Question about Carbonite, Mozy, and others

Do the off site back up companies such as Carbonite compress files any? I would assume not but I have read a lot of posts about the various back up sites and I have never seen that specific question addressed.

While I know this doesnt answer your question, if youre looking for backup, why not just buy an external HD, copy stuff to it, and store it somewhere safe?

Not in a lossy way, no. I imagine they use alsorts of data dedupe magik, but you get back - byte for byte - what you put in.

Personally, i can't recommend mozy highly enough. Their support is absolutely stupidly good for $50/yr., and the product is great. Few minor niggles, but client side, which is where the potential for real pain lives, it is bang on.

I have my photos backed up on an external HD and on DVDs but I was thinking about backing up the whole computer on a site such as Carbonite or Mozy. I have never read where there was any compression of files but neither have I heard that there was NO compression of photo files, RAW, JPEG, DNG, etc. I am just curious if any one has a definitive answer.

AFAIK, Carbonite (what I use) simply uploads what I give them. I've done a few test restores, and I always get back exactly what I sent them. If they do any compression, it's certainly lossless.

Sparky98 wrote in post #10057287
I have my photos backed up on an external HD and on DVDs but I was thinking about backing up the whole computer on a site such as Carbonite or Mozy. I have never read where there was any compression of files but neither have I heard that there was NO compression of photo files, RAW, JPEG, DNG, etc. I am just curious if any one has a definitive answer.

What would be the point of ANY backup system that used lossy compression? Think about it.....

There is a website that does backup using drop and drag technology. I forgot what it was, but it's actually rated really well (by CNET, I think....not sure).

I like that idea, because dropping and dragging is intuitive. With that service I believe it's just another icon on your desktop, and when you open it you're literally on their server uploading and downloading your photos and files through the same process you use on your computer.

That makes logical sense.

I've pondered the options. My own HD vs off-site services.

On the one hand: The off-site services seems more convenient, and maybe safer (depending on *where* you store your HD), but... the cost. After 2 years you've bought the HD and the cost keeps charging, whereas the HD cost is done.

On the other hand: The HD is more cost-effective, but short of a safe deposit box, it seems it'd always be susceptible to fire damage, HD failure, etc. Well, even then. And if that happens, it's on YOU. No one else to blame or seek redress. I've never checked, but I've read that places like Yahoo and Google have multiple copies of everything in multiple locations fearing just such an event, and I would hope these off-site services do the same thing.

ETA: I should add that if you shoot alot, and you fill up a HD every year or two, that maybe the cost is a wash.

This might help: http://online-data-backup-review.toptenreviews.c​om/

Rember - off site is only as safe as the company - a big fire - natural disaster etc - and a comapnt could be gone
there is also the fact that you dont know whos doing what with your files - just becasue they say no one sees them dosent mean it wont happen
human nature means that at some point in some time some one will do it - be it employee - contractor - hacker or whatever
money is safe in banks but they get robbed
and what happenes if one of these companys sinks and gets sold and bought - who gets the files then ?

i will keep my 8x500 gb usb drives in my firebox thanks

It's always good to have 2 copies of everything, so off-line and online copy or a copy not at home .

The main problem with online back up is the rate it uploads which is much slower than backing up to a hard drive. Also if your a photographer storing 10's of GB's a month, backing up online would take forever.

Likewise your drives are only as safe as your house - fire will damage them unless they're in a really top-of-the line fire safe (remember to put them in there too!) and you have to remember to do the backup.

Personally I like external drive (cheap, 1x USB enclosure with interchangeable drives) but mozy is my "main" backup - the drive is for really quick restore, or in case something "happens" to mozy. Mozy is there for a snapshot I know is likely to be up-to-date to a fairly recent point. I keep a copy on CF too until my internet connection catches up.

BTW - you can pick your own encryption key on these online backup services. In this case your data is encrypted before it leaves your PC. Yes, you have to trust that the s/w is reasonably well written (but there's no incentive for it not to be) but you don't need to worry about "nosy employees".

Any backup solution is useless if you can't restore when you need to. One thing that never seems to get mentioned is - 'What happens when disaster strikes and you need to, quickly, restore your system and the 500GB of data?' In the UK most people have something like a 10GB transfer limit set by their ISP, so downloading a full system backup would take four years - obviously not a viable solution.

So, do these companies have a system for fast data recovery? I'll bet it's nowhere near as fast, or conveniant as mine (popping over to my friend's workplace and getting my off-site backup HDD from her safe).

hollis_f wrote in post #10061337
..In the UK most people have something like a 10GB transfer limit set by their ISP, so downloading a full system backup would take four years - obviously not a viable solution.

So, do these companies have a system for fast data recovery?

Mozy, which I use, has an option to have youre restore sent to you on DVD. I can't speak to the others. There are two key business continuity metrics used when determining what kind of recovery system is needed.

- Recovery Time Objective (RTO) - Measuring time forward from the point of disaster, RTO is how quickly you need to be back up and running.

- Recovery Point Objective (RPO) - Measuring time backwards from the point of disaster, RPO is how fresh your data needs to be.

Your concern hollis_f appears to be RTO - how quick you can get back up and running. While I like having a full, local, offsite backup periodic offsite USB snapshots to not meet my RPO. I want to be able to restore data to 7-10 days before a disaster, at worst.I am not disciplined enough - nor do I have the spare time - to make a full back up and store it offsite at that frequency. So I use a two prong approach using redundant backup systems:

1.) Quarterly, I back up each computer to a USB drive using Time Machine and store them in a safety deposit box. This is a full backup, and convenient to access.

2.) I use Mozy to back up my most key/changing data to the internet near real time. Mozy backs up my computer during idle time, and in the middle of the night. It also warns me when it hasn't had a backup complete in 3 days. Chances are, I can restore my data to a point within the last 24 hours. The key thing here is automation: as long as I have internet connectivity, my backups will happen without interaction from me.

Just my two cents.

Question about Mozy (and others)... Do you have the option of a selective back-up? For example, if I wanted image files only (from specific directories only, I mean) backed-up, could I do that?