Online Backup
Eric Miller
looking at the Carbonite service and thinking about giving it a try. Tales
of good or bad experiences and recommendations for alternate providers would
be appreciated.
Eric Miller
www.dyesscreek.com
Timmo
news:sXnBl.24098$9a.1...@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
> Is anyone using an online backup service to store images? I have been
> looking at the Carbonite service and thinking about giving it a try. Tales
> of good or bad experiences and recommendations for alternate providers
> would be appreciated.
Quite often they sound good in theory, but it depends on the file sizes of
your images. If for example, you keep RAW, TIFF and JPEG versions of your
files, then that's a lot of file size per photo and so it's something you
need to consider when choosing a service. Also think about whether it would
be more cost effective to use external hard drives for backup and store them
in a safe off-site location.
David Ruether
"Timmo" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message news:FdWdnRUveJGwgEvU...@pipex.net...
I heard of one instance where the online storage company went out
of business with short notice, and many people lost their images. With
external HDs, I would use multiples with identical sets of files on them,
and run them periodically to keep the drives in good operating condition.
Some people say that archival-type DVDs are good, CDs better than
average-quality DVDs (but without much capacity), and that Blu-ray
disks may be reasonably archival (I find that last hard to believe...;-).
Maybe photographically copying your best work is best? (Just joshing! 8^)
--DR
ray
I'd recommend an external hard drive backup instead. You can remove it to
another location after backing up. Since it is a one-time expense, in the
long run it will be to your financial advantage. Another consideration:
all you need to back up is your data - it's really rather pointless to
back up the OS.
Savageduck
A RAID 1 system with a 2 drive dock works well.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Raidon/SL36202SLB2/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA2EN2/
That way with 3 drives you can have can have your redundant on-site
storage and swapout daily/weekly with the off-site third drive.
--
Regards,
Savageduck
Timmo
news:FdWdnRUveJGwgEvU...@pipex.net...
>> Is anyone using an online backup service to store images? I have been
>> looking at the Carbonite service and thinking about giving it a try.
>> Tales of good or bad experiences and recommendations for alternate
>> providers would be appreciated.
>
>
> Quite often they sound good in theory, but it depends on the file sizes of
> your images. If for example, you keep RAW, TIFF and JPEG versions of your
> files, then that's a lot of file size per photo and so it's something you
> need to consider when choosing a service. Also think about whether it
> would be more cost effective to use external hard drives for backup and
> store them in a safe off-site location.
Just to add, when backing up, be very aware of your workflow too with
dynamic storage, because this could also be disastrous.
For example, lets say you have a P&S camera and shoot JPEGS, it is possible
that you can work on the image, reduce the file to a smaller email version
and accidentally save it as low res. Even if you backed up before making
any changes, when you sync to external drive for example, the high res image
will be replaced with the low res version. In the worst case scenario, you
could accidently delete a photo and when you sync, that file will also be
deleted.
Although I don't use optical media myself, I can understand why people do,
as it's write only. Therefore, if you were to burn to optical, read only
media, it's not possible to over-write the original.
If photography is your business, then just like any other business, if it
were me, I would look for more professional solutions.
J. Clarke
> Is anyone using an online backup service to store images? I have been
> looking at the Carbonite service and thinking about giving it a try.
> Tales of good or bad experiences and recommendations for alternate
> providers would be appreciated.
If you treat it as a backup to another storage source then that approach is
fine if you have enough bandwidth.
The big advantage is that it's off-site and usually in a different city, so
you're protected from just about any disaster short of nuclear war.
The big disadvantage is that you're dependent on the business acumen of the
site operators--if they go under then everything stored there goes away.
Don't put your only copy of anything important there--use it to supplement
your onsite storage and backups.
DVDs or a hard disk stored in a safe deposit box in a bank is another
wortwhile option--if you get Katrinaed you may still lose that but you're
protected if your house or studio burns down.
Jürgen Exner
>Eric Miller wrote:
>> Is anyone using an online backup service to store images? I have been
>The big advantage [...]
>
>The big disadvantage is that you're dependent on the business acumen of the
>site operators--if they go under then everything stored there goes away.
>
>Don't put your only copy of anything important there--use it to supplement
>your onsite storage and backups.
Another big disadvantage is security. Unless _YOU_ encrypt your data
with _YOUR_ encryption program before sending it offsite for storage
there is no telling who might read your files.
jue
bowzer
"David Ruether" <d_ru...@thotmail.com> wrote in message
news:gr5885$la1$1...@ruby.cit.cornell.edu...
It'll be a great day when they figure out how to put a film recorder inside
the cam, no?
:-)
Alan Browne
> Is anyone using an online backup service to store images?
