Alternate backup plan...
May 24, 2011 1:49 PM Subscribe
Is there a point where it makes more financial sense to backup home PCs to personal offsite storage (via FTP) instead of using something like Mozy, Backblaze, Crashplan, etc...?
Currently use Mozy to backup about 120 GB of photos, videos, etc from my home PC to the cloud. As many of you know, Mozy is changing their pricing structure from $5/mo. to something more complex that'll probably at least double my current cost.
At the same time I am about to start a website (5-10 static pages) and have it hosted (newb in that regard). If I'm going to be paying for some sort of monthly $$ for the amount of space and traffic I generate, would it not make financial sense to backup my personal things to *my own* webspace via FTP, using for example SyncBack Pro, a product I already own?
or am I (likely) missing something here?
Currently use Mozy to backup about 120 GB of photos, videos, etc from my home PC to the cloud. As many of you know, Mozy is changing their pricing structure from $5/mo. to something more complex that'll probably at least double my current cost.
At the same time I am about to start a website (5-10 static pages) and have it hosted (newb in that regard). If I'm going to be paying for some sort of monthly $$ for the amount of space and traffic I generate, would it not make financial sense to backup my personal things to *my own* webspace via FTP, using for example SyncBack Pro, a product I already own?
or am I (likely) missing something here?
Many web hosts explicitly disallow using your hosted storage space for backup purposes. Now, whether they can tell if you're doing so is not clear to me. DreamHost, in particular, offers "unlimited" storage but they also say that:
posted by Nothlit at 1:59 PM on May 24, 2011
Our policy [allows] 50GB of space for backups use free, with extra at only 10 cents a GB / month. (The rest of your disk space may only be used by files needed for your websites directly.) No other "unlimited" host allows using any of your disk space for backups, at all!If you do find a web host that allows you to use your space for whatever purpose you see fit, you'll likely find that it will cost as much (or more) than a dedicated backup hosting provider.
posted by Nothlit at 1:59 PM on May 24, 2011
I would never ever trust a shared hosting (or VPS) provider for that kind of thing. Not only it tends to be forbidden by their TOS but also web hosts tend to be rather unscrupulous companies that can disable your account for any reason whatsoever and offer no guarantee of actually being available when you need those files.
posted by Memo at 2:04 PM on May 24, 2011
posted by Memo at 2:04 PM on May 24, 2011
FTP is a monumentally awful way to do it. FTP was designed back in the early years of Unix at Bell Labs, where everyone was trusted. So FTP has no security at all.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:18 PM on May 24, 2011
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:18 PM on May 24, 2011
You are possibly thinking of ssh-tunneled rsync, not FTP.
Anyway, the point where CP, backblaze and the others cease to make sense is well above 1-2TB when I last thought it through. Basically: is it more storage than is reasonably on a computer you own?
These products are not meant for backing up videos, etc.
posted by rr at 2:29 PM on May 24, 2011
Anyway, the point where CP, backblaze and the others cease to make sense is well above 1-2TB when I last thought it through. Basically: is it more storage than is reasonably on a computer you own?
These products are not meant for backing up videos, etc.
posted by rr at 2:29 PM on May 24, 2011
I'd vote for this being a bad idea in general unless you really know what you are doing. There are plenty of reasons that backups cost more than hosting: security, alerts, availability, redundant storage, and the people to monitor and fix any problems when you need your data. For instance, who is going to be testing that your backups aren't corrupted? Backups are only as good as the last restore.
If you do go the host route, verify that the host will actually backup your site and data. Most cheap hosts do not offer any guarantee that your data is backed up on their end, meaning that your data can be flushed at any time. Personally, I'd rather pay for one solid backup service than shuffle data around and hope one repository is functional when I need it to be.
posted by benzenedream at 5:58 PM on May 24, 2011
If you do go the host route, verify that the host will actually backup your site and data. Most cheap hosts do not offer any guarantee that your data is backed up on their end, meaning that your data can be flushed at any time. Personally, I'd rather pay for one solid backup service than shuffle data around and hope one repository is functional when I need it to be.
posted by benzenedream at 5:58 PM on May 24, 2011
Is there a reason you don't want to back up to HDDs? I have two bare drives that I shuttle back and forth to my office every few days, so that one is always offsite while the other is at home in the toaster dock getting up to date, and the offsite is never more than a few days old. (I also have a backup HDD in the PC, updated twice a day.)
The online services are great for low-volume, high-value stuff--like if I was writing a book I'd be backing that up every hour to the cloud. But for high-volume stuff like videos and photos and music, those services seem like more hassle and cost than they're worth when you can buy 2TB for $70.
posted by dust of the stars at 10:26 AM on May 25, 2011
The online services are great for low-volume, high-value stuff--like if I was writing a book I'd be backing that up every hour to the cloud. But for high-volume stuff like videos and photos and music, those services seem like more hassle and cost than they're worth when you can buy 2TB for $70.
posted by dust of the stars at 10:26 AM on May 25, 2011
Isn't Crashplan actually pretty much what you want to do? ... Except you'd want to have that hard drive stored somewhere else ...
As I understand it, Crashplan lets you back up as much data as you want, for free, as long as you're backing up to your own hard drive. So if you have a hard drive at work, or at a friend's house, you can back up, offsite, every day, for no cost, other than the initial outlay for your extra hard drive.
posted by kristi at 10:38 AM on May 26, 2011
As I understand it, Crashplan lets you back up as much data as you want, for free, as long as you're backing up to your own hard drive. So if you have a hard drive at work, or at a friend's house, you can back up, offsite, every day, for no cost, other than the initial outlay for your extra hard drive.
posted by kristi at 10:38 AM on May 26, 2011
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posted by COD at 1:58 PM on May 24, 2011