Please recommend an Online Backup company

You may find some useful information in some of the existing threads on this, such as these:

Mac online Backup?
Online backup can you restore LIKE time machine or do they have their own interfaces?
Best unlimited cloud storage solution?
Online backup recommendations?
Online backup / sync / share service?

 

It would be a serious mistake for me to make such a suggestion.

I would never, ever hand over my data to anyone else. No matter how impressive their marketing campaigns are, one is still _paying_ to put their files at risk. If something should happen such as a hardware failure, long power outage, or other catastrophe like stolen files. You have no suitable way to retrieve your data.

While I do use various Cloud Services other than iCloud, it's for convenience & never involves files with sensitive or any personal info in them.

I purposely built a strong, secure home network for a few mission critical purposes. One of which was complete control & security of my own backups.

 

Posts like this just show how little you actually know about "your" data. Anything "sensitive" you might have likely already resides elsewhere - banking passwords, e-mail (most of which resides in other people's accounts, who are probably not as security conscious as you), passwords to other sites, etc.

Your whole line of reasoning is fundamentally flawed.

 

Back to the OP's original question...

As I said in another recent thread...


I have been happily using CrashPlan now for over a year with no problems or freezing noted by another poster. One of the best features is that one can back up to a computer or better yet the external HDD attached to that computer belonging to friend or relative across town (or across country) for FREE. I use this feature in addition to backing up locally via CP (and TM on a separate drive). In addition, I back up all 3 computers in the house to CP central for a nominal monthly fee for up unlimited data for up to 10 computers (I don't have that many).

For cross-town back up, the original HDD back up can be done locally (with drive attached to one's computer) and then just moved to computer across town, saving a LOT of time for the original back up. This can be done With VP central for a large extra fee, so I just set up local and cross-town backups first and waited the 10 days for CP Central back up to catch up.

Suggest you check out CP-- it is very versatile and very affordable ( even FREE if you do not use CP Central). One can even retrieve files remotely on one's iPad, smart phone or another computer. I just wish I had chosen a higher level of encryption before my first back up

I have also thought about CC Cloner to make a bootable drive which neither CP nor TM support.

 

How do you know any cloud company will be in business, and still doing backkup services in 3-4 years? If you want to use one fine...but always have Time Machine making local backups as a minimum step.

 

I started another thread about Arq. It got slightly hijacked talking about how people don't like the cloud (it is fine, worth discussing!).

What I like about Arq so far is how I get fine grained control on the backups. It has a native (not java) client. It has client side encryption. I pay for the space I use (~$5/month for 50GB). I can configure how often it does a backup. It is through and through a Mac OS X solution... so scary folders like iPhoto are backed up correctly.

My concern with arq is that it lets me make mistakes by being so piecemeal. Since I pay for every little thing I've been reluctant to backup everything... I think I'd prefer a "pick your size" plan. You can configure how much you want to spend in Arq I guess. This might just be something I need to get over. heh

 

I've been using CrashPlan for a while, and though I've never had to recover from it (and hopefully never will). It's worked well as far as the backups, however. Took a while, of course (you can "seed" it with a hard drive for the beginning backup, if you want), but it's been working well.

jW

 

"I would never, ever hand over my data to anyone else."

I agree with this poster and seriously DISAGREE with "miles".

I probably don't have the wealth of data that the original poster has, but even so, I would never trust what I -do- have to "the cloud".

Have not there been instances of folks who committed data to online services, and then couldn't get it back? Was there not one "cloud" that simply closed down, leaving users with no access to anything?

And beyond that, there are issues of security and hacking. I don't care how "well-protected" a company (even Apple) claims that their (your) data is online, the time may come when the government decides it needs "back doors" into such systems, in the interest of "security". It's possible that such backdoors already exist, but are kept under wraps.

Aside: is not all international email now "monitored" by the NSA? How much "internal" email is scrutinized in the same way? Not all that many years ago the thought of doing this was unthinkable -- that is, not only was there no technology to do it, but this seemed beyond the bounds of acceptability in a "free society". Yet now it's routine.

Nope. The safekeeping and security of your data is up to.... you.

To the original poster:
If you really want to protect four years' worth of data, I suggest you get several hard drives, a USB/SATA "docking station", and a safe deposit box (or even two of them, each at a different bank). Then create a number of backups and store them securely off-site.

It will cost no more than online backup, probably less. And no one will have access to the data except you or your heirs (I believe a court-ordered warrant is required for law enforcement to access a safe deposit box).

It's really a matter of personal responsibility.
If your data is that important -- or sensitive -- why would you trust it to others?