No. There was a recent debacle actually with a photo sharing site that
shut down that well represents the issue - they went bankrupt and told
people to grab their images if they didn't have copies - at least they
gave them about a month to do so.
I'd look at:
TB hard drives with Firewire 800 (what I use).
"gold" DVD's (benign condition life of 100+ years).
Hopefully "gold" BluRay disks will come out soon. At 25 GB/disk, a
pretty good deal. (DualLayer will go 50 GB, but not sure if a "gold" v.
would be possible.
I believe SanDisk was looking at "write-once" cards that would have very
long (well over 100 year) storage life, but I really don't know where
that went or what capacities/costs resulted.
--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
-- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out.
Bill Graham
automatically writes anything new to its HD. It sits on my desk next to the
computer and silently does it's thing without any effort at all on my
part.....The only thing I have to do is take it with me if I leave the house
in case there is a fire while I am gone that wipes out everything.....this
can be a PIA, but I don't know any other way to be sure that my stuff is
safe.....
Savageduck
Do the same as you are doing now, but use a 2 dock RAID 1 & 3 drives,
or if you don't want to go the dock route use 3 external drives with
RAID 1 mirror. Don't use RAID 0, that provides data striping only, not
redundancy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels
Swap out one drive to move to your off site location. This leaves you
with an archive on-site, an archive in-transit(in your vehicle or bag)
and an archive off site. This way one of the three will provide you a
reasonable chance of data recovery.
--
Regards,
Savageduck
Jürgen Exner
>I use an external hard drive with a built-in software package that
>automatically writes anything new to its HD. It sits on my desk next to the
>computer and silently does it's thing without any effort at all on my
>part.
That is not what people are talking about when they say "online backup".
Online backujp means backing up your data via the Internet to some
service provider.
Your method has the big disadvantage to not protecting you in case of
e.g. a virus, because if a virus is going erase the data on your
computer, then that HD next to the computer will be erased, too.
jue
Mike.G.
complete backups of all your active drives to local (probably external)
drives. I personally do complete drive images every night (baseline +
14 incrementals). All is scheduled, and just happens while I'm asleep.
Over the years, I've had a couple of drives tank, and it's so nice to
be able to just run a complete drive image onto a new drive, in just an
hour or so, and be done. Nothing to reinstall, reconfigure, etc. Looks
just like it did before the failure.
Having said that, and having lived through a house fire many years ago,
I worry about fire, theft, tree falling on the house, you name it. So a
few years ago I set out looking for reasonably priced offsite storage.
Everything I could find was *very* expensive. Then I read a review by
Walter Mossberg, the tech guy for the Wall Street Journal. He was
pretty impressed with an outfit called Mozy. They are a subsidiary of
EMC, the big data storage company, and offer up to 2GB of storage free.
For free, I thought I'd give them a try. Everything worked out great,
and I was soon up against the 2GB limit, so I opted to try their 'pay
me' service. It's $4.95 a month, with a free month if you pay annually,
for *unlimited* storage.
I've been using it for something over 2 years now, and they really seem
to mean unlimited. I currently have around 35GB, and before I decided
that I really didn't need to save all of my original photoshop files, I
had over 80GB. It has it's own scheduler, so it also 'just happens'
each night. You configure which folders and/or files you want to be
included. It's intended to be for important data files, and not program
files. The upload speeds are pretty slow, but that's a function of your
ISP. I get 550-750 megabits/sec., a mere fraction of my download speeds.
I've recovered a couple of files from them, just to test that it worked
OK, which it did.
There are different opinions about whether to use your own key or their
public key. The point they make is that if you use their key, they can
always get your data back for you, no matter what. If you use your own
key, and it gets lost, they simply can't do anything for you, It's all
lost forever. They offer the choice of yours or theirs, so you can do
whatever you're comfortable with.
Based on my experience, I can recommend Mozy without hesitation. You
can find them at Mozy.com
I'm not familiar with Carbonite, but having just quickly looked at their
website, they seem to be a very similar operation to Mozy. I have no
basis for recommending one over the other. I do, however, endorse using
such an offsite backup service.
Eric Miller
This was my general idea. I alreay have a RAID 1 to cover disk failure,
optical backups and use an external drive for additional "grab and go"
back up, but realize that it is just too much of a PITA to constantly
ferry external drives offsite. Bandwidth isn't much of a concern and I
plan to only backup the important parts of my current image library and
future selected files. The price of 50-60 per year with unlimited
storage seems like a good value and worth the price of not having to do
my own offsite backup with external drives.
Eric Miller
www.dyesscreek.com
Bill Graham
"Savageduck" <savag...@savage.net> wrote in message
news:2009040313480970933-savageduck@savagenet...
other side of town. I could just get another external HD, and swap it with
one I keep at his house every couple of weeks.....If I were a pro, I would
worry about it more, but the chances are that when I die, no one will ever
give a damn about my photos anyway.....
