Online Back Up Sites- Are They Reliable?

[Retired]

Online back up sites have flourished recently, but can you trust your most important data some, any or none of them?

Some insights into online back up sites can be found HERE, including the comments that follow the article.

What has been your experience with online back up sites?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I've never used them and never will for anything critical. I don't trust anything really important to other people and there's also the issue of privacy/confidentiality.

 

[Daniel E.]

What has been your experience with online back up sites?

Very good with Dell Datasafe, which offers a free trial of 2GB for the first year.

But Windows Live's SkyDrive, which I haven't tried yet, now offers 25 GB of online storage.

Regarding privacy concerns, most of the documents I have are so boring you couldn't pay people to read them. And I still use offline hard drives for backup.

 

[Retired]

Aside from leaving confidential information in someone else's possession, the other concern is for the possible demise of the site, as has already happened to some.

A potential benefit could be the ability to share files with someone else at another location. The confidentiality issue might be resolved by encrypting one's files locally then uploading to the back up site.

 

[Daniel E.]

the other concern is for the possible demise of the site, as has already happened to some.

Yes, which is why a name brand like Dell or Microsoft is important to me.

 

[Daniel E.]

For owners of Western Digital hard drives, Western Digital is now offering a free download of Acronis True Image, a popular (offline) backup software:

WD Support

This version contains most of the important features of the retail version.

 

[Jackie]

I don't like them at all, would much rather put my stuff onto a external hard drive, like the passport size one by Western D. Much safer!

 

[Retired]

It may be a useful resource for some backed up material but certainly should not be the only back up. I'd like to learn more about the method of encryption used by some of these sites.

Does encryption take place on my computer and is the data sent on the wire encrypted or does the encryption take place on the back up server?

 

[Daniel E.]

A twitter update (from a journalism professor who used to be the host of the old PBS show Computer Chronicles):

DropBox - Very cool app that lets you store up to 2GB of files in the cloud for free and access from any PC, Mac, or iPhone. More GB for $.

stewart cheifet (cheifet) on Twitter