DropBox Alternatives

[SMS]

With everyone dropping Dropbox because of what happened, I put together
a list of alternatives and the pricing:

Monthly Rate

Google Drive
------------
15 GB Free
100 GB $1.99
1 TB $9.99
10 TB $99.99
20 TB $199.99
30 TB $299.99

Spideroak
---------
2GB Free
100GB $10
($10 for each additional 10GB), i.e. 1TB would be $100

Microsoft OneDrive
------------------
7 GB Free
57 GB $25
107 GB $50
207 GB $100

Box.com
-------
10 GB Free
100 GB $5


Dropbox was no bargain anyway.

Dropbox
-------
2 GB Free
100 GB $9.99
200 GB $19.99
500 GB $49.99

[Roy]

If you are dropping Dropbox because of Heartbleed, you may be making a
bad assumption that the others didn't have the same bug.

Post by SMS
With everyone dropping Dropbox because of what happened, I put together
Monthly Rate
Google Drive
------------
15 GB Free
100 GB $1.99
1 TB $9.99
10 TB $99.99
20 TB $199.99
30 TB $299.99
Spideroak
---------
2GB Free
100GB $10
($10 for each additional 10GB), i.e. 1TB would be $100
Microsoft OneDrive
------------------
7 GB Free
57 GB $25
107 GB $50
207 GB $100
Box.com
-------
10 GB Free
100 GB $5
Dropbox was no bargain anyway.
Dropbox
-------
2 GB Free
100 GB $9.99
200 GB $19.99
500 GB $49.99

[sms]

Post by Roy
If you are dropping Dropbox because of Heartbleed, you may be making a
bad assumption that the others didn't have the same bug.

Nothing to do with Heartbleed.

<http://www.pcworld.com/article/2142286/drop-dropbox-protests-flare-as-wiretap-proponent-condoleezza-rice-joins-board.html>

[Steve Pope]

Post by sms

Post by Roy
If you are dropping Dropbox because of Heartbleed, you may be making a
bad assumption that the others didn't have the same bug.

Nothing to do with Heartbleed.
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/2142286/drop-dropbox-protests-flare-as-wiretap-proponent-condoleezza-rice-joins-board.html>

She is, or was, on the board of KQED as well.


Steve

[Keith Keller]

Post by SMS
With everyone dropping Dropbox because of what happened, I put together

What's the use case?

If you're just storing files for personal use, and are technically
competent, just do it yourself. (And if you're not technically
competent, how likely are you to reach the free limits?)

If you need to store files and have them shareable, odds are you'll
never hit most of the quoted limits, so you can get away with a free
account.

If you're storing files for your business, the quoted prices are
probably not applicable, as I'm guessing (and may be wrong of course)
that those are personal prices.

--keith

[sms]

Post by Keith Keller

Post by SMS
With everyone dropping Dropbox because of what happened, I put together

What's the use case?
If you're just storing files for personal use, and are technically
competent, just do it yourself. (And if you're not technically
competent, how likely are you to reach the free limits?)
If you need to store files and have them shareable, odds are you'll
never hit most of the quoted limits, so you can get away with a free
account.

If you're storing high-resolution photos you can easily reach that limit
even with compressed photos. A 10 megapixel camera generates jpg images
of about 2MB. 500 gets you to 1GB. Dropbox gives you 2GB free. Add in
videos and the storage requirements go up rapidly.

[SMS]

Post by sms

Post by Keith Keller

Post by SMS
With everyone dropping Dropbox because of what happened, I put together

What's the use case?
If you're just storing files for personal use, and are technically
competent, just do it yourself. (And if you're not technically
competent, how likely are you to reach the free limits?)
If you need to store files and have them shareable, odds are you'll
never hit most of the quoted limits, so you can get away with a free
account.

If you're storing high-resolution photos you can easily reach that limit
even with compressed photos. A 10 megapixel camera generates jpg images
of about 2MB. 500 gets you to 1GB. Dropbox gives you 2GB free. Add in
videos and the storage requirements go up rapidly.

Copy.com gives you 20GB of storage free. 15GB base then 5GB if you sign
up via a referral code (the person that refers you also gets an extra 5GB).

Use this link: <https://copy.com?r=HXilQt>.

[Travis James]

Post by SMS
Copy.com gives you 20GB of storage free. 15GB base then 5GB if you sign
up via a referral code (the person that refers you also gets an extra 5GB).
Use this link: <https://copy.com?r=HXilQt>.

I'm not sure what makes copy.com more reliable or trustworthy. There's
another established cloud sync service not on sms's list - SugarSync,
though they took away their free tier recently.

I've played around with some, not all, of the cloud providers mentioned
in the thread. For me, Dropbox is still the best. If Dr. Rice being on
the board bothers you, your right. I seriously doubt there will be a net
outflow of users or subscribers because of that.

[Peter Lawrence]

With everyone dropping Dropbox because of what happened, I put together a
Monthly Rate
Microsoft OneDrive
------------------
7 GB Free
57 GB $25
107 GB $50
207 GB $100

Note that Microsoft's OneDrive pricing is a *yearly* (not monthly) rate.


You also left off Amazon Cloud Drive pricing.

