Backing up online
October 16, 2010 1:48 PM Subscribe
I have about 30-40GB in pictures and a couple of videos. What would be the best way (money and security wise) to back them up online?
That is a lot of data for online storage. Have you really thought this through?
If you have 2 megabit uplink (about 200 kilobytes per second, counting overhead) then 40 gigabytes takes about 59 hours to upload if you saturate your pipe. And you'll pay a monthly fee for that online storage
It would take less than half an hour to copy it onto a USB2 HD, which you could store offsite. You can buy a small USB2 drive now for $50 or less, which is a one-time expense.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:40 PM on October 16, 2010
If you have 2 megabit uplink (about 200 kilobytes per second, counting overhead) then 40 gigabytes takes about 59 hours to upload if you saturate your pipe. And you'll pay a monthly fee for that online storage
It would take less than half an hour to copy it onto a USB2 HD, which you could store offsite. You can buy a small USB2 drive now for $50 or less, which is a one-time expense.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:40 PM on October 16, 2010
devnull has many good points.
If you don't except these data to change or grow, then throw them on a couple of external drives and leave them in different places. However, all hard drives will eventually fail so you may want to reevaluate this a couple of years down the line when the technology and options would have changed.
If these data will grow and you have other stuff to back up, I highly recommend CrashPlan. It more or less does what the other backup services (i.e. Mozy, Carbonite) do but for me this is what sets it apart:
Unlimited backup and storage even after you delete the files locally
Versioning (It comes free but to change the interval along with other options needs a one time upgrade to crashplan+). I write a lot (code,manuscripts) and I love having 15 minute versions especially since I delete large chunks of text/code that I end up needing later.
Slightly cheaper
More favorable reviews that other comparable services.
posted by special-k at 2:47 PM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
If you don't except these data to change or grow, then throw them on a couple of external drives and leave them in different places. However, all hard drives will eventually fail so you may want to reevaluate this a couple of years down the line when the technology and options would have changed.
If these data will grow and you have other stuff to back up, I highly recommend CrashPlan. It more or less does what the other backup services (i.e. Mozy, Carbonite) do but for me this is what sets it apart:
posted by special-k at 2:47 PM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]
Mozy or Carbonite. It'll take a few days to upload based on your connection, but after that it'll stay updated automatically in the background and costs you $5 a month. Easy peasy!
posted by alaijmw at 2:47 PM on October 16, 2010
posted by alaijmw at 2:47 PM on October 16, 2010
Response by poster: The main reason I'm thinking about online backup is that I can't afford a new hard drive (they are somewhat expensive here and I'm unemployed) but I can probably afford a low monthly fee.
posted by Memo at 3:04 PM on October 16, 2010
posted by Memo at 3:04 PM on October 16, 2010
What would be the best way (money and security wise) to back them up online?
Since money is one of your criteria, I'll suggest a method that will take a lot of time but be entirely free: the Gspace firefox extension plus six Gmail accounts.
posted by foursentences at 3:08 PM on October 16, 2010
Since money is one of your criteria, I'll suggest a method that will take a lot of time but be entirely free: the Gspace firefox extension plus six Gmail accounts.
posted by foursentences at 3:08 PM on October 16, 2010
Backblaze is another candidate in the "unlimited backup for $5/month" space. I've been using it and been happy, although I haven't had to do a full restore with it. I did download a test file just to make sure I could.
Data point: I've been backing up a new computer and in the last week, it's done about 18 GB. There's a toggle that lets you speed it up some; I haven't tried that. It's designed to run slowly so as not to get in the way of whatever else you're doing.
posted by lakeroon at 3:22 PM on October 16, 2010
Data point: I've been backing up a new computer and in the last week, it's done about 18 GB. There's a toggle that lets you speed it up some; I haven't tried that. It's designed to run slowly so as not to get in the way of whatever else you're doing.
posted by lakeroon at 3:22 PM on October 16, 2010
Backblaze is another candidate in the "unlimited backup for $5/month" space.
True but they will delete your data if it's no longer on your hard drive/backup drive after a 30 days. With crashplan you can safely delete large/low use files once they are backed up.
Also, Memo, even though the monthly rate is low, all these services will require you to pay up front for a year of service.
posted by special-k at 3:29 PM on October 16, 2010
True but they will delete your data if it's no longer on your hard drive/backup drive after a 30 days. With crashplan you can safely delete large/low use files once they are backed up.
Also, Memo, even though the monthly rate is low, all these services will require you to pay up front for a year of service.
posted by special-k at 3:29 PM on October 16, 2010
There are HD's which are big enough for you that cost less than $50.
