So Called Personal Cloud Question

phantelope wrote in post #17494702
I always thought the name is a bit silly, I'd rather store nothing in a cloud, LOL.

Consider this, too, that we routinely rely upon the ETHERnet to move our data to the CLOUD where we rely upon its accessibility to ourselves and to others!

mike_d wrote in post #17494809
I don't see Amazon's storage as a substitute for Crashplan. Sure, its off-site storage, but as far as I know, it lacks the features (such as versioning) of a proper backup system.

Never said it was a substitute. Sometimes, all someone may need is reliable off-site storage to use as a storage archive without all the bells and whistles.

John wrote in post #17496059
Never said it was a substitute. Sometimes, all someone may need is reliable off-site storage to use as a storage archive without all the bells and whistles.

This is where I'm at. Amazon's deal is perfect for me. I just want someplace to store a copy of my RAW files. When I do a card dump, I'll just copy the dump folder to Amazon using their desktop app. And $60/year for unlimited is easily doable. Hell, they could double that and it would still be a deal. But don't tell them I said that.

I just installed a Buffalo Link Station. Fantastic! Definitely "fast enough." I can also stream video to any of my devices. Works great. I can access over my wired network, my wireless network, or the Internet.

You do all realise that the cloud is actually a computer, in a room, somewhere?

As for hackers, well, having your data hosted with amazon, microsoft, google or anyone else is as secure as
1. your password - and we all know how that works out.
2. your computer you are accessing it from - you can have the most secure online password in the history of passwords, however if the device you are accessing 'the cloud' services from has been compromised you may as well have no password.

On top of this hosted services are more attractive to 'hackers' than your home system. More bang for their buck. All they have to do is compromise 1 sys admin account and presto, everyone's data is compromised.

It also irks me that so many people who know so little about the technology (present company excluded) put everything out there and then complain when it gets compromised.

Stevenpamolo wrote in post #17506131
You do all realise that the cloud is actually a computer, in a room, somewhere?

To me "the cloud" is a marketing phrase these days, it's a generic phrase that means little. Computers in a room are an implementation of cloud computing - eg AWS, Azure, SalesForce, etc.

AWS, Azure, SalesForce are actually programs running on a computer in a room somewhere.
"Cloud" simply means you have no idea where your data really is.

Recently gave up on cloud storage, the upload speeds were so tragically slow I cancelled them all, for example Google drive took a week to upload 30gb, and I needed to store 400gb, which compared to some of you guys is modest I'm sure! So, bought a hard drive, backed up in hours.

Yup, I purchased a nas box. Uploading at 512kb/s was painful.

Stevenpamolo wrote in post #17511612
AWS, Azure, SalesForce are actually programs running on a computer in a room somewhere.
"Cloud" simply means you have no idea where your data really is.

welshwizard1971 wrote in post #17511625
Recently gave up on cloud storage, the upload speeds were so tragically slow I cancelled them all, for example Google drive took a week to upload 30gb, and I needed to store 400gb, which compared to some of you guys is modest I'm sure! So, bought a hard drive, backed up in hours.

Both are interesting points. Bottom line if you want security (Real Security) it must be off-site. Yes online backup services are in a room somewhere you likely don't know where, but it can be retrieved if that fire or burglar has your data.

it is ALSO important to note. A "slow" backup is NOT THE STORAGE DEVICE. The problem here is network speed, if you have a slow network then back up is going to be slow. Before moving to a cloud solution (Online or NAS) be sure your network can handle the data transfer. My data took a week to move 500 gig of images, but now that I have the data in the cloud; the backup system only needs to backup the changes which is really quite efficient.

If a "fast" network is not available then an external USB device is likely the best choice. If a fast network is available then I believe an Online Cloud service supplementing a NAS device is likely the most efficient and secure system. Just my opinion and YES that may be overkill a bit.

Lumens wrote in post #17511783
Both are interesting points. Bottom line if you want security (Real Security) it must be off-site. Yes online backup services are in a room somewhere you likely don't know where, but it can be retrieved if that fire or burglar has your data.

it is ALSO important to note. A "slow" backup is NOT THE STORAGE DEVICE. The problem here is network speed, if you have a slow network then back up is going to be slow. Before moving to a cloud solution (Online or NAS) be sure your network can handle the data transfer. My data took a week to move 500 gig of images, but now that I have the data in the cloud; the backup system only needs to backup the changes which is really quite efficient.

If a "fast" network is not available then an external USB device is likely the best choice. If a fast network is available then I believe an Online Cloud service supplementing a NAS device is likely the most efficient and secure system. Just my opinion and YES that may be overkill a bit.

Fibre optic broadband, 20 meg plus, nothing wrong with my connection speed, it was the cloud throttling it, google 'google drive slow upload' plenty of unhappy people out there.

welshwizard1971 wrote in post #17511997
Fibre optic broadband, 20 meg plus, nothing wrong with my connection speed, it was the cloud throttling it, google 'google drive slow upload' plenty of unhappy people out there.

Hmm, sounds like I should be glad I didn't try "Google Drive".

I used BackBlaze and found it was slow but 500 gigs is a lot to upload so gave it time. BackBlaze has a reputation for having a slow initial backup but fine after that. I have my initial backup complete and find no problems with the incremental update of changes. There are other backup services available that have a better reputation for upload speed so you might want to shop around. An off-site backup is always a good idea if the images have value enough to warrant the cost of online backup.

See the problem with all your fancy cloud 'backup' is this:
At work we have a cloud application, the company hosting it was bought out by another company and it cost us $18 000 to 'migrate' the data over to the new company.
I used to have 25GB storage (admittedly it was free) I received an email stating that unless I logged in and stated that I wanted to keep it, it would be reduced to 7GB.

Once 'they' have your data 'they' have your money.

I really like the technology and implementation of Backblaze.

"but it can be retrieved if that fire or burglar has your data" Clearly you do not read the terms and conditions, as this is not guaranteed.