Amazon Cloud Drive
(Annual Subscription)
---------------------
5 GB Free
20 GB $10
50 GB $25
100 GB $50
200 GB $100
500 GB $250


- Peter

[Steve Pope]

Post by Peter Lawrence

Post by SMS
Microsoft OneDrive
------------------
7 GB Free
57 GB $25
107 GB $50
207 GB $100

Note that Microsoft's OneDrive pricing is a *yearly* (not monthly) rate.

I will note that Microsoft has at least two major instances of
not backing up user data and it was lost: Danger, and Hotmail.

I've tried to use Amazon Cloud but the download speed seems
excrutiatingly slow (at least for the free service).


Steve

[sms]

On 4/13/2014 10:32 AM, Peter Lawrence wrote:

<snip>

Post by Peter Lawrence
Note that Microsoft's OneDrive pricing is a *yearly* (not monthly) rate.
You also left off Amazon Cloud Drive pricing.

<snip>

You're right, thanks for catching that.

I put up my spreadsheet as a jpg at <Loading Image...>.

One good thing about Dropbox's boneheaded move is that it may have
caused people to actually look at the vastly different prices that
different companies charge for cloud storage.

[David Arnstein]

Post by sms
One good thing about Dropbox's boneheaded move is that it may have
caused people to actually look at the vastly different prices that
different companies charge for cloud storage.

Most of the constructive posts to this thread are in. So now I can
ask my annoying question.

Why would you ba.internet people, who are mostly computer-literate,
put your personal data in the hands of strangers? You could easily
assemble your own server. You have Skillz.

[Steve Pope]

Post by David Arnstein
Why would you ba.internet people, who are mostly computer-literate,
put your personal data in the hands of strangers? You could easily
assemble your own server. You have Skillz.

Generally because running and backing up a server benefits from economy
of scale. I could do it, but a professional can do it for
probably 10,000 customers with about the same time and effort.

Do I put really sensitive data on a cloud? No, but I might on
a shell account with some highly trustworthy ISP.

Steve

[Peter Lawrence]

Post by David Arnstein
Why would you ba.internet people, who are mostly computer-literate,
put your personal data in the hands of strangers? You could easily
assemble your own server. You have Skillz.

And where will one's server be located? On-site in their home? Off-site at
an additional cost? It's not about the ease of setting up a data server but
the ease of insuring successful data recovery if something happened to the
hard drives where the original data is stored.

I would never place all my data in one basket (be it on an on-site data
server or in "the cloud"). But having a backup copy of the data in the
cloud beats physically shuttling backup hard drives to and from a secure
off-site location.

Just my two cents...


- Peter

[Keith Keller]

Post by Peter Lawrence
And where will one's server be located? On-site in their home? Off-site at
an additional cost? It's not about the ease of setting up a data server but
the ease of insuring successful data recovery if something happened to the
hard drives where the original data is stored.

For someone with the aforementioned sk1llz, you can use an external
drive to create a backup (or, as I do, use hot-swap drive bays and
internal drives) that can be taken off-site (which could just be a
friend's house or your work office). Even someone without l33t sk1llz
could probably manage an external drive backup (e.g. with Time Machine
if they use OS X).

--keith

[Roy]

Post by Keith Keller

Post by Peter Lawrence
And where will one's server be located? On-site in their home? Off-site at
an additional cost? It's not about the ease of setting up a data server but
the ease of insuring successful data recovery if something happened to the
hard drives where the original data is stored.

For someone with the aforementioned sk1llz, you can use an external
drive to create a backup (or, as I do, use hot-swap drive bays and
internal drives) that can be taken off-site (which could just be a
friend's house or your work office). Even someone without l33t sk1llz
could probably manage an external drive backup (e.g. with Time Machine
if they use OS X).
--keith

Use an encrypted hard drive! Why should your friend or coworkers have
access to your data. Also if the drive is stolen, you only lost the
drive and not the contents.

If your drive doesn't have builtin support, use a tool like Truecrypt to
encrypt the drive.

My system is to have a USB drive at work. I logon to the work computer
remotely and mount the encrypted drive. I then do a delta copy to the
drive and then dismount it. Repeat at least weekly.

[Thad Floryan]

Post by Peter Lawrence
[...]
I would never place all my data in one basket (be it on an on-site data
server or in "the cloud").

Ditto.

Post by Peter Lawrence
But having a backup copy of the data in the cloud beats physically
shuttling backup hard drives to and from a secure off-site location.

Oh? How long would it take YOU to download 1+ TB of data from whatever
your "cloud" is over your Internet connection?

Unless your secure off-site location isn't available 24/7/365 or it's
in another state, it still seems a better solution than any cloud over
a typical home Internet connection.

Note that a "secure off-site location" could simply be a fire-/water-
proof safe at a friend's home (and vice versa for your friend at your
home).

People are accumulating humongous amounts of "data" (movies, pictures,
books, music, etc.) and with the price of today's multi-TB disks it's
a no-brainer to have additional HDs for off-site backup.

The "cloud" has demonstrated time and time again it's not reliable
(think Amazon, Microsoft/Danger/T-Mobile, and 100s more).

Thad

[David Kaye]

Post by Thad Floryan
Oh? How long would it take YOU to download 1+ TB of data from whatever
your "cloud" is over your Internet connection?

