RSS Feeds: Online Backups or Local Computer Backups – Which Do You Use?
There is a veritable plethora of online backup services in existence while computer drive prices continue to drop. Even blank Blu-ray disks and solid-state drives are continuing to get cheaper. It begs the question: If local computer backups are cheaper to maintain, then why on Earth would anyone want to use an online backup service? In these days of what I would call a technological glut, even big businesses should consider local computer backups instead of high-priced online backup services. In this context, "local" does not mean in the same office or even in the same building.
Online Backup Services
Again, for the individual, I don't see the point. Individuals get wooed into using online backup services because the services offer some amount of drive space for free or at a low cost. IDrive offers 2 gigabytes for free while IBackup simply offers a low-cost plan. Dropbox seems to be an upcoming favorite for some people and they too offer the first 2 gigabytes for free.
How much can you store with 2 gigabytes? It all depends on what you're storing. If you're storing nothing but documents, then it's more than enough for your needs. If you're storing video, however, you'll find that 2 gigabytes isn't even close to being enough storage space. Once you start using online backup services for storing video (or even some audio files), things can get really expensive really fast.
Local Computer Backups
External hard drives are getting cheaper all the time. I would stay away from the one-touch backup type, though, because they use proprietary circuit boards which fail long before the drives themselves do. I converted one from external to internal, so I know what I'm talking about.
Blank, rewritable CDs, DVDs and even Blu-ray disks can be used to backup data. Blu-ray looks exceptionally well-suited due to the anti-scratch surface and the fact that researchers are learning on how to store more and more data (up to 100 gigabytes with a just a firmware upgrade) on each disk.
I now have two internal drives in this PC, the first being 250 gigabytes and holding the operating system and related files while the second is the backup drive at 750 gigabytes. I'm also getting ready to convert an internal drive from my dead notebook computer into an external drive. I'm not sure, but I think it's 150 gigabytes in size. For me, these drives are more than I need for backups.
Mobile Computing
It's obvious that external hard drives and disks aren't feasibly used with mobile computers, especially for hand-held computing devices. It defeats the entire purpose of having those devices. In my opinion, cheap online backup services (or free ones) are suited for mobile device users.
I still think a small, external hard drive would be better and more cost-effective, but then I'm not into the mobile scene. The iTouch (or whatever it's actually called) is an interesting device I've been able to use first-hand, so if I can get a cell phone that does all that, I'll definitely jump into the mobile scene head first.
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Extra hard drives. I agree with you. What happens when the online source loses your data??? Then what?
In my last computer, I had 2 40GB hdd's. The second one was just for backing up the main one, which I did once a month. I even disconnected the cables from the backup drive incase the power supply decided to fry everything and just connected it once a month for the backup.
That system failed. I deleted the backup to do the new one and the main drive got corrupted. I was stuffed but it was not too drastic.
This computer's got the good 40GB from the old pc as the main drive and the 60GB drive it came with is the backup drive. I don't bother connecting and disconnecting it now though.
What I do now though is alternate months I backup to the second hard disk, and the other months I backup to my wife's laptop across the network. In the event one backup fails, I've always got the other one to fall back on.
I do also make regular backups of my documents.
It's a slow process, but I don't sit and watch it. Ideally, I'd prefer to have a large external drive and make images of my drive but if that failed, I'd still be without a backup.
As regards to using an online backup service, can you trust them with your sensitive files, what if they go bust, what if they lose your data?
RT
For me it's local backups probably because I'm a control freak!
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The online services I checked out were way overpriced. I backup a lot of stuff by emailing to myself with attachments.
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Hard disk space is real cheap these days.
If you aren't happy with one external hard disk, get two and make a double backup. Still works out cheap if you needs 100s of Gigs. Also backing up several gigabytes online is still not feasible for a lot of us where internet connectivity is suspect.
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I've been using local backups of files to hard drives.
I've also been backing up account info (usernames/passwords) to USB flash drives.
I'm going to start getting into using some online services (such as Ubuntu One – https://one.ubuntu.com/ ).
Note: If you back up online, you should encrypt your data before you send it over the wire. AxCrypt is good for that: http://www.axantum.com/axCrypt/
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I had someone ask me about this just the other day, and I bought some external hard drives to backup locally at home and around the office. I just can't use online backup – what if the company goes out of business?
@Atlanta Plubmer,
Good point regarding companies going out of business.
But I think you should view external backup as a "backup" for your local backup. Think of it this way: With the Haiti earthquake natural disasters are in focus. So if you had a flood, a theft, electrical/magnetic problems which destroyed your hard drives, you'd at least have something on the cloud which you could download to start over again.
I lost my data 1 time for didn't save data. So now i usually back up my data to extra hard drive. I wonder if everybody should careful with backup data.
For backing up my MacBook I've found the Apple Time Capsule to be brilliant. The Time Capsule serves as a wireless router but — more importantly as far as the subject of this post is concerned — it automatically (and wirelessly) backs up my hard disk every hour. Unless you download a huge amount of data in the 60 minutes between backups you don't even notice it doing its thing. Don't know if the Time Capsule works with Windows but I think there might be similar PC-oriented products.
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Great comments! I've tried several online backup programs. All work on PCs, and some work for the Mac as well as the PC. Most offer free trial periods of up to 30 days, one even includes unlimited storage during the trial period. I've found that 1 or 2 gigabytes of online storage for a trial period isn't enough for my files, so I like the unlimited storage option during the trial.
RD HoskEN – "Dr. Bob the CompuNerd" @ http://www.CompuNerds.Net