Online Backup Storage

[pmk]

Does anyone have recommendations or advice on online services for backing up data. I'd like to have a decent service that will automatically back up all my data files, not just photos.

I'm looking at www.idrive.com (http://www.idrive.com). Anyone use this? There are a bunch of others too:

www.carbonite.com
www.amerivault.com
www.mozy.com (http://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=CLBBtoMVpSrPcApjusAOYzdjkD6PwnnqPncjZDOKlghYQBS DOsPUDKApQ_5jjygRgyc7qiISk7A-gAe2q-_0DyAEBqgQdT9DipXQCJPRZ1ph585JszPiWTzEHAuDmCw8XL6A&num=5&sig=AGiWqtwxQptQ5VPr1jEi53aQSAjtXITbzw&q=http://mozy.com/%3Fref%3D0811cfe9)

thanks,

pmk

[rklepper]

Why not just backup to external hard drives? It would be a lot more reliable than assuming the online service will always be there.

[Wilt]

Please be very aware that some on-line data storage services have gone out of business suddenly, and in some cases they did not forward the data to any other data storage service or give clients sufficient notice of the impending going out of business. Instead, they simply lost the client data!!!

[GilesGuthrie]

I have around 340GB with Mozy. For $5 per month. It'll take whatever I throw at it.

Mozy is owned by EMC, which is one of the top 4 storage companies in the world. They aint going broke any time soon.

I also backup to a box in the garage. If you're going to do local backup you need some decent software to do it, and some drives/systems can't cope with very large files (i.e. 200GB archive files).

[dan j]

Keep in mind that your ISP probably doesn't give you a very high upload speed so it may take a really, really, really long time.

Uploading a single HD video (~30 seconds long) from my SD780 took 15 minutes.

dan

[John_TX]

Save yourself the trouble of pissing off your ISP by using too much up-stream bandwidth and just pick up a couple 1TB external drives (less than $90 ea last time I checked).
Many ISP's, in their TOS (Terms of Service) have really high monthly bandwidth allocations (e.g. upwards of 5-10GB of traffic) even though they say "unlimited".
While most won't send you a nasty letter if you go over that every once in awhile, continually going over that limit can result in them severely throttling your upload speed or even termination of service.
Remember, 2% of all internet uses use 98% of the bandwidth. With a 5D Mk II and 25MB raw files, one trip with a 32GB card would easily get my account flagged by my ISP (not to mention it would probably take almost a week to upload that much data).

Put the same photos on multiple drives, and maybe keep one of the drives at another location for security purposes (e.g. in safety deposit box, at work, friend's house, family member's house).
That way, you're safe, regardless of what happens to your residence (burglary, fire, tornado, etc.). Update the data on the drives as necessary.