Help on cloud storage please (1 Viewer)

[jaygee]

After having an external hard drive pack up resulting in a loss of many precious files & photos I am considering 'cloud storage'.
I have used dropbox but not sure i'm using it right as many of my files don't appear to be on there?
Was wondering if anybody uses cloud for storage, which one would you recommend?

 

[Gromett]

If dropbox goes bust you would be just as stuck as if you had another external hard drive go pop on you.

I personally would recommend doing both. Have an external hard drive which you can store elsewhere and a cloud account.

 

[Jazzbow]

I use a few, I like flickr for photos and amazon cloud for books. I have list of recipes on google drive and I upload home videos to You tube set to 'private'

Doing it like this saves paying for extra storage.:thumb:
(This is as a back up to my external drive)

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[Forestboy]

Hi Mate

I have a couple of external drives, bought them in Asia so cheap enough, so if one goes I've got a back up.

Tried Cloud and Dropbox didn't get on with either to be honest and stopped using them.

 

[DBK]

I used Flickr but now use Picassa, which is linked to Google+ which brings its own annoyances. I guess the chances of Google going bust are remote at the moment so I think my pictures are fairly save.

However, I don't upload all my photos, but back up to a NAS device which has two hard drives configured in RAID 1 so the same data is written to both drives and if one drive fails you just slot in another and the good drive copies everything across to it.

I use a Netgear Stora NAS but I am not sure I would recommend it. I think there are better ones available these days.

My back up is not totally safe of course, the house could catch fire and burn down but I probably wouldn't be too worried by the loss of my photos in such circumstances.

A benefit of cloud storage is it may be safe from things like cryptolocker which my backups aren't. Unless the server gets hit of course!

 

[Soozywoozy]

Apple or google? Apple cloud storage pretty good
I also Evernote premium for loads of stuff - including notes from the forum, so not so much storage but notes as well.

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[Wildman]

as pointed out to me previously, all cloud storage is on someone elses hard drive that could go tits up as easy as your own. Plus your files will then no longer be secure no matter what safeguards are put in place.

 

[MattR]

Dropbox is like a directory on your iPad / pc / tablet etc. with a copy of your files stored in the cloud; they sync with each other. I haven't had any problems with Dropbox and I guess that they have very good backup systems. The chances of your device and the Dropbox company and storage failing at the same time is ......?

 

[paul rimmer]

cloud

Have two hard drives with photos and docs on both. Also use Flickr (3500 photos), backed up by Yahoo, so pretty safe from going bust so far. also now using facebook as well. So multiple back ups best. Tried Google cloud but never got into it. External hard drives good but one is not enough as vulnerable to loss. Ensure family has access to passwords

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[Gromett]

A benefit of cloud storage is it may be safe from things like cryptolocker which my backups aren't. Unless the server gets hit of course!

I am afraid not. The cryptolocker virus encrypts your files quietly in the background. I would guess it would do this by "last accessed" date in reverse order. This way they can get as many files as possible before you realise. This may take hours or days.

If in the meantime your files get synced then the cloud overwrites your good files with the new encrypted version.

Dropbox is better in this respect in that it has a kind of time machine function so you can roll back any changes so make sure that the cloud service you use has this facility.

You probably already know this DevonBeekeeper but just in case anyone else didn't.

 

[DBK]

Thanks Gromett, I wasn't thinking. Cloud storage is just like any other backup, so is vulnerable.

 

[ShiftZZ]

I have a home server, 4 drives each with 1TB, most valuable files are shared across three drives (RAID).

Daily backups, and I backup also with True Image.

The server is also backed up an external hard drive...

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[estcres]

I use BT I cloud, it comes as part of the 'phone package we have. just been uprated to
5Gb which will take about 5000 pictures.

As it's with BT the security should be good and they also do regular back-ups and I don't think BT will be going bust soon.

 

[paul rimmer]

cloud storage

seems general advice is multiple back ups!

 

[TheBig1]

sorry to burst a few bubbles, but there is a major flaw with all cloud storage. read the terms and conditions VERY carefully and you will see

they dont guarantee the data will be safe
they reserve the right to do as they wish with the data

basically anything you upload, whether photos or documents, you no longer retain sole rights to the files and if the service loses them tough luck!

you need to back up to non volatile media on a regular basis and store the backups at another address. i have backups and data going back many years, to the time of windows 3 and DOS. I have found to my cost though that old floppy disks and tape cassettes lose their efficiency over a few years and thumb drives become unreliable as well. currently DVDs stored in a cool dry, dark place are the most reliable cheap way to do it. closely followed by hard drives, but as with anything mechanical, moving parts can seize up or wear out

I do an incremental backup of each laptop to a separate external hard drive every few days and then burn folders of pictures and documents to DVD as they build up or get transferred from the camera cards

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