What Is Your Offsite Storage Solution?
We're talking data here, not your funky old couch and cassette collection. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is reviewing six solutions for stuffing all your data in the cloud [1]. He reviews Amazon CloudDrive, Box, Dropbox, GoogleDrive, OneDrive, and SpiderOak. He then concludes, lamely , "I can't tell you what the perfect cloud storage is because there's no such thing. It all depends on your needs."
OK, so the article was clickbait, and I'll stick with my current back-up solution: burning lots of DVDs, labelling, and then mailing them offsite in case my house burns down. I'm guessing the Pipedot community can do better: what offsite services do you use and recommend? Any providers you'd avoid? What's the best option for a small business hoping to maintain access to docs from different locations and systems? What's the best option for a homebody nerd making sure his carefully curated collection of .. um .. downloaded images stays backed up in case of catastrophic hardware failures at home?
[1]Footnote: Interesting article, but also a test of whether you have successfully installed this browser plug-in .
OK, so the article was clickbait, and I'll stick with my current back-up solution: burning lots of DVDs, labelling, and then mailing them offsite in case my house burns down. I'm guessing the Pipedot community can do better: what offsite services do you use and recommend? Any providers you'd avoid? What's the best option for a small business hoping to maintain access to docs from different locations and systems? What's the best option for a homebody nerd making sure his carefully curated collection of .. um .. downloaded images stays backed up in case of catastrophic hardware failures at home?
[1]Footnote: Interesting article, but also a test of whether you have successfully installed this browser plug-in .
To me, as a programmer who writes not only programs but short stories and novels and can't remember what he ate for breakfast (even though it's the same thing every morning), the very thought of permanently losing everything digital scares the hell out of me. My life are those programs, stories, and notes / articles I have stored. I'd rather lose all the rest of my earthly possessions than lose everything on my hard drive. I couldn't get in touch with all of my friends again (scattered across the world) if I lost the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of everyone I know stored only in hard drives and backups.
Most of today's business couldn't live if they lost what was put on storage. Frankly, it amazes me so many companies trust "the cloud" especially when companies or technologies come and go at a whim. I think cloud storage can be great, but I see it as a way to supplement, not replace my hard drive technologies. I wouldn't use the cloud as my only backup because I don't trust their security. It's another reason I'd like to roll my own backup because I'd be in control of the encryption program -- not them. (It's another thing in my design notes.) Also, the cloud cost a lot of money for the sizes I'm talking about. Well, it's a lot of money for me. Also, I don't think my ISP would like me downloading 200+ GB every week for my usual check in addition to my usual surfing.
I know not everyone places the same emphasis as I do on their bytes and bits. I just mention all of it merely as food for thought.