A customer who uses Carbonite for his backup asked me how long it would take
to restore his data if a problem happened with his hard drive. I asked how
long it took him to back it up in the first place. "Three days", he said.
Well, I said that it would probably take him three days to get it back.
"But I can't wait that long..."

Now, I haven't investigated Carbonite's return trip, but I do know that most
installations upload data at about 56kb unless the person's paying a premium
for faster throughput. I assume it'd be the same way coming back down
again.

[Peter Lawrence]

Post by Thad Floryan

Post by Peter Lawrence
[...]
I would never place all my data in one basket (be it on an on-site data
server or in "the cloud").

Ditto.

Post by Peter Lawrence
But having a backup copy of the data in the cloud beats physically
shuttling backup hard drives to and from a secure off-site location.

Oh? How long would it take YOU to download 1+ TB of data from whatever
your "cloud" is over your Internet connection?
Unless your secure off-site location isn't available 24/7/365 or it's
in another state, it still seems a better solution than any cloud over
a typical home Internet connection.
Note that a "secure off-site location" could simply be a fire-/water-
proof safe at a friend's home (and vice versa for your friend at your
home).
People are accumulating humongous amounts of "data" (movies, pictures,
books, music, etc.) and with the price of today's multi-TB disks it's
a no-brainer to have additional HDs for off-site backup.
The "cloud" has demonstrated time and time again it's not reliable
(think Amazon, Microsoft/Danger/T-Mobile, and 100s more).
Thad

I don't backup TBs of data to the cloud. Not all of my data is THAT
valuable. And I wouldn't trust leaving my backup hard drives (encrypted or
not) at a friend's house or at my work.

What I do for my less valuable data that I won't need to restore right away
if it got damaged or deleted is to backup the data to a portable USB hard
drive and store the hard drive off-site in a waterproof container at my
private storage unit (which constructed out of metal, reinforced cinder
block and concrete). The storage units also have overhead automatic fire
suppression sprinkler heads (hence the need for the hard drives to stored in
a waterproof container).

And while nothing is 100% reliable, the "cloud" has been demonstrated to
reliable enough to be a valid backup option. And it's also especially handy
for any data you might want to share with others too.


- Peter

[Roy]

Post by Thad Floryan

Post by Peter Lawrence
[...]
I would never place all my data in one basket (be it on an on-site data
server or in "the cloud").

Ditto.

Post by Peter Lawrence
But having a backup copy of the data in the cloud beats physically
shuttling backup hard drives to and from a secure off-site location.

Oh? How long would it take YOU to download 1+ TB of data from whatever
your "cloud" is over your Internet connection?
,,,

Just as an FYI, Carbonite has an option where they will ship you your
files overnight

[Jeff Liebermann]

Post by Thad Floryan
Oh? How long would it take YOU to download 1+ TB of data from whatever
your "cloud" is over your Internet connection?

We've been through this before, so I won't repeat the details. I do
image backups of servers, laptops, and desktops. (NAS boxes are a
problem). With USB 3.0, I can do about 3 MBytes/second. A typical
desktop, with 15 GBytes of bloat, will take maybe 10 minutes to backup
everything. The most common problem I have to deal with is a dead
hard disk drive. I shove in a new drive, restore the image backup in
about the same time it took to backup, and I'm back up with zero
reconfiguration (except sometimes using gparted to repartition the
drive). Cloud backups have been very useful for moving files around
and creating security problems. In my never humble opinion, cloud
storage is useless for backup due to the backup size and time
involved.

[sms]

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by Thad Floryan
Oh? How long would it take YOU to download 1+ TB of data from whatever
your "cloud" is over your Internet connection?

We've been through this before, so I won't repeat the details. I do
image backups of servers, laptops, and desktops. (NAS boxes are a
problem). With USB 3.0, I can do about 3 MBytes/second. A typical
desktop, with 15 GBytes of bloat, will take maybe 10 minutes to backup
everything. The most common problem I have to deal with is a dead
hard disk drive. I shove in a new drive, restore the image backup in
about the same time it took to backup, and I'm back up with zero
reconfiguration (except sometimes using gparted to repartition the
drive). Cloud backups have been very useful for moving files around
and creating security problems. In my never humble opinion, cloud
storage is useless for backup due to the backup size and time
involved.

Cloud storage is used more for documents, photos, etc. Not for backups.

[Jeff Liebermann]

Post by sms
Cloud storage is used more for documents, photos, etc. Not for backups.

Please tell that to the various vendors. Googling for "cloud storage
backup", I find almost all the major vendors suggesting that their
service is suitable for backup. How about a list of 39 "online
backup" services?
<http://pcsupport.about.com/od/maintenance/tp/online_backup_services.htm>

[Keith Keller]

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by sms
Cloud storage is used more for documents, photos, etc. Not for backups.

Please tell that to the various vendors. Googling for "cloud storage
backup", I find almost all the major vendors suggesting that their
service is suitable for backup.

I imagine they carefully don't say exactly what constitutes a "backup".
They don't want to say that it's good for backing up small data sets
because they just want people using it, whether it's suitable for their
data size or not.

--keith

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 14 Apr 2014 11:02:01 -0700, Keith Keller

Post by Keith Keller
I imagine they carefully don't say exactly what constitutes a "backup".
They don't want to say that it's good for backing up small data sets
because they just want people using it, whether it's suitable for their
data size or not.