Savageduck
I pretty much figured that out.
For the most part my photography is for me. When I go they will
probably back a dumpster up to the door and just trash everything they
don't understand. A pile of FW drives and such would probably be at the
top of that list.
As far as my RAW files go I feel like one of those strange pack-rat
recluses they find, with the house stracked from floor to ceiling with
newspapers and National Geographic magazines.
They will probably find me slumped over a keyboard, bricked in by a
wall of hard drives, CD's, DVD's and 30 year old computers, along with
a brand new Nikon/Canon Dxxx/xxD.
--
Regards,
Savageduck
Ray Fischer
>Is anyone using an online backup service to store images? I have been
>looking at the Carbonite service and thinking about giving it a try. Tales
>of good or bad experiences and recommendations for alternate providers would
>be appreciated.
The backup that works best is the backup that you will use regularly.
It's it's too much of a PITA then it won't get used.
That said, everything has risks. The goal to to reduce risk appropriately.
If you can set up an external disk with automatic software to make
VERSIONED backups then that takes care of most computer failures.
If you make a copy of that backup disk regularly and then keep that
copy outside of your home (office, safe, bank, etc.) then that will
take care of most of that bad things that can happen to your house.
If you make two copies then you improve security against disk failure.
If you buy a new disk every few years that has the latest technology
then you protect yourself against obsolescence.
An online backup service has the advantage of being highly secure
against most physical catastrophies, but is weak against economic
problems (the company can fail). It also costs more.
Optical backup protects against overwriting valuable data, but because
it's not dynamic you run the risk of having it go bad/unreadable and
not knowing that it's gone bad.
So, how valuable are your data?
And that reminds me - time to update my 2nd backup.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Pat
wrote:
I've been using Carbonite for years. It works very well. It runs a
very small application in background and keeps track of what you've
changed. Then it backs up when you aren't doing anything too intense
with either the processor or internet connection. The first backup
takes a while -- days IIRC -- because it does it so unobtrusively.
Then you sort of forget about it.
I have had to use it for recovery once. It went well.
I work out of my house. The biggest advantage to me is that the
backup is off site. It is disaster preparedness, if you will. The
data is stored out in Boston or someplace -- at least nowhere near
me. In case of a catastrophic failure, you have a copy. RAID arrays
and backup drives work well for most things, but if you have a flood/
hurricane/tornado/fire/etc. they aren't as useful if you can't find
them.
I also run an RAID array. It has the advantage if something were to
happen, I could go to any computer on the network and instantly use
the files. Carbonite might take an hour or more to download
everything -- but there is selective download in case you need it.
The second reason for the RAID array is that the software allows me to
keep up to 5 generations of files. So if I accidentally overwrite
something, I can go back in time and get it. Carbonite doesn't allow
that.
I am very please with it.
Bill Graham
"Jürgen Exner" <jurg...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:rk2dt4dp0au7h2usd...@4ax.com...
Yes, but what protects the "on line" computer from the viruses? Or, to put
it another way, why don't the viruses infect the people who are handling
your backup files? If I have two external hard drives (which is easy and
cheap to do) then I can only keep one of them plugged into my computer at a
time, (while the other one is in a closet at my friends house on the other
side of town) and then, if a virus wipes me out, I can retrieve my files
from the other HD in my friends house at some later date, after I have
replaced my infected computer with another one that is virus free.......
Jürgen Exner
>> e.g. a virus, because if a virus is going erase the data on your
>> computer, then that HD next to the computer will be erased, too.
>
>it another way, why don't the viruses infect the people who are handling
>your backup files?
Good question. The answer is that hopefully(!) your computer and the
backup storage server are not infected at the same time. Besides, for
decend backup the online backup server itself would need to be backed up
regularly to an offline medium.
>If I have two external hard drives (which is easy and
>cheap to do) then I can only keep one of them plugged into my computer at a
>time, (while the other one is in a closet at my friends house on the other
>side of town)
That is definitely a very smart way to go.
jue
Bill Graham
I agree that the chances of the online backup service losing your files is
pretty small. But I just have this terrible desire to do it myself, having
been screwed several times in the past by trusting other people to do things
for me.....Call it a disease of advancing age, if you will......
Wolfgang Weisselberg
> Yes, but what protects the "on line" computer from the viruses? Or, to put
> it another way, why don't the viruses infect the people who are handling
> your backup files?
If you choose a sane service, they'll not use Windows for anything
important, like running their datat storage.
That step alone cuts out 99+% of all viruses in existance.
I'd be more worried about some cracker breaking into their
computers and doing malicious damage than worry about viruses.