 

I agree with "miles". You really do not understand what is going on. Online backup is probably "BY FAR" the most secure of any data that you own. It is encrypted on your own machine... with a 448b password that you control. The world banking system run on only a 128 bit encryption system.

If you were to place your entire backup on a publicly accessible site. It would still be secure. Your argument is akin to trusting your mattress instead of a bank.

/Jim

 

Online backups are generally reasonably secure. However, you may have need to restore from a backup when an internet connection isn't available. For that reason alone, I would recommend a local backup in addition to any online backup you may have.

 

Agreed. I back up my laptop to my iMac and my iMac to an external drive, in addition to CrashPlan. Redundancy is always the key.

jW

 

Services such as Iron Mountain offer is another way to go; will depend on how valuable your data is, how much you already have and how much you generate over time. If you go the online route, review the size of your upload pipe as well, it needs to be big enough to handle the rate you generate new data.

 

I sure hope part of your "strong, secure home network" where you have "complete control & security of my own backups" you have implemented off site backups of your precious data. One theft, fire, earthquake or whatever disaster will wish you had a stuff offsite.

 

It is good to be cautious, but this is just naive thinking. If you wear a tin foil hat, fine, come out and say it so we understand you... but if you are otherwise a rational human, "never trusting the cloud" is quite on the paranoid side.

Faults with 'the cloud':

* Inconsistent security models. It is hard to tell how one service treats your data vs. the next. Tip... if you just want to be safe, your data should be encrypted on the client side first. Accept no other cloud solution.

* Data availability. You aren't guaranteed to have access to your data, unless the service has provided a local/offline option for you. The cloud service might also just disappear forever. Tip... always have a local copy.

That's about it. 'The cloud' might have a stupid name, but it really is a great thing.

 

crashplan.

Used to use mozy, crashplan better.

 

"You aren't guaranteed to have access to your data, unless the service has provided a local/offline option for you. The cloud service might also just disappear forever. Tip... always have a local copy."

Um... if one always keeps "a local copy" close-at-hand, then what's the point of having a "cloud backup"?
Particularly if you also keep an off-site backup to prevent against theft/fire, etc.

" 'The cloud' might have a stupid name, but it really is a great thing."

Just like the "dot.com's" were as investments back about ten years ago....

One final thought about "cloud backup".
Does the government use it for classified information? Why not?
Does the government permit employees who handle classified documents on their computers to "back them up to the cloud"?

 

Crashplan

Another thumbs up for Crashplan.

 

iDrive is good.

 

I went with CrashPlan yesterday after reading here and other places about it. Price / performance seems very sweet (I broke down and went family for 4 years -- I have 6 machines to backup and about 20TB of data). Right now I have one machine backing up full time, should be done by the weekend. After that I get one of the servers on it. Really, even the $300 I paid for four years is a great price for so much peace of mind.

 

I was thinking about CrashPlan, but I have about 3TB in data. Just doesn't make financial sense. Seeding and recovering would take too long, and if you have to pay extra for seeding and recovering, it's just getting too expensive.

I'm going to get a 4 TB HD, do regular backups, and keep that HD at a remote, secure location.

All my really important data (i.e., all documents and photos, w/o music and movies) are additionally backed up via TimeMachine, and online on my own webspace.

-t

 

This is one thing I never understood about some people's idea of a "backup". Some people have this notion that they can "back up" data to another drive and then DELETE IT from the source. Then, when the "backup" drive fails, they have critical historical data on there that needs to be retrieved because it's not located elsewhere. That's an ARCHIVE, not a BACKUP. I'm agreeing with you here, Fishrrman, not arguing.

The concept of a "backup" is that it's stored in 2 or more locations so if one of them fails or disappears you still have another copy of the data that can then be co-located elsewhere for a new backup location.

FWIW, I happen to know CrashPlan has passed muster for at least one Fortune-100 company's lawyers/IT security team as an approved backup system for some of their computers so the security can't be THAT bad. CP (and Mozy, also approved by the same company) encrypt the data on the client then send it over the wire. It's stored on the servers encrypted and only the client has the key to retrieve the data (with a backup stored with the IT team I believe). No single employee with the backup company has the ability to unlock the encryption on ANY backup stored on the servers. The personal plans likely differ slightly, but I can't see them differing THAT much.

 

Crashplan+ offers three levels of protection at the user's choice. Option 2 & 3 gives crashplan, or any employee at Crashplan.. or anyone else on the planet the ability to unlock your data.

If you forget your password... you are additionally excluded.

/Jim