Off-site backup/archiving

I hope this is the proper forum to ask this question. If not, the moderator could move it to the Member Lounge forum. I curious about the opinion of others about using an online vendor as a place to backup and/or archive the image files. I've gotten an external hard drive, but it the event of fire/catastrophy that would be lost, too. I've seen print ads for Carbonite and recently got a mailing from them. For $55 a year, you have unlimited backup of any files you wish to backup. They are encrypted and no special software needs to be installed. Apparently it is done automatically whenever you are online and can be accessed from anywhere even a smartphone. So, does anyone have experience with this company or guidance they wish to share about this concept in general.

Thanks,

Peter

The companu I work for uses Carbonite. Thankfully, I haven't had to actually rely on them to replace any lost or damaged files, but they do seem to do a decent job. I was going to try them for my images at home but decided against it based on two (unsubstantiated) concerns. First, I was told the initial back up would take a LONG time due to the number and size of my image files. Backing up a short Word file is much faster than a 450MB image. However, the real killer was that I heard Carbonte couldn't handle backing up external drives, where all of my images reside. Again, I haven't confirmed EITHER of these concerns with Carbonite itself.

I've never used a service like that and I probably never will. My concern is with the long term reliability of those businesses. Will the company still be there in five or ten years? What happens to your data if the company folds? What happens to the cost if the company is acquired by some other business? What happens when all your images are stolen due to a security breach? There are too many questions like that for me to trust an online backup company. I want personal control of my backups and I'm willing to take responsibility for any mishaps.

I agree with Mark on this one. While some of these sites have a pretty good rep, it still seems risky, especially with irreplaceable files.

My suggestion would be to use an external drive, back up your stuff to it and store it off-site.

--P

Thanks for the insights. They certainly are helpful and raise some serious issues that I need to consider.

Peter

Peter, I use Carbonite as well as external drives. I have restored individual files and my entire My Documents directory from Carbonite (drastic computer problem a year and a half ago with my previous laptop) with no problem at all. The Carbonite "drive" is listed as another drive on your computer, and you can just restore from there. I've used Carbonite as well as external drives for several years.

The only thing I'd change about Carbonite if I could is that when you delete files from your computer they're eventually deleted from Carbonite as well. But as a backup of your current files it works really well.

I don't currently use an off site company for data storage but as long as its not your only backup I don't see a problem with it. I currently keep all my photos on a 1TB external drive. That, and my entire Mac are both backed up to a Drobo that currently has 6TB capacity. I also use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a duplicate of my external drive and I store that drive off site. If I'm on a trip, at the end of each day of shooting, I copy my files to my laptop and then burn them all to DVDs. So, for most photos, I have them on 2 external HDs, on DVDs, and on the Drobo which can lose a HD without losing any data.

The biggest problem with these services is the initial upload of files. The vast majority of internet connections are "asynchronous" meaning they are MUCH faster at incoming files, pages and images, than they are for outgoing files that you are sending to another server. A typical home cable connection is about 5 Mbits/second or less meaning a typical 35 meg file would take 50 seconds to download. The typical upload speed is 0.35 Mbits/second. To upload that same 35 meg file would take about 12 minutes. If you do the math on the number of RAW files you might have, and the number of prepped 16 bit PSD files you have at 100 MB+ or so per, you see that it would take a ton of time to send those files to a server.

I opt for another external drive - they are about $100 for a decent one with a 1,000 GB of space - and take it to work and leave it there. Thus if my house burns down, I'm at least covered for my images.

I use CrashPlan to create a network of free offsite backups between family members. It does have a paid cloud storage option, but to backup to/from friends or family is free. The first backup does take a long time, but you can seed the first backup with an external hard drive.

The problem I see with most all backup applications like Moxy, CrashPlan, etc is that they do not support network drives without some serious hack-work.

I use Carbonite as well as and external drive that I keep at a neighbor's house. The initial load up of Carbonite was very slow (months for 300 + GB) but once I got there it has worked very well since.

The problem with the external drive is that I only get aroung to updating it once every few months but Carbonite updates as soon as you save a file.

I lost my HD last summer so I loaded everything that I had on the drive the neighbor had and only used Carbonite for the rest and it was fantastic!

I tried Backblaze, which I suppose is like Carbonite, but it drove me to distraction, using bandwidth all the time, and backing up files of its own choosing first. Not sure how many months it would have taken to actually start on my image files, but I much prefer to be in charge of the operation. Plus, you can delete your stuff, but not your account. Give me strength! I have local jobs that run scheduled and on demand to backup the directories of my choosing. Control freak