-Wolfgang
JoelH
I can highly recommend Amazon's AWS service. It's backed by
Amazon.com, has good pricing, and Amazon publishes the specs, so you
can use whatever software you want. JungleDisk is a good software
option. It runs on Windows and Linux (and maybe others).
Bill Graham
"Wolfgang Weisselberg" <ozcv...@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
news:h4gma6-...@ID-52418.user.berlin.de...
Yes....Or a fire burning their whole installation down. Or a disgruntled
employee intentionally wiping out all their hard discs, or any of a dozen or
more possibilities.....There is nothing like doing it yourself for peace of
mind, even if it's a little more trouble. The problem is, once the files
leave my domain, then I haven't got the faintest idea where they are, or
what teenager is supposed to be watching them instead of thinking about
their boyfriends pants.....
Pat
> "Bill Graham" <w...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >"Jürgen Exner" <jurge...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
There are no perfect systems. Storing then at your friend's house
works well until (a) you get lazy and forget to keep switching, (b)
your friend's wife gets mad at you (or him) and tosses it, (c) you
lose the data that is on existing drive but not old enough to be on
the stored one.
About 15 years ago we had a little insurrection in the works. A local
not-for-profit made two backups of everything -- onto floppies cuz
that's what everyone used at the time. The uprising didn't cause and
problems so on Monday everyone went back to work, NBD. Just by
coincidence, their main hard drive died. No problem, two fresh
backups. The first person in got their backup and there was a bad
sector. It was useless. They went to get their second copy and they
guy had left them on the back ledge of his car and they all warped
from the sun -- also useless. So don't think your friend and/or his
girlfriend are a perfect storage arrangement.
I use both a RAID array and Carbonite. I'm paranoid. I also work out
of my house so it's all business-related and I need to keep the info.
Both back up everything I change, in real time. The RAID array also
keeps back copies, in case I over right anything.
Carbonite offers the advantage of being off site. If there's a
tornado or fire or whatever, it won't effect them because they are not
local. If I am traveling, I can also access files in an emergency.
They also offer professions monitoring their systems, keeping
everything up and running, etc. The cost is reasonable.
My RAID array allows me to access anything, anywhere on the network.
If my computer dies, I can go on another computer and keep working --
that's critical for projects with deadlines. It also keeps 5 back
copies so it provides overwrite protection. I could keep more but I'm
not THAT paranoid. The downside is more up-front expense and I have
to maintain it myself.
Then, about every 6 months I archive everything to another computer
and an external hard drive.
My data-management is a pain, but it's what I have to do to ensure
that what I need is where I need it when I need it.
As for Carbonite, it's an excellent system. If there was ONE thing
that you were going to do to ensure backups, that's it because it's a
forget-about-it type of backup.
-hh
>
> This was my general idea. I alreay have a RAID 1 to cover disk failure,
> optical backups and use an external drive for additional "grab and go"
> back up, but realize that it is just too much of a PITA to constantly
> ferry external drives offsite. Bandwidth isn't much of a concern and I
> plan to only backup the important parts of my current image library
> and future selected files. The price of 50-60 per year with unlimited
> storage seems like a good value and worth the price of not having
> to do my own offsite backup with external drives.
I had had fairly similar thoughts, and the ISP that I buy my website
domain service through had a 300GB data storage cap, which I figured
would be adequate headroom for all of my current library (~100GB)
without having to bother to cherry-pick.
So I fired up the FTP'er and let 'er rip.
Came back the next morning to find it still working away. After a
few more hours of that, I actually checked how far it was along and a
few minutes with the calculator to get a completion ETA I realized...
...that my "frugal" DSL connection's upload speed utterly sucked.
Taking the average rate that I had achieved over 12 hours, I realized
that I'd only need another ~20 days running 24/7 to get it all off-
site.
One option is to pay a bunch more per month for a faster home
connection. Another option would be to (ahem) 'borrow' some of the
faster bandwidth available at work...and hope that the IT Dept.
doesn't notice.
Brief bottom line is that a cherry-picked portfolio is necessary to
get the total size down to what local bandwidth can more easily accept
for uploading, until such time that bandwidth in the USA becomes more
affordable. The full library will have to rely on local solutions
such as RAID 1 at home, plus an external HD that can be carried to
work and stored in my desk drawer, which will suffice until I retire.
-hh
David J Taylor
[]
> As for Carbonite, it's an excellent system. If there was ONE thing
> that you were going to do to ensure backups, that's it because it's a
> forget-about-it type of backup.
David
Pat
My initial backup to Carbonite took days, IIRC. But it did it in
background so I really didn't care. After that, it has never been
noticeable. I don't remember how much stuff I was backing up at the
time, but it was pretty significant.
