PC Back-Up Sites - How Reliable??

[(Nobody You Know)]

It seems that there are quite a few web sites available now where you can store (ie. back-up) files, documents, etc. Hmmm, how convenient. But it sure raises the question of reliability. Has anyone herd anything good or bad about these sites?

I suppose that our beloved Photobucket is ok for storing photos, though it could be very time consuming converting them back to JPEG or Bitmap should your PC crash. But I am reading about sites that can absorb gigs of documents as they are. Obviously I wouldn't use this for very personal information (Quicken, sensitive documents, letters, etc.), but a good deal of our files contain varying degrees of personal info.

[Passages]

Just get a 1 TB external drive for storage. Their not expensive and don't take much space. Plus, your data is not "out there".

The only disadvantage is the drive could be stolen or destoyed in a fire. If you must have offsite back up, this option won't work.

[SportFishCruising]

I do similiar to what Passages suggests. I took the hard drive from my old desktop, purchased a external drive container & USB cable and now I can hook it up to any computer. I transfer all my data from my working computers to this harddrive as a back-up. I then store it at the bank in my safetybox (it's nice and small) and continue doing back-ups as needed. Very easy, cheap, safe, complete and private!

[Freestyle]

I blithely employed a back up company that also offered tech support for years. The tech support was handy. The backup service represented that I could throw my laptop overboard and they would Fedex a new one to me with everything the same up to the night before's backup.

Last fall the hard drive crashed. They had all of my data from January 2001 through March of 2006. Nothing after that despite charging $50 per month all of those months. I lost two weeks of work time plus didn't get my bills out for a whole month while I went from place to place trying to resurrect the dead drive. I finally found a guy who got everything but a small amount of PST files.

I now refer to my backup company as Defendant.

Bruce

Freestyle
1976 43 DCMY
Tampa

[MikeP]

I use a separate 1TB drive and the computer does automatic back ups to it several times a day. It works great though, as noted, your data is still "on site, with the risk associated with a fire or whatever. I would not like all my personal data to be in the cloud though most of it probably is anyway...

[TopHattandTails]

I use a Seagate Mirra drive. nice little box. This thing connects to my wireless router and wirelessly backs up everything on my drive (in the background). It doesn't slow the computer down (at least that I can tell) and everything is backed up daily - you don't have to start a back up process or even think about it (although the very first back up takes a while). THe really nice thing is that I can connect to it via a website and pull down any files that I might not have on my laptop. They also provide back up service via website. So if your backed up, and your laptop takes a swim off the bridge. You can get another laptop and reload everything anywhere (via the internet). They come in 300MB, 500MB and 1TB sizes at your favorite electronics stores. I use my for a small business application and back up 9 computers and share/synchronize files among 9 computers (PC and MAC intermixed). Nice little box.

[(Nobody You Know)]

I should have mentioned that I use the laptop as a means of backing up the desktop. Music is all on the iPod. Unless we are traveling, all are in the house (our home). If the house catches on fire, adios pc , laptop and iPod (perhaps we can put down the hose long enough to rescue the laptop). Oh, some files are on CD's in the trunk of the car - which is in the attached garage. Again, fire vulnerable as well. Same for pc plug in storage devices.

This makes off site storage (sites) attractive. But I'm leary of them. Hey, it's not easy being me!

(Plan "B": back up everything on DVD's and store them on the boat...and hope they don't get stolen. But how do you hope "they" don't get stolen when you hope that the boat does!!!!)

[DCMY #92]

I use two external hard drives, plus Apple's off-site backup. It costs $99 per year for the off-site service. I am a consulting engineer, so I need to know that my client files are secure even if the house burns down. Having said this, I think you should be very careful about who you execute your off-site backup with. I think Apple should be reliable. It's not just a question of will they actually have your backup if you need to recover it, but how secure your confidential information is while stored with them.

[nyrussell]

pm me as we offer it too. Should show up as a hard drive if you want.

Noel

[Bugsy]

I do similiar to what Passages suggests. I took the hard drive from my old desktop, purchased a external drive container & USB cable and now I can hook it up to any computer. I transfer all my data from my working computers to this harddrive as a back-up. I then store it at the bank in my safetybox (it's nice and small) and continue doing back-ups as needed. Very easy, cheap, safe, complete and private!

Where did you get the external drive container? Can you give a make/model#, please?
I went online to search and though there are many external drives, I couldn't find just a container that will accept my hard drive from an "old" computer. (I want to access an outdated program and the processor "went").

Thx