Best Off-Site Hard Drive: External Or Online

[ThePrimeDreamer]

I've been thinking about off-site hard drives in terms of extra storage and archival uses and I've already used up the majority of a 500 GB external hard drive. I've cleared up space by burning data onto DVD discs. But with the arrival of the Time Capsule and Jungle Disk, I'm wondering what is the best one to choose and best one in terms of costs.

I'm thinking of backing up digital pictures and video. I like the idea of having them online via Jungle Disc but costs kind of startles me if I use it long term, use much space, and transfer data.

Any thoughts on this will be gladly appreciated.

 

[mankar4]

why do you want your stuff to be online? I don't really see an advantage to this. Sounds like you have a lot to store if you've already filled your hd and another 500gb, so online storage is going to cost you a lot. and why do you need gigabytes of pictures to be accessible from anywhere?

 

[pulsewidth947]

Externals will be much quicker than online storage. The disadvantage is you have to physically move it after each backup. You'll really wanna keep it somewhere safe too to prevent theft.

Online obviously means you can access your files from anywhere which is pretty convenient. The disadvantage is that its much slower, and more expensive per GB.

 

[kresh]

I see that you mentioned "JungleDisk". On Jungle Disk's website they make a big deal about comparing themselves against competitors they beat on price, but the won't mention Mozy.

Mozy is $4.95 a month for unlimited storage, no transfer limitations, and is Mac friendly. It's also 448-bit Blowfish encrypted and you don't have to give them the key.

I'll take 6TB for $4.95 a month please

http://mozy.com/home

 

[blairwillis]

If the speed of backing up is not an issue, and you don't have ISP bandwidth limitations, then online backup is a suitable choice. However, given the low price of external drives, it's quick and easy.

I imagine that we'll see a future convergence of Apple's .Mac Sync/Backup and Time Machine into a seamless net-based backup service that runs in the background with total transparency. This may be as little as one OS X generation away, as long as bandwidth averages continue to increase (in the US, at least).

 

[JSchwage]

I'll throw in another vote for JungleDisk, which uses Amazon's S3. JungleDisk is great!

 

[pprior]

I see that you mentioned "JungleDisk". On Jungle Disk's website they make a big deal about comparing themselves against competitors they beat on price, but the won't mention Mozy.

Mozy is $4.95 a month for unlimited storage, no transfer limitations, and is Mac friendly. It's also 448-bit Blowfish encrypted and you don't have to give them the key.

I'll take 6TB for $4.95 a month please

http://mozy.com/home

It also doesn't work worth a crap for many Mac users. See other threads here on macrumors for details.

I'm a paying user who can't get any of mozy to work, and their mac development is pathetic.

I would discourage ANYONE from using mozy until you're sure it works with your mac.

Carbonite (a competitor) worked flawlessly when I was using a PC, but unfortunately they don't have a mac version.

 

[daze]

I've been thinking about off-site hard drives in terms of extra storage and archival uses and I've already used up the majority of a 500 GB external hard drive. I've cleared up space by burning data onto DVD discs. But with the arrival of the Time Capsule and Jungle Disk, I'm wondering what is the best one to choose and best one in terms of costs.

I'm thinking of backing up digital pictures and video. I like the idea of having them online via Jungle Disc but costs kind of startles me if I use it long term, use much space, and transfer data.

Any thoughts on this will be gladly appreciated.

I used Mozy for a few months, and in the end I have decided to use an external hard drive to backup. It's quick and painless. With Mozy, should you need a restore, it may take a bit of time to get it...

daze

 

[ThePrimeDreamer]

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback. I've been thinking about this since I first posted, and while I do like the idea of online storage (for use anywhere and on the go) the cost and speed of it trumps the availability of my data anywhere. Well unless another feature comes along. I'm considering putting all my sensitive data online still so I'm still figuring that out but I think I'm coming to realize that it might be best to have one big back up file at home, one for portable use, and a small cache online.

 

[techmonkey]

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback. I've been thinking about this since I first posted, and while I do like the idea of online storage (for use anywhere and on the go) the cost and speed of it trumps the availability of my data anywhere. Well unless another feature comes along. I'm considering putting all my sensitive data online still so I'm still figuring that out but I think I'm coming to realize that it might be best to have one big back up file at home, one for portable use, and a small cache online.

The main advantage to online backup is offsite backup. I wouldnt use it for accessing pictures on any computer, that is what Flickr is for. An external drive or NAS is great for multiple computers in your household to share data. Online backup is still a good idea, since if your house burns down then you lost both backups

As for keeping your data secure, you could use something like TrueCrypt to encrypt your data, then store it online. If anyone gets ahold of the TC image, they cant do anything without your key.