Cloud backup

[flogit]

Good day to all.
I'm looking at backing up to the cloud but cant decide which one is the best for me,Maybe the Microsoft One drive the old skydrive.
I also do a regular backups of all my documents pictures music etc to an external hdd actually i have two ext hdd as backups,And a regular backup on my C drive using macrium the only items on the C drive is the operating system and program files all my documents are on another internal hdd,The C drive is a ssd.

Now coming back to the cloud backup,I know that Onedrive has extended its gb capacity lately but as for my pictures there are quite a lot of then about 50gb in just photos.Now to back that lot to the cloud would be a major job,My documents are only about 20gb and quite a large amount of music not much video.Has any one got any thoughts on the cloud backup for the above or would it be the best option to carry on with the external hdd setup?
Another thing regarding my music there was a guy on the tv shopping channels selling a tablet and he made a statement that he had all his music stored on the google cloud music.What he said as the you could save 20.000 songs on google via the google music manager for free,But when I had a look at the setup google wanted my credit card details so how did this guy say that it was free for twenty thousand songs.
Does any one know anything about that setup Please.

Many thanks for reading my post regarding cloud backup,It rather a difficult situation to know whats the best option to do to make sure that all of our stuff is safe and secure.
Well I'll close now and wait to see for any good advice would be gladly received.
Many Thanks to all.

 

[maxie]

The way you have things now is the right choice ... If you got a Chrome Book you would have a 100GB of Online Storage Fee plus 15 GB ... Now that all seems well and good the down side is it only lasts for two years ... How ever you can still use it after that .. But you would not be able to add to it until you are below the 15GB limit .. I do not know of any Tablet which has this feature ... My main concern Is Cloud Storage safe ...

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You have to make the leap of faith that the "cloud" is an appropriate method.

I haven't been able to do that. I don't really want my stuff dependent on an Internet connection and don't want to wonder about security. Let alone concerns about speed, cost, management, and the long-term viability of a cloud operator.

I'm staying with purely local backups, but use several types and methods---internal hard drives, external hard drives, imaging, simple drag and drop, file synchronization programs, USB thumb drives, and DVD burns.

 

[Mark Phelps]

Using "cloud" backup is generally the best approach when you have the need to access stored data from a variety of machines and locations; thus making local storage (to a local network) unusable.

If all you want to do is backup your desktop (or laptop), and you have no need to access those files from other locations, using "cloud" backup is not the best solution. In that case, local backup -- to an external drive or to a local networked drive -- is a better solution.

You also have to remember that "cloud" is just the new buzzword for non-local network (i.e., one you access through the Internet). You have to trust the managers of the cloud service to not only protect your data from loss, but also prevent unauthorized access -- and in reality, there is no way you can confirm either of these to be the case.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

There are plenty of "safe" cloud backup services available (nothing is 100% safe, not even one's own local backups). Free cloud services are less likely to be safe from hacking unless you provide your own encryption and are notorious for disappearing with little or no warning. Keep in mind that the only way to ensure against data loss is to maintain multiple copies of ones data in multiple places, the more the merrier (up to a point, of course) since all backups—cloud, local HDDs and flash drives, paper, stone tablets—are subject to failure from disaster, user error, viruses, mechanical failure, etc. A bare minimum backup scheme should include one local backup and one offsite backup. A good cloud backup service is an inexpensive and easy way to maintain an offsite backup. The major downside to cloud backups is the amount of internet access bandwidth required; a broadband connection without excessively low data caps is required (forget dialup and some DSL).

Paid cloud services are generally safer. The better ones will operate quietly in the background with no intervention from the user, automatically encrypting data before sending it to the cloud service's servers. These services can range from slower, more affordable personal plans to fast, highly reliable (and really expensive) business plans a company could operate from remotely if the company's local servers should go down.

The three most popular cloud backup services are Carbonite, CrashPlan, and BackBlaze. I prefer (and strongly recommend) Carbonite's simple to use basic home plan. For only $60/year, Carbonite will automatically encrypt (you hold the encryption key—a password—so Carbonite and any unlikely hgackers have no way to "read" your data) and upload most new data to its servers. Carbonite is for backing up data only; it will not backup system files (the way to get around that is to backup an image of your system). Also, certain filetypes and larger files have to be manually set to upload. Of the three popular personal cloud service plans, Carbonite has the fastest upload and down load speeds and the best customer service. Carbonite used to base its customer service out of India but, due to numerous complaints, moved it back to the U.S. a few years ago. Carbonite has unlimited data storage. Once upon a time, Carbonite throttled data transmission when stored data exceeded 200GB but that restriction was recently removed. Carbonite has more expensive plans that allow backing up multiple computers, external HDDs, and servers and have courier recovery service but the vast majority of people will never need those.

CrashPlan is similarly priced (a little less) and has more options than Carbonite but suffers from slower data transmission speeds and poorer customer service (the two most frequent complaints I've seen).

BackBlaze's business plan is to use the cheapest consumer HDDs it can in its servers and just replace them more frequently due to higher failure rates. I'm not so sure I would want to trust that but many people do.

 

[Barman58]

If you are looking for a Cloud backup for your Photos, and they are in .JPG format, (unlike my 300+GB of RAW Files), You always have the option of a free Flickr account - this now comes with 1 Terabyte of free storage - a little unconventional but worth at least a thought - lots of desktop upload applications are available so the system may be automated to suit your needs