Yep. But that's also epidemic with the software that comes with the
various USB and NAS backup drives. Most seem to think that backing up
the user files under "C:\Users" is sufficient. By coincidence, I'm
having one of those problems today. The customer has a very nice HP
NAS box that included some strange Windoze software for backup. Her
hard disk drive had died, so I arrived with a replacement, expecting a
1 hr restore from an image backup. Instead, I need to reload Windoze
7 from the recovery DVD's which she fortunately found, install all the
OS updates, reinstall all her software (if she can find the activation
codes), and when all that's done, restore the files under "C:\Users"
which includes dealing with multiple versioned copies on the backup
drive. I took the laptop home and am slowly slogging through the
process. My guess is about 5-7 billable hours (including delivering
the machine), and probably 2-3 days elapsed time. All that work could
have been prevented if she had been doing image backups and backups
only of files that have changed since the last image backup. Argh.

Cloud backup is much the same. It backs up the stuff under "C:\Users"
and whatever other directories are specified. Granted, those are the
most important files, but that doesn't do much for the time and
expense of the recovery.

[Steve Pope]

Post by sms
Cloud storage is used more for documents, photos, etc. Not for backups.

Well, I use it as a backup, in the sense that the cloud is offsite
(from the perspective of my home office), and therefore data
on the cloud would survive a catastrophic loss of home office data.

Steve

[Roy]

Post by Steve Pope

Post by sms
Cloud storage is used more for documents, photos, etc. Not for backups.

Well, I use it as a backup, in the sense that the cloud is offsite
(from the perspective of my home office), and therefore data
on the cloud would survive a catastrophic loss of home office data.
Steve

I recommend at least three backups. Two onsite and one offsite.

If your hard drive crashes, you can restore it quickly from one of the
local ones. If your house burns down, you have the offsite one.

[Steve Pope]

Post by Roy

Post by Steve Pope

Post by sms
Cloud storage is used more for documents, photos, etc. Not for backups.

Well, I use it as a backup, in the sense that the cloud is offsite
(from the perspective of my home office), and therefore data
on the cloud would survive a catastrophic loss of home office data.
Steve

I recommend at least three backups. Two onsite and one offsite.
If your hard drive crashes, you can restore it quickly from one of the
local ones. If your house burns down, you have the offsite one.

Very good thinking.

Steve

[Jeff Liebermann]

Post by Steve Pope
Well, I use it as a backup, in the sense that the cloud is offsite
(from the perspective of my home office), and therefore data
on the cloud would survive a catastrophic loss of home office data.
Steve

Careful what you wish for.

It's late at night, and there's a knock at the door. It's the
government agents with a warrant for your arrest who are planning to
confiscate your computah. No problem. You rush over to your desktop,
and erase everything in your DropBox. No evidence, therefore no
crime. Well, not quite:
<https://www.dropbox.com/help/296/en>
<https://www.dropbox.com/help/113/en>
The files just will not go away. I even tried overwriting them with
multiple junk files having the same filenames, and DropBox just
created multiple versions. For the criminal market segment, DropBox
just will not work without a secure erase feature.

[Roy]

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by Steve Pope
Well, I use it as a backup, in the sense that the cloud is offsite
(from the perspective of my home office), and therefore data
on the cloud would survive a catastrophic loss of home office data.
Steve

Careful what you wish for.
It's late at night, and there's a knock at the door. It's the
government agents with a warrant for your arrest who are planning to
confiscate your computah. No problem. You rush over to your desktop,
and erase everything in your DropBox. No evidence, therefore no
<https://www.dropbox.com/help/296/en>
<https://www.dropbox.com/help/113/en>
The files just will not go away. I even tried overwriting them with
multiple junk files having the same filenames, and DropBox just
created multiple versions. For the criminal market segment, DropBox
just will not work without a secure erase feature.

Lets not get overly dramatic. If you ran over (without being tackled
and handcuffed) and did erase *.*, they could still recover the files
from your hard drive with or without Dropbox.

[Travis James]

Post by Jeff Liebermann

Post by Steve Pope
Well, I use it as a backup, in the sense that the cloud is offsite
(from the perspective of my home office), and therefore data
on the cloud would survive a catastrophic loss of home office data.
Steve

Careful what you wish for.
It's late at night, and there's a knock at the door. It's the
government agents with a warrant for your arrest who are planning to
confiscate your computah. No problem. You rush over to your desktop,
and erase everything in your DropBox. No evidence, therefore no
<https://www.dropbox.com/help/296/en>
<https://www.dropbox.com/help/113/en>
The files just will not go away. I even tried overwriting them with
multiple junk files having the same filenames, and DropBox just
created multiple versions. For the criminal market segment, DropBox
just will not work without a secure erase feature.

"How do I delete files ..."

https://www.dropbox.com/help/40/en

The 30-day version history has saved me from some mistaken deletions.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2014 08:06:17 -0700, Travis James

Post by Travis James
"How do I delete files ..."
https://www.dropbox.com/help/40/en
The 30-day version history has saved me from some mistaken deletions.

As we explain in our Privacy Policy, it may take some time
for a file to be purged completely from our system after a
permanent deletion. Also, if other Dropbox users have the
same files as the ones you permanently delete, we keep their
files around after your deletion.

