The Cloud: Thoughts?

I have been reluctant to make use of the Cloud so I am interested to know what folks here think of using the Cloud to back-up or store their images? Any concerns with security? Has anyone had any problems using it? Any other thoughts or comments regarding the Cloud are appreciated.

"The Cloud" isn't a 'thing'. It is a concept that is exceptionally vague and means very different things depending on who you ask and how they've seen it implemented.

In general online services are useful, but not infallible. So the real question to start with is what do you want out of the service? What are you trying to do with it?

I use 'the cloud' for everything from storing photos and notes for a short story up to simulating the impact of an anti-tank round hitting various surfaces. So, you can see that there is a very wide range of possible usages.

I use the cloud, specifically CrashPlan, for backing up all of my computers. I also keep two other backups locally on external hard drives. Personally, I would not trust the cloud as my primary/only photo storage.

I'm an amateur, and I don't use the cloud for backup - I have 2 separate HD's for that. But I do use the cloud for sharing with family, friends, coaches, etc. I put pics up for about a month to allow others to view/download, then I delete them.

I use the cloud in 2 other ways - GoogleDrive for financial spreadsheets (because it has good functions and auto access to market prices).... and Microsoft OneDrive for some private data to have available anywhere via my smartphone (I have a folder that's not shared, so it can only be accessed by me). One item of data I put on OneDrive is an html export of all my Chrome Tabs/Links - that lets me easily access on my smartphone everything that I can on my laptop.

I simply don't trust the "cloud". Just think about it; who's managing this data? Does he/she really care about its integrity? Is their redundancy systems better than yours? The cloud is eh a ... cloud. You data is dispersed over a number of servers over possibly a number of geographic locations. No one really knows. Sure, there is software which tracks all these moving pieces, but there are many potential areas of failure; then add on hackers, and lazy sys admins, and things may not be all that secure.

I simply do this myself, simply for the reason that no one cares more about my data, than ... myself.

If you want a secondary backup, copy onto another hard drive.

Thank you all for your replies. Chantu you confirmed my concerns and I have been using an external hard drive for my back-ups, but thought I might consider the Cloud, but not so much now, at least for backing up my images.

I really cannot see the point of using the cloud as a backup. Everybody who does use it always emphasizes how they use proper, physical, backups as well. So if the worst happens and you need to restore are they going to wait tp download a few TB from the cloud? Of course, not - they'll plug in their backup hard drive and get it all resolved in an hour or two.

Yes, the cloud is a good idea for storing data I might want to access when I'm not at home, but useless as a proper backup.

It's always a good idea having a backup off-site, and backing up to the cloud acts as that off-site location. If all of your backups are in one location, what would you do if that location was broken into and the drives were stolen; or if the location burned down to the ground?

DGStinner wrote in post #17385266
If all of your backups are in one location

Then you review your backup strategy and keep at least one copy off-site.

My main off-site backup is stored next door. There's another stored at a friend's office. I could walk the 5 miles to that office, get the disk, walk back and have everything restored before the cloud backup had downloaded the first 1%.

hollis_f wrote in post #17385264
I really cannot see the point of using the cloud as a backup. Everybody who does use it always emphasizes how they use proper, physical, backups as well. So if the worst happens and you need to restore are they going to wait tp download a few TB from the cloud? Of course, not - they'll plug in their backup hard drive and get it all resolved in an hour or two.

Yes, the cloud is a good idea for storing data I might want to access when I'm not at home, but useless as a proper backup.

+ 1. I have 2 backup copies of my digital photos. One stays at home in case of failure of the primary drive and the other is stored offsite. This is likely as robust a backup system as most cloud services use but also faster and cheaper.

hollis_f wrote in post #17385270
Then you review your backup strategy and keep at least one copy off-site.

My main off-site backup is stored next door. There's another stored at a friend's office. I could walk the 5 miles to that office, get the disk, walk back and have everything restored before the cloud backup had downloaded the first 1%.

That's fine as long as you have the time to rotate your backups daily. Also 5 miles is not that far apart. There are plenty of natural disasters that could take out both copies. Crash plan backs up constantly and keeps a deeper backup history than anyone but the most dedicated backup admin is going to keep. Versioning also gets expensive since you need a lot more disk space than your actual data set.

mike_d wrote in post #17385579
That's fine as long as you have the time to rotate your backups daily. Also 5 miles is not that far apart. There are plenty of natural disasters that could take out both copies. Crash plan backs up constantly and keeps a deeper backup history than anyone but the most dedicated backup admin is going to keep. Versioning also gets expensive since you need a lot more disk space than your actual data set.

One makes a disaster recovery plan to compromise between - cost, ease of use, importance of data, speed of recovery.

My system isn't at all vital to my earning a living, so I have no need for totally reliable backup of everything. I imagine most forum members are in a similar boat - pros will obviously have different needs. I have a daily backup to a NAS in a different room. I have a weekly backup to a drive that lives next door. I have a monthly backup to the site 5 miles away.

If the PC dies, or gets burgled, or there's a small fire - then the NAS will have a backup and I've lost a few hours data which is of zero consequence.

If there's a full house fire and I lose the NAS then I use the next-door backup and lose a week's data which would be a minor pain, but nothing terrible.

If a plane crashes on the house then I need the 5-mile backup and I lose a month's data. However, I'm unlikely to worry about that (what with having a plane on my house).

The only natural disaster that could wipe out all my backups is a tsunami. Somehow I doubt I'll be worried about that as I'll be dead - along with hundreds of thousands of others.

Meanwhile Crashplan go broke.

I import onto two external drives and back up everything, including computer, with crashplan. I did the switch out drive for a while, stored it at my wife's work, but stopped doing that. I trust crashplan. With amazon prime you also get unlimited storage for photos and videos on their servers, and amazon is not going anywhere anytime soon. And I'd guess they have backups of all those things, not just one drive with one copy.
I've looked into Raid and all that stuff several times, too cumbersome and if the house burns down or gets robbed it's worthless. I only do the double drive at home since it's so cheap to do. And once before I did that I had a drive die before I could back it up to the offsite one, lost only a bit over 100 photos from a hike, but nice photos. Still ticks me off. I like that I don't ever have to think about it anymore, CP works in the background by itself, I can't forget to make a backup or switch out a drive.

If you are a prime member, there's really no reason not to use the free storage somehow IMO

Another that bugs me about cloud storage is the constant drip in costs. Sure the monthly costs are not too bad, but at the end of the year, you may have paid $100 or more. For that price you could have bought a 3TB drive. From my personal consumption of disk space, I shoot 20K RAWs a year, which translate into about 1TB of space. So if I back up to my drives, I own it forever, but for a cloud backup it's only "yours" if you keep up the payments.

Just my 2 cents and watching everyone of them

FYI, CrashPlan is free if you backup to another PC over the internet, $60/year for one PC or $150/yr for up to 10 computers. That's for unlimited storage, too!