Alan Browne
> My initial backup to Carbonite took days, IIRC. But it did it in
> background so I really didn't care. After that, it has never been
My ISP caps my upload at 10 GB/month, after which there is a hefty fee
per GB. My image and other data files exceed 500 GB, currently. My
camera produces 1 GB of raw data every 33 frames or so. The Carbonite
site implies that it is geared to smaller data sets (while not setting a
limit):
Carbonite site:
= = = = = = = = = = =
"" How much stuff can I back up?
There are no limits on backup storage capacity. Carbonite will back up
all the supported files on your internal hard drive whether you have
1GB, 10GB or more. However, users should be aware that the speed of
today's DSL and cable Internet services will make it very slow to back
up more than, say, a few dozen GB of data. ""
= = = = = = = = = = =
I could switch to a higher priced plan with no transfer limit (and
triple my DL speed to 25 Mb/s too), but I really don't need it and don't
want to pay for it.
I like the idea of 'out of my home' backups, and $60 / yr does not seem
exorbitant (v. buying a 1.5 TB drive every once in a while).
Wolfgang Weisselberg
> "Wolfgang Weisselberg" <ozcv...@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
>> I'd be more worried about some cracker breaking into their
>> computers and doing malicious damage than worry about viruses.
> Yes....Or a fire burning their whole installation down.
Choose one that has more than one site and uses offline
replication.
> Or a disgruntled
> employee intentionally wiping out all their hard discs,
Not that easy, given that they must know about that scenario
and have defenses.
> or any of a dozen or
> more possibilities.....There is nothing like doing it yourself for peace of
> mind, even if it's a little more trouble.
So you drive to the bank vault each day? With a new backup?
How do you combat --- doing it yourself, each day, every day,
come holiday or high water --- fire and water damage, overvoltage,
disgruntled spouses and relations, burglars, slip of fingers,
mismousing, etc. etc. etc.?
> The problem is, once the files
> leave my domain, then I haven't got the faintest idea where they are,
You could look at the website of the provider.
> or
> what teenager is supposed to be watching them instead of thinking about
> their boyfriends pants.....
No teenagers are supposed to be watching them. First, your files
may not be PG-rated, second, would you want J. Random Teenager
to be looking into your files?
Seriously, choose a reputable outfit. One that the parent company
(doing different things) stakes their own survival on, like Amazon
does, sounds like a usable bet.
-Wolfgang
Bill Graham
I did drive to the night deposit vault every day, (or whenever I needed to
deposit money) until they removed it and forced me to use ATM
machines.......And I still dislike using those machines.....One of them ate
my bank card last year, and I had to do without it for about a week. I
accept the electronic services only because I have no other choice, and I
will only sleep well at night if I backup my own files.....But I am 73, so
it won't be too long before dinosaurs like me are gone forever......All I
can say to the rest of you is, take a lesson from what has happened to the
stock market during the last few months.....When you put your trust in
other, "professionals" you are taking a risk that is very likely to come
back and bite you in the ass.......
TonyCooper
wrote:
Rent a post office box, make a back-up disk every night, and mail it
to yourself at your box. Once a month, pick up the mail and take it
to your safety desposit box.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Pat
> "Wolfgang Weisselberg" <ozcvgt...@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1n4qa6-...@ID-52418.user.berlin.de...
>
>
>
> > Bill Graham <w...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> "Wolfgang Weisselberg" <ozcvgt...@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
I think you are overstating the risks of an off-site, cloud,
provider. If the crash, go broke or whatever, it's not the end of the
world unless YOU do the same thing, simultaneously. If your original
files are still good, you might be without backups for a day or two,
but that beat the fact that most people have none at all.
FYI, I never go to be without being 100% backed up, either. That's
what carbonite does for me.
Hans Kruse
"Mike.G." <m.go...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:gr650u$6v5$1...@news.motzarella.org...
>>
> My feeling is that your first line of defense should be frequent complete
> backups of all your active drives to local (probably external) drives. I
> personally do complete drive images every night (baseline + 14
> incrementals). All is scheduled, and just happens while I'm asleep. Over
> the years, I've had a couple of drives tank, and it's so nice to be able
> to just run a complete drive image onto a new drive, in just an hour or
> so, and be done. Nothing to reinstall, reconfigure, etc. Looks just like
> it did before the failure.
My local backup strategy is that I have 2 external USB 2.0 drives of the
same capacity as an internal drive in my desktop PC. I use synchronization
software (SureSynch) to synchonize the folder regularly to both drives.