<https://www.dropbox.com/privacy2014>
We'll retain information you store on our Services for as
long as we need it to provide you the Services.
Huh? What does that mean (in English)?

So, how long is "some time"? Hours, days, weeks? My guess(tm) is
that's probably quite long to give time for law enforcement to harvest
evidence. I can easily guess what Dr Rice's policy will be towards
retaining erased data. What I need is a criminal friendly err...
privacy friendly, cloud storage service.

As for permanent deletion on my own computer, I was thinking of a
thermite charge over the hard disk drive. Something like this:
<http://hackaday.com/2008/09/16/how-to-thermite-based-hard-drive-anti-forensic-destruction/>

[d***@98.usenet.us.com]

Post by Jeff Liebermann
So, how long is "some time"? Hours, days, weeks? My guess(tm) is

They use data de-duplication, so keeping your deleted copy of a file that
happens to be identical to another user's copy of the same file is pain
free. They probably don't delete it, ever.

Post by Jeff Liebermann
As for permanent deletion on my own computer, I was thinking of a

I had some old computers that I finally sent off to recycle.
A couple of them I just did a dd of zeroes for a while. Some data is still
lying around out there if someone wants to take a look at zeroes for the
first few GB.

I ran something called the IBM Secure Data Disposal bootable CD on one of
them. In the default mode, it zeroes the first and last few blocks of each
partition, then the partitions, and leaves a boot block that brings up a
message saying it has been erased securely by IBM SDD.

[Travis James]

Post by d***@98.usenet.us.com

Post by Jeff Liebermann
So, how long is "some time"? Hours, days, weeks? My guess(tm) is

They use data de-duplication, so keeping your deleted copy of a file that
happens to be identical to another user's copy of the same file is pain
free. They probably don't delete it, ever.

Right. If I securely delete an MP3 of Happy by Pharrell, the pointer to
to a master is removed, but 10,000 other people have the same file so
the master stays. What's the big deal. If I delete my PG&E statement, it
probably goes -- some time since it won't match any other in their file
system.

[Steve Pope]

Post by Travis James

Post by d***@98.usenet.us.com
They use data de-duplication, so keeping your deleted copy of a file that
happens to be identical to another user's copy of the same file is pain
free. They probably don't delete it, ever.

Right. If I securely delete an MP3 of Happy by Pharrell, the pointer to
to a master is removed, but 10,000 other people have the same file so
the master stays. What's the big deal. If I delete my PG&E statement, it
probably goes -- some time since it won't match any other in their file
system.

So, while Amazon Cloud gives you certain number of GB "free", if
(as they hope) its filled with mp3's and mp4's you have bought
from Amazon, they don't have to create any new storage for those.

This may also explain why downloading a (purchased) mp3 from Amazon
Cloud is so excruciatingly slow.

Steve

[Travis James]

Post by Jeff Liebermann
On Tue, 15 Apr 2014 08:06:17 -0700, Travis James

Post by Travis James
"How do I delete files ..."
https://www.dropbox.com/help/40/en
The 30-day version history has saved me from some mistaken deletions.

As we explain in our Privacy Policy, it may take some time
for a file to be purged completely from our system after a
permanent deletion. Also, if other Dropbox users have the
same files as the ones you permanently delete, we keep their
files around after your deletion.
<https://www.dropbox.com/privacy2014>
We'll retain information you store on our Services for as
long as we need it to provide you the Services.
Huh? What does that mean (in English)?

Their retention is likely tied to whether the master copy is identical
to one others also have. If it's something that may reappear, it's kept
for awhile and then permanently removed at some point. So what?

Post by Jeff Liebermann
So, how long is "some time"? Hours, days, weeks? My guess(tm) is
that's probably quite long to give time for law enforcement to harvest
evidence. I can easily guess what Dr Rice's policy will be towards
retaining erased data. What I need is a criminal friendly err...
privacy friendly, cloud storage service.

She's not CEO. She's part of a diverse board, nothing unusual about
that. I won't lose a wink of sleep over this -- and nothing will happen.

[Steve Pope]

Post by Jeff Liebermann
We've been through this before, so I won't repeat the details. I do
image backups of servers, laptops, and desktops. (NAS boxes are a
problem). With USB 3.0, I can do about 3 MBytes/second. A typical
desktop, with 15 GBytes of bloat, will take maybe 10 minutes to backup
everything. The most common problem I have to deal with is a dead
hard disk drive. I shove in a new drive, restore the image backup in
about the same time it took to backup, and I'm back up with zero
reconfiguration (except sometimes using gparted to repartition the
drive). Cloud backups have been very useful for moving files around
and creating security problems. In my never humble opinion, cloud
storage is useless for backup due to the backup size and time
involved.

It is probably largely useless. But, supposing I have a camera
full of images and I am traveling. I can transfer them all
to my laptop; then I can upload them all to Amazon cloud
(might take overnight, it might have to be re-started a
few times). I then know they are backed up in
two separate places, and can therefore delete them from my camera.

But this scenario is much simpler than the general problem
of backing up drives and computers, which would probably fail
for some reason or another. The disconnects and failures
would interfere too much with your backup routines.


