with you. Sure, a house fire, or other disaster is possible, but online companies get hacked all the time. I'll keep my (deal) stuff with (news) me, and eliminate (.com) the possibility of losing anything from a online breach.