Sounds like that would be less money than paying a year in advance for an online service.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:16 PM on October 16, 2010
Sounds like that would be less money than paying a year in advance for an online service.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:16 PM on October 16, 2010
Yeah, security wise you need to back them up offsite: if your house burns down/is ransacked you can have them on as many external hard drives as you want but it's not that much use.
I've just started using Carbonite for all my pictures/music/documents. It takes a while to do the initial backup (in my case a fortnight with 200+ GB), but after that it's pretty much constantly up-to-date as it monitors your hard drive for new/changed files. It costs $55 a year/$129 for 3 years but you do have to pay upfront.
posted by Hartster at 5:24 PM on October 16, 2010
I've just started using Carbonite for all my pictures/music/documents. It takes a while to do the initial backup (in my case a fortnight with 200+ GB), but after that it's pretty much constantly up-to-date as it monitors your hard drive for new/changed files. It costs $55 a year/$129 for 3 years but you do have to pay upfront.
posted by Hartster at 5:24 PM on October 16, 2010
A Flickr Pro account is $25/year and you can share, or not share, your media with friends or the world.
posted by caddis at 6:00 PM on October 16, 2010
posted by caddis at 6:00 PM on October 16, 2010
Let me tell you something about Dropbox.
I've been a user of the service for a little while and finally upgraded to the $99/year/50GB plan a few months ago. I was working on a fairly critical document and did something stupid -- I still haven't figured out what yet. Anyway, the file was gone and I get that same feeling that Martin Brody got when he realized there was a giant fish eating people on his beach.
No problem, I thought. It's in my Dropbox folder. I'll just go online and grab it. Except, and you know where this is going, it's not there. Dropbox normally saves versions of the files after each save, but something wonky happened. I was devastated, partly because I believed the Dropbox hype and had been evangelizing it for a while. I go home, crawl into bed, and start thinking about how to save my ass.
I then find out that the people behind Dropbox have done something very clever. Besides the two versions I always have -- one on my hard drive, the other on some server somewhere -- Dropbox actually creates another cached version stored in my hard drive. I poke around, and there it is. Flawless, sparkling and ass-saving.
These are people who are smart enough to know that they may do something dumb themselves.
Besides this amazing service, I got great email support. I also reinstalled my OS and since everything now lives in my Dropbox folder save applications, all I had to do was reinstall my apps, download Dropbox and I had all my files up and running. Sure, I saved them to an external hard drive, but man was this a ton easier.
And here's some more hyperbole: I don't know if you were around in the bad old days when people were using AltaVista or Excite and then Google appeared and you were like, wow, this is really something neat. And then you found yourself using Google everyday without ever thinking about it. It became part of your life.
That's how I feel about Dropbox.
Don't want to take my word for it? This guy's a lot smarter than me and he's a fan as well.
posted by AmitinLA at 3:31 AM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
I've been a user of the service for a little while and finally upgraded to the $99/year/50GB plan a few months ago. I was working on a fairly critical document and did something stupid -- I still haven't figured out what yet. Anyway, the file was gone and I get that same feeling that Martin Brody got when he realized there was a giant fish eating people on his beach.
No problem, I thought. It's in my Dropbox folder. I'll just go online and grab it. Except, and you know where this is going, it's not there. Dropbox normally saves versions of the files after each save, but something wonky happened. I was devastated, partly because I believed the Dropbox hype and had been evangelizing it for a while. I go home, crawl into bed, and start thinking about how to save my ass.
I then find out that the people behind Dropbox have done something very clever. Besides the two versions I always have -- one on my hard drive, the other on some server somewhere -- Dropbox actually creates another cached version stored in my hard drive. I poke around, and there it is. Flawless, sparkling and ass-saving.
These are people who are smart enough to know that they may do something dumb themselves.
Besides this amazing service, I got great email support. I also reinstalled my OS and since everything now lives in my Dropbox folder save applications, all I had to do was reinstall my apps, download Dropbox and I had all my files up and running. Sure, I saved them to an external hard drive, but man was this a ton easier.
And here's some more hyperbole: I don't know if you were around in the bad old days when people were using AltaVista or Excite and then Google appeared and you were like, wow, this is really something neat. And then you found yourself using Google everyday without ever thinking about it. It became part of your life.
That's how I feel about Dropbox.
Don't want to take my word for it? This guy's a lot smarter than me and he's a fan as well.
posted by AmitinLA at 3:31 AM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
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With online backup you will normally pay for the transfer in, the transfer out, and an ongoing storage cost per gigabyte. If you don't want that take a look at mozy or carbonite and co.
posted by devnull at 2:28 PM on October 16, 2010