Steve

[Roy]

Post by Steve Pope
...
It is probably largely useless. But, supposing I have a camera
full of images and I am traveling. I can transfer them all
to my laptop; then I can upload them all to Amazon cloud
(might take overnight, it might have to be re-started a
few times). I then know they are backed up in
two separate places, and can therefore delete them from my camera.
But this scenario is much simpler than the general problem
of backing up drives and computers, which would probably fail
for some reason or another. The disconnects and failures
would interfere too much with your backup routines.
Steve

I copy the photos to my laptop and then to a USB stick (or two) and then
wipe the camera.

[Steve Pope]

Post by Roy

Post by Steve Pope
It is probably largely useless. But, supposing I have a camera
full of images and I am traveling. I can transfer them all
to my laptop; then I can upload them all to Amazon cloud
(might take overnight, it might have to be re-started a
few times). I then know they are backed up in
two separate places, and can therefore delete them from my camera.
But this scenario is much simpler than the general problem
of backing up drives and computers, which would probably fail
for some reason or another. The disconnects and failures
would interfere too much with your backup routines.

I copy the photos to my laptop and then to a USB stick (or two) and then
wipe the camera.

That works, except if both your laptop and your USB stick get
ciped, you have lost your photos.


Steve

[Roy]

Another high security cloud backup system

https://tresorit.com/

5GB free and it also does encryption on the computer

[poldy]

Post by Steve Pope

Post by Jeff Liebermann
We've been through this before, so I won't repeat the details. I do
image backups of servers, laptops, and desktops. (NAS boxes are a
problem). With USB 3.0, I can do about 3 MBytes/second. A typical
desktop, with 15 GBytes of bloat, will take maybe 10 minutes to backup
everything. The most common problem I have to deal with is a dead
hard disk drive. I shove in a new drive, restore the image backup in
about the same time it took to backup, and I'm back up with zero
reconfiguration (except sometimes using gparted to repartition the
drive). Cloud backups have been very useful for moving files around
and creating security problems. In my never humble opinion, cloud
storage is useless for backup due to the backup size and time
involved.

It is probably largely useless. But, supposing I have a camera
full of images and I am traveling. I can transfer them all
to my laptop; then I can upload them all to Amazon cloud
(might take overnight, it might have to be re-started a
few times). I then know they are backed up in
two separate places, and can therefore delete them from my camera.
But this scenario is much simpler than the general problem
of backing up drives and computers, which would probably fail
for some reason or another. The disconnects and failures
would interfere too much with your backup routines.
Steve

I use the backup feature of iCloud on my iOS devices. Never had to
restore yet but I did have local backups before and those restored fine
so presumably they just store the same backup files online.

I don't use the Photostream feature. Just returned from a trip where
the hotels I stayed in all had upload speeds well under 1 Mbps,
sometimes even download speeds were under 1 Mbps.

I was shooting about 3-4 GB of RAW files a day. Copied the files to the
internal drive of a laptop and also to a USB 3 portable drive.

By now, most hotels around the world have some kind of consultants
managing their Internet, so online backup of a lot of data just doesn't
seem feasible.

[Steve Pope]

Post by poldy
I use the backup feature of iCloud on my iOS devices. Never had to
restore yet but I did have local backups before and those restored fine
so presumably they just store the same backup files online.
I don't use the Photostream feature. Just returned from a trip where
the hotels I stayed in all had upload speeds well under 1 Mbps,
sometimes even download speeds were under 1 Mbps.
I was shooting about 3-4 GB of RAW files a day. Copied the files to the
internal drive of a laptop and also to a USB 3 portable drive.
By now, most hotels around the world have some kind of consultants
managing their Internet, so online backup of a lot of data just doesn't
seem feasible.

If you stay in AirBNB's instead of hotels, it is much more feasible.

Steve

[Jeff Liebermann]

Post by Steve Pope

Post by Jeff Liebermann
We've been through this before, so I won't repeat the details. I do
image backups of servers, laptops, and desktops. (NAS boxes are a
problem). With USB 3.0, I can do about 3 MBytes/second. A typical
desktop, with 15 GBytes of bloat, will take maybe 10 minutes to backup
everything. The most common problem I have to deal with is a dead
hard disk drive. I shove in a new drive, restore the image backup in
about the same time it took to backup, and I'm back up with zero
reconfiguration (except sometimes using gparted to repartition the
drive). Cloud backups have been very useful for moving files around
and creating security problems. In my never humble opinion, cloud
storage is useless for backup due to the backup size and time
involved.

It is probably largely useless.

What is probably largely useless? An image backup?

Post by Steve Pope
But, supposing I have a camera
full of images and I am traveling. I can transfer them all
to my laptop; then I can upload them all to Amazon cloud
(might take overnight, it might have to be re-started a
few times). I then know they are backed up in
two separate places, and can therefore delete them from my camera.

I don't do much traveling but the few 3rd rate hotels that I've stayed
at usually have a simple cable or DSL connection. Upload speeds are
strictly limited. I'm told that more classy hotels have bandwidth
limiters on both up and download. Copying a large number of files
offsite is probably not going to be very effective.

Post by Steve Pope
But this scenario is much simpler than the general problem
of backing up drives and computers, which would probably fail
for some reason or another. The disconnects and failures
would interfere too much with your backup routines.