However there is, of course, no history involved in this backup strategy. I
do have a limited history backup in the sense that when I import images from
my CF cards into Lightroom I backup all imported images on a separate
external drive. Only when this drive runs out of space do I delete the
oldest folders. So far I have not lsot anything by accident using this
strategy. I do the same when I'm travelling on my laptop and in addition I
synchronize all relevant folders including new images from my laptop to en
external drive (rugged LaCie 2.5" drive powered via USB). My card reader is
my Vosonic drive which serves as a card reader, backup drive for my images
imported and as a backup to my laptop if it fails. I always bring two
Vosonic drives, so if the laptop fails I can copy my CF cards into two
Vosonic drives.
> Having said that, and having lived through a house fire many years ago, I
> worry about fire, theft, tree falling on the house, you name it. So a few
> years ago I set out looking for reasonably priced offsite storage.
> Everything I could find was *very* expensive. Then I read a review by
> Walter Mossberg, the tech guy for the Wall Street Journal. He was pretty
> impressed with an outfit called Mozy. They are a subsidiary of EMC, the
> big data storage company, and offer up to 2GB of storage free. For free, I
> thought I'd give them a try. Everything worked out great, and I was soon
> up against the 2GB limit, so I opted to try their 'pay me' service. It's
> $4.95 a month, with a free month if you pay annually, for *unlimited*
> storage.
>
> I've been using it for something over 2 years now, and they really seem to
> mean unlimited. I currently have around 35GB, and before I decided that I
> really didn't need to save all of my original photoshop files, I had over
> 80GB. It has it's own scheduler, so it also 'just happens' each night.
> You configure which folders and/or files you want to be included. It's
> intended to be for important data files, and not program files. The
> upload speeds are pretty slow, but that's a function of your ISP. I get
> 550-750 megabits/sec., a mere fraction of my download speeds.
>
For disaster backup for the reasons you mention I use Mozy and have done so
for more than a year now (and for all PC's in the house including my wife's
laptop). The Mozy service is rather clever in the way it backup as it
cooperates with the Windows Shadow Copy Service to let applications that are
aware of this, that a backup is going on. This means that e.g. Output will
know that a backup of a PST file will be needed and this can be done even
when Output is running and has the PST file open.
For photo backup I have now around 350GB backed up by Mozy. They also claim
that you can move the folders on your hard drives and avoid rebacking up
everything, but this requires a manual intervention from Mozy support. I'm
going through this at the moment and it has not worked yet. I think this is
rather critical since this will be needed e.g.when upgrading from one
machine to another or OS upgrades (e.g. XP to 64bit Vista which I'm
planning).
> I've recovered a couple of files from them, just to test that it worked
> OK, which it did.
I have tested this only on a limited basis and it seems to work.
> There are different opinions about whether to use your own key or their
> public key. The point they make is that if you use their key, they can
> always get your data back for you, no matter what. If you use your own
> key, and it gets lost, they simply can't do anything for you, It's all
> lost forever. They offer the choice of yours or theirs, so you can do
> whatever you're comfortable with.
I don't use a private key and I have no concern about that.
> Based on my experience, I can recommend Mozy without hesitation. You can
> find them at Mozy.com
My recommendation also provided that the backup without complete reload can
happen across OS upgrades and HD upgrades.
--
Med venlig hilsen/Kind regards,
Hans Kruse www.hanskrusephotography.com, www.hanskruse.com
Mike.G.
> For photo backup I have now around 350GB backed up by Mozy. They also claim
> that you can move the folders on your hard drives and avoid rebacking up
> everything, but this requires a manual intervention from Mozy support. I'm
> going through this at the moment and it has not worked yet. I think this is
> rather critical since this will be needed e.g.when upgrading from one
> machine to another or OS upgrades (e.g. XP to 64bit Vista which I'm
> planning).
>
I've had a couple of experiences with moving things around, including
both a new machine build, with new drives all totally reconfigured, as
well as simply moving and/or renaming folders, both within a partition,
as well as to another physical drive. Until your post, I never thought
to see if they could make it go smoother.
However, even though I just 'bit the bullet' the first time, and plowed
ahead, I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't need to reload the
(at that time) about 70GB of files I had on their servers. Even though
the dialog box indicated they were going to back up 70GB, instead the
transfer dialog box spent a lot of time at 'Communicating with MozyHome
Servers...". Then suddenly, the progress bar would jump forward a bit.
Sometimes a file would start to transfer, but after maybe 10 seconds,
it would terminate, and again the progress bar would jump. Looking at
the History file of the session later, I found that although all of the
files were listed, most were marked 'File already on MozyHome Servers',
so apparently their software was able to match each file at it's new
location with it's old location, and simply change the path designation
on their servers. The whole process ended up taking just a few hours,
rather than the few weeks that were originally projected.
FWIW
Mike.G.
An added thought: After any reconfiguration, no matter how minor it may
seem, one should *always* check the Configuration setup to make sure
that the affected files/folders are still selected for backup. My
experience is that sometimes yes, sometimes no
Hans Kruse
>>
> I've had a couple of experiences with moving things around, including both
> a new machine build, with new drives all totally reconfigured, as well as
> simply moving and/or renaming folders, both within a partition, as well as
> to another physical drive. Until your post, I never thought to see if
> they could make it go smoother.
