Online Backup Storage Options

All the recent talk (on the net) of the possible Google GDrive, got me thinking of all the family files (pictures and video) I've got on my PC. Until Google gets off their arse and gives me my free, unlimited file storage space (I mean, I DO deserve it for free, don't I), I'm hoping to get some recommendations from people on what online storage options are good to consider.

My biggest concern is paying for space, uploading everything, and then they go out of business. I wouldn't mind the ability to share individual files or groups of files, but it's not a deal breaker.

As soon as I do this, though, Google will release a free, unlimited storage option! (I'm not looking to use the jury-rigged version of Gmail as a drive either.)

Your ISP should provided you with some free online storage, albeit small.

But if you have gmail account you can make your 1GB of space into a virtual drive:
http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

Let's say hypothetically(sp?) speaking, I have 100gb...what are the options out there? I've looked and haven't found anything reasonable for us media-collecting home users...

Creating 100 Gmail accounts?

Really though, I know you guys are looking for online storage, but if I really want to keep my personal stuff, I'd go to tape back up. Or get one of those Terabyte Network-Attached Storage systems. This one looks pretty good:
http://www.hddsaver.com/content/17/i...
yeah it is expensive, but the features that it has does enable it to become your own personal "online" storage.

Sorry I don't know much else. Just trying to provide some options here.

lethial wrote:

Creating 100 Gmail accounts?

Lol - somebody should write a program to do that.

I am considering building a separate box for it, it's not like the collection of media is getting smaller.

100gb?!? HA! I scoff at your petiteness! I've got videos of my kid running out my ears. DV sucks down hard disk space I've found. I thought that 250GB external hard drive would work for a while. That certainly didn't take long to fill up. lethial -- I could probably use the Gmail alternative for the pictures. I guess I could also use one of the photo sites for them, too. I was just hoping to find something where everything could be stored together. I don't even have to do the DV files. I'd be happy just sticking the rendered DIVX and Quicktime files somewhere other than over my 5 hard disks.

Yeah DV stuff takes up a lot of room FAST. i still think those terabyte storage stations is the way to go for reliable personal online storage though. There was one that Maximum PC reviewed sometime ago that was really good.
It was just a NAS system that you can opt to just by the enclosure and network part of it. So you basically fill it up with your own hard drive.

Edit: found the NAS that I mentioned above:

http://www.maximumpc.com/2005/09/inf...

quite nice... Now I might consider getting it...

I don't think that I could convince my wife to let me buy that. I'd certainly try, but I already know the answer. Especially with the taxman coming up in another month, and he's coming big time this year.

Do you know how long it would take to upload that kind of size stuff up the pipe? Even if you've got fiber it's going to take a while.

You may want to figure out a local solution whether it be some 500GB drives you back up too and then put in the safe deposit box or you hold one for a friend and he holds yours and once a month you swap them out again.

As for a dedicated device, for the 600$ a BYO drive solution linked above you can build a server that will hold more drives and in any RAID config you want. Hell, you can probably even get windows on the box for under 600$.

I currently use a dedicated server to back up to it runs FC3 and rsync is the backup util. My only flaw is that both boxes are in the house although the backup box is in the garage on the opposite side of the house so as long as I'm home if something bad happens I can grab the box from the opposite side of where the bad things are if I can't stop them from becoming terrible. I'm assed out if the whole house goes up while at work though. For that I'll probably just use the external 500gb idea and put it in the safe deposit box every 3-6 months, none of my data is urgent but losing all of it would be a sad sad day.

Make the initial backup onto a real physical hard drive (connected via USB cable or whatever), then make incremental backups to that drive over the Internet, with the key point being, the drive is not in your house anymore but at your parents' house, or whatever geographic location which is different from yours.

Incremental backups should work fine even with miniscule (30k/s ?) upload speeds, because it is constantly active and uploading only the files that are changed or new... and its not like you suddenly change the entire 100gb of data in one day.

Some NAS products, such as Buffalo's TeraStation, have begun trickling into enthusiast and consumer market. I figure this year we'll see this market getting hotter, with more products rolling out from competitors.

Although it's a sizeable initial cash outlay, it's nevertheless a ridiculous amount of storage at a very reasonable price point. Come on. Prove that you're serious about your family videos!

hey guys i just saw this: http://www.ixwebhosting.com/

unlimited space for $13/mo.

Oh look what we have here as of today.

shihonage wrote:

Oh look what we have here as of today.

That is neat. Would be even better if they provided a web frontend to the storage, or FTP access, or better yet a LANMAN-style network redirector for Windows....

magnus wrote:

Let's say hypothetically(sp?) speaking, I have 100gb...what are the options out there? I've looked and haven't found anything reasonable for us media-collecting home users...

Why the focus on online storage?
For under $100 you can get a big honking external drive.
For under $100 you can get a DVD burner(for the really important stuff, not the 8000 jpgs you took last week of your kid being cute, but the 7000 really good ones.)

Personally, I'd go for an external HD. I'm not going to make 100GB worth of data available to anyone, and if I did, I sure wouldn't expect them to download it over the intertron.

Except for guvmint, pursuant to PATRIOT 2.5 maybe.

duckilama wrote:

the intertron.

Ooh, that one's going into the vault.

I think the reason people want online options is because you data is in a seperate physical location, so if your house burns down you'll only lose all the rest of your worldly posessions, identity, and pride. But not your data. Plus, if it's sent to a data center, technically it's being backed up every day.

duckilama wrote:

Why the focus on online storage?

In case your house burns down, maybe? I backup coursework to GMail for that very reason.

I think the people want online data because there is some sort of possibility to get it free.

The chance that someone will actually comes to their house (dorm/parents' basement/etc) and hands them over a free external 200GB harddrive is rather slim. So, in lieu of that, people are pining for a free online storage.

Online data storage is useful because it can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. For example, if you were to go to Rome and take a million pictures you could simply stop by one of the many internet cafes, upload the pics to your online storage, and go on your merry way.

It is extremely useful for those who travel a lot.

scoli wrote:

Online data storage is useful because it can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. For example, if you were to go to Rome and take a million pictures you could simply stop by one of the many internet cafes, upload the pics to your online storage, and go on your merry way.

It is extremely useful for those who travel a lot.

yeah, you know now that I think about it, I think I will have to save up some money and get that enclosure that I posted ealier, having a personal online storage is nice.

My system works fine but I'll be picking up the external drive for the safe deposit box. Like I said, I won't be dead in the water if I lose my data it would just suck to lose it and semi-annual bank vault trips aren't no big thing.

I have a 1 gig ram drive, I rarely fill it and couldn't think of what I'd need besides my BartPE and UBCD disc's on the road that couldn't/doesn't fit on it currently.

They're not so much online storage options but I think it still pertains. This months PC Magazine goes over various DIY backup solutions. I even googled the pages for you.

On the software side they list:
Backup2006Pro - 65$
Handy Backup - 30$
Vice Versa Plus/Pro - 30$/60$
NASBackup - Free
AMANDA - Free

On the NAS/Appliance side they list:
Buffalo Terrastation (mentioned earlier) - 1TB/900$
IOmega STORCenter - 250GB/300$
Linksys EtherFast NAS EFG250 - 250GB/700$
Maxtor Shared Storage Plus - 500GB/500$
Mirra Personal Server - 400GB/500$