Re: cloud backup services, for EXE files ?

["William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>]

I really don't understand the need to store everything on the cloud.  I
mean, the introduction of the IBM PC was a technological breakthrough that
many today don't grasp.

It freed people from being tied to the mainframe.

Today, it seems to be in vogue to get tied to the mainframe again.

Yes, most say it is wonderful, and it may be, as long as you have network
access. Ever been in a hurricane? You can lose network access for a week.
How productive is that?


As to backups, it is incredibly cheap to get storage. $100 will buy 1 TB any
day of the week, and frequently 1.5 TB or more.  Sales can often find 2 TB
for $100 and 3 TB for anywhere from $125 to $150.

Most of these drives come with automatic backup software that will run a
backup on schedule without your presence required. One drive had Seagate's
backup program running but the wife set it up to back up too often and begin
filling the drive at an incredible rate. she got tired of it running wrong
and unplugged the drive, and got used to it being unplugged, so when it
crashed 6 months later, she lost all her data and email.

A nightly backup if fine, maybe overkill. A weekly backup is fine for most,
as your mail is still on the mail server, or should be. You don't delete
from the server the second you download, do you? If so, set that Delete from
Server to 7 days.


And for the paranoid, buy two. Back up the PC to one drive, then back that
drive up to the other weekly. This way you will lose at most 1 week in the
event you have a PC hard drive failure and a backup drive failure at the
same time. and it protects you if you have corrupted a file and continue to
back up the bad one, as you should still have the good one on the second
drive.

I run three drives here. I back up the PCs using Beyond Compare 3 to F: in a
folder called Backup1, 2, 3, etc. Once a month I begin a new folder, and
when I am sure I haven't corrupted and copied that corrupted file, I remove
an old folder.

I also back up F: to G:



The Macs back up to their own external drive and that drive periodically
gets copied to G: drive.



Yes, the house could burn down or a space shuttle could crash on the house
(I guess not anymore) or I could have a home invasion and someone steal the
PCs and all the backup drives, but somehow I think those aren't likely
either.

I think it is much more likely is a storehouse of everyone's information
getting hacked as it is a big target to hackers. I think it is much more
likely to lose a network when I need it.  I think it is much more likely
that rules change and stuff secure offsite today could easily be accessed by
someone other than me tomorrow.

You aren't storing this in some place like Iron Mountain with the drives
offline, on a shelf, inside a big giant underground vault.  You are storing
it in some company that probably has a guard who is a retired cop or maybe
just a receptionist. For all you know, it could be one of those industrial
park warehouse/office spaces that a 3/4 ton truck can take out at night or
probably radiates everything in the place through two other businesses on
either side.

I knew a guy running an operation with 5 servers in his bedroom closet. You
would never know it from the information he gave about his company.


If you are really, really afraid of losing stuff, get three drives. Run two
like me, and rotate out the second drive every week or month and put it in a
safe deposit box in your bank. Now you have secure offsite storage, along
with controlling access to it.



Yes, we get spoiled by the backup programs at work, but the reality is
theirs is still secure on their site and their network, not off in some
guy's garage.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Monique Semp" <monique -dot- semp -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "Alec Chakenov" <alec -dot- chakenov -at- gmail -dot- com>
Cc: "TechWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 9:06 AM
Subject: Re: cloud backup services, for EXE files ?