>
> However, even though I just 'bit the bullet' the first time, and plowed
> ahead, I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't need to reload the (at
> that time) about 70GB of files I had on their servers. Even though the
> dialog box indicated they were going to back up 70GB, instead the transfer
> dialog box spent a lot of time at 'Communicating with MozyHome
> Servers...". Then suddenly, the progress bar would jump forward a bit.
> Sometimes a file would start to transfer, but after maybe 10 seconds, it
> would terminate, and again the progress bar would jump. Looking at the
> History file of the session later, I found that although all of the files
> were listed, most were marked 'File already on MozyHome Servers', so
> apparently their software was able to match each file at it's new location
> with it's old location, and simply change the path designation on their
> servers. The whole process ended up taking just a few hours, rather than
> the few weeks that were originally projected.
>
Jørn Dahl-Stamnes
> I use both a RAID array and Carbonite. I'm paranoid. I also work out
> of my house so it's all business-related and I need to keep the info.
> Both back up everything I change, in real time. The RAID array also
> keeps back copies, in case I over right anything.
Have you considered using LTO's for backup too? I don't trust disks or
CD/DVDs for backup. Disks are too easy to overwrite by accident and
CD/DVS's cannot be trusted for more than two years.
--
Jørn Dahl-Stamnes
http://www.dahl-stamnes.net/Foto/
John S.
Backup provider Carbonite loses data, sues vendor :
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9130283
mj
"John S." <fish...@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:5c4b5b06-2619-4df9...@r3g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
>
> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9130283
Life is not without risk
Hans Kruse
"Hans Kruse" <hans....@mail.tele.dk> wrote in message
news:49db8639$0$90268$1472...@news.sunsite.dk...
mention 'File already on Mozy.....'. So that's great. It appears that a
unique ID is calculated per file which makes it possible to recognize a file
even when it is moved to another folder. Pretty neat.
John S.
> "John S." <fishin...@netscape.net> wrote in message
>
> news:5c4b5b06-2619-4df9...@r3g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 6, 2:34 pm, Pat <gro...@artisticphotography.us> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 4, 9:50 pm, Jürgen Exner <jurge...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Backup provider Carbonite loses data, sues vendor :
>
>
> Life is not without risk
True.... but if I am PAYING someone to backup up my files and their
business is data backup they better be darn sure my files are there
when i need them!
mj
True, however the risk is not eliminated only diminished.
No matter how careful we are sh.t happens
Bill Graham
"mj" <lakediver@dd..net> wrote in message
news:uD2Dl.16207$D32....@flpi146.ffdc.sbc.com...
files.......
mj
"Bill Graham" <we...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:EqadnTfYUoyes0DU...@giganews.com...
John S.
> "John S." <fishin...@netscape.net> wrote in message
>
> news:71af1658-35be-4755...@n17g2000vba.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 8, 2:42 pm, "mj" <lakediver@dd..net> wrote:
>
> > "John S." <fishin...@netscape.net> wrote in message
>
> >news:5c4b5b06-2619-4df9...@r3g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
> > On Apr 6, 2:34 pm, Pat <gro...@artisticphotography.us> wrote:
>
> > > On Apr 4, 9:50 pm, Jürgen Exner <jurge...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >Backup provider Carbonite loses data, sues vendor :
>
> > >http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBas...
>
> > Life is not without risk
>
> True.... but if I am PAYING someone to backup up my files and their
> business is data backup they better be darn sure my files are there
> when i need them!
>
> True, however the risk is not eliminated only diminished.
> No matter how careful we are sh.t happens
But people were paying Carbonite to eliminate their risks and they
failed. Sounds like they bought less than enterprise class storage and/
or did not have sufficiently trained/experienced storage admins....
And while sh*t happens, you should always have Plan B for when it
does.... In todays storage world, if you are providing storage as a
service to paying customers than their really should be no excuse for
data loss... at least not to the extent that appears to have happened
at Carbonite... I have been managing storage for a long time... the
last 6 years on a number of high end storage arrays that guarantee no
time... in those 6 year I have had zero down time and have never lost
any data...
tre...@googlemail.com
http://groups.google.com/group/trevor-hook
Trevor Hook
On Apr 6, 7:34 am, Pat <gro...@artisticphotography.us> wrote:
> On Apr 4, 9:50 pm, Jürgen Exner <jurge...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > "Bill Graham" <w...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > >"Jürgen Exner" <jurge...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > >> Your method has the big disadvantage to not protecting you in case of
> > >> e.g. a virus, because if a virus is going erase thedataon your
> > >> computer, then that HD next to the computer will be erased, too.