My backup routine is based on an image backup, which boots from a
CDROM, does not use the internet, and works very quickly (with USB
3.0). I have several customers that do much what you do when
traveling. They shoot uncompressed images and videos. I usually
partition the hard disk with a separate section for "archival" images
and videos. They get backed up separately. In all cases, they have
some kind of USB hard drive, onto which the images and videos are
copied nightly. When they get back home or office, they unload the
USB drive into the NAS box, burn a BluRay disk, or whatever. Oddly,
the procedure was contrived to deal with lost laptops, but it the USB
drives that seem to be disappearing.

From my warped perspective, the could backup schemes are nothing more
than yet another way to avoid doing a backup. To be totally
transparent about this, I really don't care if the customer loses
their pictures and videos. That's NOT my problem as I'm not being
paid to act as a private guardian of their photos. What I care about
is the time and effort necessary to restore their hard disk in the
event of a crash or failure (i.e. virus trashout or ransomware).
Backing up only the data, as in Dropbox, add a huge amount of work to
the recovery, which is the only reason I even mentioned an image
backup in this discussion.

[d***@98.usenet.us.com]

Post by Jeff Liebermann
Backing up only the data, as in Dropbox, add a huge amount of work to
the recovery, which is the only reason I even mentioned an image
backup in this discussion.

Oh, you've actually _restored_ from backup? ;-)
Not many people have.

When I was doing lots of backups per night, people were flabbergasted at
how long, and how useless, Veritas "Bare Metal" backup was.

Cloning is cleaner.

[Jeff Liebermann]

Post by d***@98.usenet.us.com

Post by Jeff Liebermann
Backing up only the data, as in Dropbox, add a huge amount of work to
the recovery, which is the only reason I even mentioned an image
backup in this discussion.

Oh, you've actually _restored_ from backup? ;-)
Not many people have.

With Acronis True Image 2013, restore seems to go faster than backup.
I haven't timed it. I do quite a few restores when I'm doing a drive
transplant. I do the image backup of the old drive, swap in the new
drive, and restore. Except for backups of known corrupted hard disks
(usually dying drives), I've had no surprises or problems.

Post by d***@98.usenet.us.com
When I was doing lots of backups per night, people were flabbergasted at
how long, and how useless, Veritas "Bare Metal" backup was.

Yeah, I also went through that era when backing up was close to magic
and took forever. I'm glad those days are over. I never used
Veritas, mostly because of the price.

Post by d***@98.usenet.us.com
Cloning is cleaner.

Yep.

[Roy]

Post by David Arnstein

Post by sms
One good thing about Dropbox's boneheaded move is that it may have
caused people to actually look at the vastly different prices that
different companies charge for cloud storage.

Most of the constructive posts to this thread are in. So now I can
ask my annoying question.
Why would you ba.internet people, who are mostly computer-literate,
put your personal data in the hands of strangers? You could easily
assemble your own server. You have Skillz.

If you are talking backup, I tend to agree. However, Dropbox et al also
include copying the files to other computers automatically. That is a
nice feature.

The trick to using these securely is to encrypt the files on your
computers so the cloud has encrypted copies only.

One of these services SpiderOak does just that

https://spideroak.com/faq/questions/3/does_spideroak_use_encryption_when_storing_and_transferring_data

[David Kaye]

Post by David Arnstein
Why would you ba.internet people, who are mostly computer-literate,
put your personal data in the hands of strangers? You could easily
assemble your own server. You have Skillz.

I don't use a cloud backup. I did briefly for non-personal data but I was
afraid that I'd accidentally save a file to the wrong directory and wind up
putting my passwords or bank data on someone's cloud.

So, for my purposes, I have an automatic once daily backup of my \Documents
tree to a second drive, and I copy that tree to a memory stick every day or
two, which I keep away from home. The stuff that is not in the \Documents
tree is going to be stuff that is easily replaceable or programs where I'm
going to be screwed anyway should I lose my HD. I do keep a copy of
installation CDs and DVDs on a memory stick, assuming that they'll install
as properly from the stick as from the CD/DVD.

[Peter Lawrence]

Post by sms
<snip>

Post by Peter Lawrence
Note that Microsoft's OneDrive pricing is a *yearly* (not monthly) rate.
You also left off Amazon Cloud Drive pricing.

<snip>
You're right, thanks for catching that.
I put up my spreadsheet as a jpg at <http://oi58.tinypic.com/5dq61v.jpg>.
One good thing about Dropbox's boneheaded move is that it may have caused
people to actually look at the vastly different prices that different
companies charge for cloud storage.

One thing you might want to add to your spreadsheet is the native support
these cloud services have for various computing platforms. While most have
native apps for Mac OS X, Windows 8.1, iOS and Android devices. Do they
also have native apps for Windows Phone, Linux or other OSes like Amazon
Kindle's Fire OS?

Especially when it comes to sharing one's documents and photos (and other
data files) across different computer, tablet and smartphone platforms, the
more platforms supported the better.


- Peter

[sms]

On 4/13/2014 10:20 PM, Peter Lawrence wrote:

<snip>

Post by Peter Lawrence
One thing you might want to add to your spreadsheet is the native
support these cloud services have for various computing platforms.

Okay I did that. Probably some mistakes there as the various services
often don't explicitly say which platforms they support and don't
support. Google Drive apparently doesn't officially support Linux but
there is a Linux client from another source.

