then you can have your backups at home, with you.
Posted on 12/09/2012 10:02:54 AM PST by Grampa Dave
Ernest, what do you suggest?
It is fast, a one time fee — drive ~ $80 for ample disk space (1TB).
I'd guess that you would be protected with the online service if your house burned down. But the connection to the Internet is going to be slow. Much slower than a local harddrive.
I purchased a Seagate external drive and back up my computer every night. I tried one of the Patriot Radio shill brands, Carbonite, and it sucked.
It has both a paid plan and a free option where you can back your computer up to another internet connected computer. i.e. your work computer, a family or friends computer, etc.
... an “offsite” backup is good if you think your home is vulnerable to fire, weather or theft.
crashplan is good and I have been running it for over a year
Sage advise.
Might I also suggest a copy of Acronis True Image or comparable software to go along with it?
Saved my butt on more than one occasion.
Crashplan.com
You’ll wish you’d used it earlier.
Note that it is always a good idea to periodically back up to a separate USB hard drive, connected only for that purpose, and disconnected (and unplugged) thereafter.
How long does a USB last? I have a USB loaded with some pictures that’s been sitting on the shelf next to my speaker for a couple of years.
Basically, they were charging Ferrari prices for Model T performance.
They're off my radar, and I'd really have to be desperate to reconsider the brand.
Maybe they got religion, and instituted a yearly development cycle that keeps up with technology and methods.
I use a USB Drive, and DVD the really important stuff as well.
As people have pointed out, a 1T USB drive can be had for $80. It comes with basic but configurable auto backup software.
And as it has been pointed out, you do lose the off premises redundancy of a cloud-based service.
But, backups are only good if you can retrieve what was backed up.
I guess you can hermetically seal the USB drive in a mayonnaise jar and store it on Funk and Wagnalls porch for safety.
A separate app is better in my opinion. Requires maintenance, though.
Bottom line: few people back up and then panic when their harddrive crashes.
Hard drives will last longer as long as they are not running 24/7.
DVD media has a shelf life, too depending on where it is stored. It is susceptible to higher temperatures and UV. A dark cool place is best.
Any valuable backup must be checked refreshed periodically.
For less than the cost of a year of cloud service, one can get a USB disk drive.
I have always been leary of cloud services. Too many times in the past, Yahoo, Microsoft and similar on-line services have changed or ceased some services. I ended up losing data, because sometimes they didn’t announce what they were doing.
A local backup to an external drive is fine but it does not protect against disasters like fire since the computer and backup are in the same location.
If you feel that you have objects that must be recoverable, such as pictures, then a cloud solution needs to be examined.
I have used carbonite for two years and it works fine. I can access the files online from another computer as well. I have heard good things about mozy as well. There are others.
Usually, if you sign up with one of these companies, you can get two months free by using some radion hosts name as a promotion code.
I never had anything but problems with Norton’s and will never use them again for anything.
Carbonite lost my business when they listened to a bunch of leftist non-customers and made a big production out of removing ads from Limbaugh because of the Fluke business.
You can get “hardened” external drives that are fire and water proof. I think LaCie makes one.
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