>
> > >Yes, but what protects the "on line" computer from the viruses? Or, to put
> > >it another way, why don't the viruses infect the people who are handling
> > >your backup files?
>
> > Good question. The answer is that hopefully(!) your computer and the
> > backup storage server are not infected at the same time. Besides, for
> > decend backup the online backup server itself would need to be backedup
> > regularly to an offline medium.
>
> > >If I have two external hard drives (which is easy and
> > >cheap to do) then I can only keep one of them plugged into my computer at a
> > >time, (while the other one is in a closet at my friends house on the other
> > >side of town)
>
> > That is definitely a very smart way to go.
>
> > jue
>
> There are no perfect systems. Storing then at your friend's house
> works well until (a) you get lazy and forget to keep switching, (b)
> your friend's wife gets mad at you (or him) and tosses it, (c) you
> lose thedatathat is on existing drive but not old enough to be on
> the stored one.
>
> About 15 years ago we had a little insurrection in the works. A local
> not-for-profit made two backups of everything -- onto floppies cuz
> that's what everyone used at the time. The uprising didn't cause and
> problems so on Monday everyone wentbackto work, NBD. Just by
> coincidence, their main hard drive died. No problem, two fresh
> backups. The first person in got their backup and there was a bad
> sector. It was useless. They went to get their second copy and they
> guy had left them on thebackledge of his car and they all warped
> from the sun -- also useless. So don't think your friend and/or his
> girlfriend are a perfect storage arrangement.
>
> I use both a RAID array and Carbonite. I'm paranoid. I also work out
> of my house so it's all business-related and I need to keep the info.
> Bothbackupeverything I change, in real time. The RAID array also
> keepsbackcopies, in case I over right anything.
>
> Carbonite offers the advantage of being off site. If there's a
> tornado or fire or whatever, it won't effect them because they are not
> local. If I am traveling, I can also access files in an emergency.
> They also offer professions monitoring their systems, keeping
> everythingupand running, etc. The cost is reasonable.
>
> My RAID array allows me to access anything, anywhere on the network.
> If my computer dies, I can go on another computer and keep working --
> that's critical for projects with deadlines. It also keeps 5back
> copies so it provides overwrite protection. I could keep more but I'm
> not THAT paranoid. The downside is moreup-front expense and I have
> to maintain it myself.
>
> Then, about every 6 months I archive everything to another computer
> and an external hard drive.
>
> Mydata-management is a pain, but it's what I have to do to ensure
mj
On Apr 8, 7:04 pm, "mj" <lakediver@dd..net> wrote:
> "John S." <fishin...@netscape.net> wrote in message
>
> news:71af1658-35be-4755...@n17g2000vba.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 8, 2:42 pm, "mj" <lakediver@dd..net> wrote:
>
> > "John S." <fishin...@netscape.net> wrote in message
>
> >news:5c4b5b06-2619-4df9...@r3g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
> > On Apr 6, 2:34 pm, Pat <gro...@artisticphotography.us> wrote:
>
>
> > >Backup provider Carbonite loses data, sues vendor :
>
> > >http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBas...
>
> > Life is not without risk
>
> True.... but if I am PAYING someone to backup up my files and their
> business is data backup they better be darn sure my files are there
> when i need them!
>
> True, however the risk is not eliminated only diminished.
> No matter how careful we are sh.t happens
But people were paying Carbonite to eliminate their risks and they
failed. Sounds like they bought less than enterprise class storage and/
or did not have sufficiently trained/experienced storage admins....
And while sh*t happens, you should always have Plan B for when it
does.... In todays storage world, if you are providing storage as a
service to paying customers than their really should be no excuse for
data loss... at least not to the extent that appears to have happened
at Carbonite... I have been managing storage for a long time... the
last 6 years on a number of high end storage arrays that guarantee no
time... in those 6 year I have had zero down time and have never lost
any data...
"And while sh*t happens, you should always have Plan B for when it
does"
True enough John. My only point is that no matter how careful we are there
is *always* a risk and all we can do is minimize as best possible that risk.
Bill Graham
<tre...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:22527e07-0198-4549...@l25g2000vba.googlegroups.com...
Trevor Hook
I'm sure it is. But regardless of how good it is, if I'm not doing it
myself, then I won't be able to sleep well at night. It's kind of like
driving somewhere with a friend. When he is driving, I can't sleep. I admire
him for being able to sleep when I drive, but I can't return the favor, even
if he drives like an expert and/or is a professional.
Bob Larter
> go to that group for answer and free remote support
> http://groups.google.com/group/trevor-hook
<massive snip of quoted stuff>
Please don't top post, it's very impolite.
--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
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