Here is the link on Google Drive
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj3rLYJpEKhkdGgtamdYdEVpTXZTUWFFRHRMVk5CaHc&usp=sharing>
or <http://tinyurl.com/cloud-cost-comparison>. I think that this is
better than a JPEG.

My takeaway from this effort is that Google Drive is the best option
unless you need Kindle or Xbox support

Comments, complaints, insults, are encouraged.

Lost in all the noise about Dropbox and Condi Rice was their
announcement that they have a new product that allows collaboration on
Microsoft Office files. This is a very useful feature. On Google you can
can collaborate on Google Docs but not on Office documents. Too bad for
them that now everyone is talking about something else.

[Peter Lawrence]

Post by sms
<snip>

Post by Peter Lawrence
One thing you might want to add to your spreadsheet is the native
support these cloud services have for various computing platforms.

Okay I did that. Probably some mistakes there as the various services often
don't explicitly say which platforms they support and don't support. Google
Drive apparently doesn't officially support Linux but there is a Linux
client from another source.

Thanks for adding that information.

Post by sms
Here is the link on Google Drive
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj3rLYJpEKhkdGgtamdYdEVpTXZTUWFFRHRMVk5CaHc&usp=sharing>
or <http://tinyurl.com/cloud-cost-comparison>. I think that this is better
than a JPEG.

Yes, it's a lot easier to read as a Google doc.

Post by sms
My takeaway from this effort is that Google Drive is the best option unless
you need Kindle or Xbox support
Comments, complaints, insults, are encouraged.

I didn't find any native apps support for Windows Phone smartphones for
either Google Drive or Dropbox, just third party apps, so I think those
boxes should be switched from green to yellow.


- Peter

[poldy]

Post by Peter Lawrence

Post by sms
<snip>

Post by Peter Lawrence
Note that Microsoft's OneDrive pricing is a *yearly* (not monthly) rate.
You also left off Amazon Cloud Drive pricing.

<snip>
You're right, thanks for catching that.
I put up my spreadsheet as a jpg at <http://oi58.tinypic.com/5dq61v.jpg>.
One good thing about Dropbox's boneheaded move is that it may have caused
people to actually look at the vastly different prices that different
companies charge for cloud storage.

One thing you might want to add to your spreadsheet is the native support
these cloud services have for various computing platforms. While most have
native apps for Mac OS X, Windows 8.1, iOS and Android devices. Do they
also have native apps for Windows Phone, Linux or other OSes like Amazon
Kindle's Fire OS?
Especially when it comes to sharing one's documents and photos (and other
data files) across different computer, tablet and smartphone platforms, the
more platforms supported the better.
- Peter

Not only that, it seems some apps. support DB but not the others from
within the apps for syncing data files and such.

[sms]

Updated: <tinyurl.com/cloudcomparison>

[Roy]

Post by sms
Updated: <tinyurl.com/cloudcomparison>

Tresorit

https://tresorit.com/

[Roy]

Post by Roy

Post by sms
Updated: <tinyurl.com/cloudcomparison>

Tresorit
https://tresorit.com/

Here is another. Its run by LaCie

Wuala

http://www.wuala.com/

Found it while reading this article on Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage Security

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/042114-secure-cloud-storage-280838.html

[sms]

Post by Roy

Post by sms
Updated: <tinyurl.com/cloudcomparison>

Tresorit
https://tresorit.com/

There are probably a hundred different providers. Tresorit is so
expensive that I think I'll have a cutoff of $10/month for 100GB. Except
I'll leave Apple iCloud on there.

[Roy]

Post by sms

Post by Roy

Post by sms
Updated: <tinyurl.com/cloudcomparison>

Tresorit
https://tresorit.com/

There are probably a hundred different providers. Tresorit is so
expensive that I think I'll have a cutoff of $10/month for 100GB. Except
I'll leave Apple iCloud on there.

I mention Tresorit, SpiderOak, and Wuala because of their security as
compared to the others.

[Peter Lawrence]

Post by Roy

Post by sms
Updated: <tinyurl.com/cloudcomparison>

Tresorit
https://tresorit.com/

There are probably a hundred different providers. Tresorit is so expensive
that I think I'll have a cutoff of $10/month for 100GB. Except I'll leave
Apple iCloud on there.

There's also Mountain View based Bitcasa: https://www.bitcasa.com/

Yearly pricing (monthly rates also available at about a 20% higher price):

20 GB - Free

1 TB - $99/year
5 TB - $499/year

Unlimited - $999/year


- Peter

[Peter Lawrence]

Post by sms
Updated: <tinyurl.com/cloudcomparison>

Thanks.

On thing I find interesting is that Box's 100 GB "Starter" plan for one user
is, overall, a lot better deal than their 100 GB "Personal" plan.

Basically, for half the price of the "Personal" plan, a one-user "Starter"
plan gets the same amount of storage with more functionality.

The only advantage that Box's "Personal" plan has over its one-user
"Starter" plan is its higher single-file size limit (5GB vs. 2GB).

https://www.box.com/pricing/


- Peter

[Travis James]

Post by SMS
With everyone dropping Dropbox because of what happened, I put together

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/05/29/dropbox-reaches-300m-users-adding-100m-users-just-six-months/