Online backup solution

mikebiehlphoto · Dec 27, 2013

I am considering purchasing a plan with Carbonite online backup which is a cloud based backup solution. Has anyone ever used them? If there is a need to recover from backup, was it easy? Currently I have my photos on a portable Western Digital external HDD that connects with a USB. I need a more redundent solution. Any thoughts, suggestions or comments are appreciated.

This is my first post, so please excuse me. :wink:

Mike

SnappingShark · Dec 27, 2013

I detest online backup solutions for my own reasons.
It means that a) they have your data b) can bump up prices and change service terms while they still have it. c) depending on your internet connection, might take you forever to upload it, and then get it back.

I'll rely on my own Hard drives, CDs, thumbdrives and NAS boxes

However, I haven't heard anything in particularly bad about Carbonite

Designer · Dec 27, 2013

Welcome, Mike! Redundancy means more than one place, so at the minimum get another portable hard drive. Keep one of those off site (at someone else's house).

nmoody · Dec 27, 2013

I set my parents up with Carbonite to make sure their stuff was backed up. Its works great for them and is reasonably priced. I myself use have a server at home with multiple raid arrays but for those who dont want to deal with the hassle Carbonite is the way to go.

DanielLewis76 · Dec 27, 2013

I do back up into the cloud for certain directories but I let me backup external device (in my case a 3TB Airport Extreme) perform the off site backup (via a Mac Mini Server for those interested) to Azure storage.

That said this setup is primarily for code (primarily stored on a TFS server in Azure) as I own a software development company and need something robust and resilient to safe guard data loss. However, I do use this for my photos as well.

There are various easy cloud backup solutions, check out Mozy for one.

JClishe · Dec 28, 2013

nmoody said:
I set my parents up with Carbonite to make sure their stuff was backed up. Its works great for them and is reasonably priced. I myself use have a server at home with multiple raid arrays but for those who dont want to deal with the hassle Carbonite is the way to go.

Even for those that DO want to deal with the hassle of onsite RAID arrays, they'd still want offsite storage.

JClishe · Dec 28, 2013

DanielLewis76 said:
I do back up into the cloud for certain directories but I let me backup external device (in my case a 3TB Airport Extreme) perform the off site backup (via a Mac Mini Server for those interested) to Azure storage.

That said this setup is primarily for code (primarily stored on a TFS server in Azure) as I own a software development company and need something robust and resilient to safe guard data loss. However, I do use this for my photos as well.

There are various easy cloud backup solutions, check out Mozy for one.

I use Azure as well. I use CloudBerry's backup software to perform 2 nightly backups: the first backup to an external storage array connected to my Windows Home Server, and then a second backup to Azure.

hirejn · Dec 28, 2013

Carbonite takes forever and their plans are stupid. I just saw an article in "Professional Photographer" that was an amazing idea. The photographer used SmugMug as his online backup. This is a good idea. Unlimited storage comes with online accounts like Zenfolio and SmugMug, at a certain price, but it's not bad, especially if you're in business. With Zenfolio I also get an order fulfillment system, portfolio site and blog so it's a good deal. Storage is technically unlimited, so there's no reason you couldn't store all of your images there, and uploads have been fast in my experience. I simply never thought of it as an online backup solution, but it's actually a good one. I wouldn't use it as the only backup, but it doesn't hurt to use it as a second or third.

GlennT · Dec 28, 2013

I've always backed up photos to an online gallery. Previously, that was a website I created myself, running Gallery2 and briefly Gallery3. I got tired of the hassle and switched to SmugMug. Couldn't be happier. It's cheaper and easier to deal with. Plus, the Lightroom Plugin is incredible. I can make changes to tags that will re-sync without uploading the entire photo again.

The added benefit is, you also have the option of sharing the photos. Most of my galleries are password protected, but I have some public galleries that are actually "Smart Galleries" that use keywords to pull from the protected galleries. The only regret with SmugMug is, I lost the freedom to backup other data. You're really limited to just images and videos, but that works for us.

Clee33 · Jan 5, 2014

I was just thinking about backup options myself, this is a great thread

jdag · Jan 6, 2014

I'm very happy with CrashPlan...truly set it and forget it.

Josh66 · Jan 6, 2014

If you're just talking about pictures, Flickr is a cheap (free) option - 1TB for free. You can make them all private if you like.

mikebiehlphoto · Jan 9, 2014

Thanks for all the suggestions and ideas. I have a Smugmug and Flickr accounts, plus I am currently using a external hard drive. I may moved forward with an external NAS device with dual hard drives and hotswap capability where I can configure with a RAID 0 configuration in case one of the drives would happen to fail. I took a look further into Carbonite, but their plans for what you get are very pricey and confusing.

Thanks again to those who chimed in.