Kent Newsome on technology, music and life

9/17/2006


Online Backup: It's the Speed and Security that Kills

TechCrunch has a post about Carbonite, an online storage seller and backup application, that also touches on other online backup solutions such as Mozy, GDrive and the upcoming Microsoft Live Drive.

In theory, online storage is a great idea.  I have used Box.Net and recently X-Drive.  All of these applications have neat features.  But when you start talking about online backup, there are two problems that none of them can solve.  Two problems that, as far as I can see, will always be an inherent limitation to online backup.

The first is speed.  Even over broadband, it takes a long, long time to upload gigabyte upon gigabyte of data.  Carbonite tries to address this problem by doing the uploading over a number of days.  I like the idea, but that only mitigates the problem.  The problem is still a problem.

Personally, I do my backup two ways.  Weekly to a networked server, using FilebackPC.  Periodically to either a removable hard drive, for big files like music, or via a DVD-R, for documents, etc.  That way I have redundant backup, both local and off-site (in a safe at my office). It's not a perfect solution, but if you configure FilebackPC correctly and remember to backup to removable hard drives and DVDs semi-regularly, it's pretty comprehensive.

The other problem is security.  There is some data that I am happy to backup online.  Half-written songs, letters, and other stuff that would probably bore any interloper to tears.  But I'm nowhere close to comfortable backing up bank and financial records online.  I'm sure there's all sorts of security in place in most online storage applications, but if I'm here and it's there, logic tells me I have added another layer of risk.

This is not to say that there isn't a place for online storage.  But I think most of us are a long way from relying on online storage for backing up our most personal and important data.

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, if anyone wants to give it a shot.

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Posted by Kent @ 9/17/2006 08:20:00 PM | Permalink

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5 Comment(s):

Security and Identity will be issues Kent. but these are web industry issues we'll all have to solve.

Regarding speed, see point 35 here:

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2006/09/13/future-of-online-storage-40-points-to-think-about/

By Anonymous Jeremiah Owyang, at 9/17/2006 11:09 PM  
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Kent, Mozy is fully encrypted, you can pick your own private key and even they can't access your files. Speed is only an issue for the very first time, after that it does incremental backups, not on file but byte level, which is really important: see more here.

By Anonymous Zoli Erdos, at 9/17/2006 11:30 PM  
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Hi, Kent, for a secure, fast and reliable backups of all your important data you have to try an online service like
IBackup. None other than PC World recently rated IBackup as the `best all-around’ service’ in a review of online backup services.

You can do quick and safe backups of files and folders with IBackup for Windows. It has several subscription plans that suit a wide variety of users. Another great feature about IBackup for Windows is that you can try all their features during the free trial itself.

The advantages of using IBackup for Windows are many. IBackup does incremental and compressed backups, which greatly reduce your network bandwidth by transferring only portions of file that were modified/changed. You can easily restore files from the Snapshots of files maintained in your IBackup account. Using IDrive you can map your online IBackup account as a network drive on your computer. You can then drag and drop files to the IBackup account from the Windows explorer. It also allows you to open and save files stored in their IBackup online backup/ storage accounts directly from their associated applications like Microsoft Office.

You can also try IBackup for Quicken/Quickbooks with which you can perform near real time backup of recently modified 'Quicken/ QuickBooks' files to your IBackup account. For added security, you can use IBackup Professional, whose encryption is based on a user-defined key so that the data stored on IBackup Professional servers cannot be decrypted by anybody other than you. You can also restore up to 30 prior versions of files backed up, including the most recent version of the data files. The backed up files are stored by default in the encrypted form using AES 256-bit encryption.

Manage your multimedia files with IDrive Multimedia . On double-clicking on a multimedia file, it will open up your media player and starts playing instantaneously. You can even create 'playlists' or do 'shuffle' using your favorite media player pointing to IDrive's media files. Streaming of video files is also instantaneous. You can even use advanced functions such as fast-forward with near instant response. You can try all these features and much more if you try the free trial of IBackup for Windows.

By Anonymous Dave, at 9/18/2006 7:44 AM  
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My favorite online backup service is Data Deposit Box. Security is not an issue because everything is encrypted before it leaves my PC. Backup times are good too because it only ever sends parts of files that change. It also does the backup when I am not looking. It watches the keyboard or something. I have over 5GB backed up and it never gets in my way.

By Anonymous Chris, at 9/20/2006 9:12 AM  
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I've tried to store 100 GB of my files, music and videos at an online storage provide like Flipdrive and Mediamax. Does it really work during day-to-day usuage? How much does it cost? Can it replace your local harddrive(s)? Check out my report at my blog if you're interested.

By Anonymous Jonas, at 9/30/2006 4:58 AM  
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