Anyone use online data storage??

4-15-2005 | self

[jeremiah]

My computer is full of errors, it needs to be wiped and to get a clean start. Is it worth it to save files on the internet, then take back what I have saved their? I am a rookie and don't really know YET how or the steps to doing this. Please give information or opinions about the online hard drive storage that is offered.

[jeremiah]

If I am wasting bandwidth, or taking up FR space tell me so, if not please HELP!!!!!!

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Obviously you have an ISP; how much personal storage space do they give you (its usually about 10 MB) and how much personal data do you need to save?

Also, do you have a CDRW or DVD drive? Get a re-writable disc (not a writable) and copy stuff to it...

[Keith in Iowa]

External USB storage devices are quite inexpensive - I'd get one and back-up what I wanted to save on one, then fix the computer, and restore from the back-up.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

If you check around, you might even find an inexpensive hard drive, like a 20GB for 30 to 40 bucks, and copy stuff to it. Then format the other drive and install the OS on it; then you have one drive for the OS, one drive for personal stuff. And find a cheap 1GB drive and make it your page file.

[pipecorp]

Wouldn't it be easier to install second hd as new master, reload os to it, then delete or salvage good stuff from slave to master?

[rocksblues]

As stated in post 2 if you have a CDRW find yourself a backup program online, download it and then save what you want to keep.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

hello? Still here? Got a CDRW? Running Windows? Only have one drive letter for the hard drive (no partitions)? Get a CDRW disc or a few, and then click on My Computer on the desktop, or open windows explorer; right click on the "C:\" drive>select properties>select tools>select Backup. The program was made by Veritas.

Click Start>Help, type 'backup' in the search function, hit enter.

[JTRipper]

The advantage offered by online storage is having a backup of important things somewhere offsite - that way if your house burns you still have a copy. Personally, I'd prefer to have a copy on some sort of removable media in a place where I can get my hands on it - a friend's house or safe deposit box will do.

For every-day backup purposes, the suggestions above are probably better than online storage. Depending on how much data you have needing backup, and the speed of your internet connection, the internet backup option might also be completely unworkable. The cheapest solution is probably a CD or DVD burner and some discs. Next in order of preference is an extra internal hard drive, which would be faster, easier, and offer lots of space.

If you need these backups to be removable - to take them offsite, for example - the least expensive option is probably an external hard drive. All PC's today can use USB drives, but FireWire is faster if your machine can use it. After those are more traditional tape drives, but good ones aren't cheap and buying media for them adds up. They also often come with software that non-technical sorts can find frustrating.

If this data is anything of real importance (i.e., worth spending some money to protect), the removable media backup device I'm recommending to small business users lately is the Iomega Rev drive. The disks are $50 a pop, but they hold 35 GB, and are way faster than tape. The drive also comes with Iomega's Automatic Backup Pro software, which is much easier for average users to get along with than a number of packages that I've seen. The only real drawback is that if your house does burn, you'll have to replace the Rev drive before your data will be available to you.