Storage forum: Data backups: Are you prepared for the worst case scenario?

Isn't the "cloud" a server or servers somewhere? Is it different from KodakGallery where I have saved the thousands of old slides I scanned? Where are Carbonite's servers? It is not magic; they must be somewhere physical, and probably on the San Andreas fault. I do remember having two weeks of backup tapes at work and rotating one at home at first. I just had to remember what week I was in.

Cloud computing is basically using someone else's services for allowance for storage short-coming and/or apps.. This is the popular term now, because most netbooks don't have sufficent or rather large off book storage other than USB based. Understand, the 1st netbooks didn't have any int. storage at all or were very limited. So anyone running older netbooks looked elsewhere. At the same time costs were a factor as well. This may not be as costly and the alternatives available now but it does still exist. Cloud computing has expanded as well, so I leave it at that.

Yes, back-ups are important as the user deems them. Unfortunately that's a lesson learned too late. -----Willy

I do regular backups, but not to my hard drive or extrenal drive etc. While it might be more time consuming, I prefer to burn all of my important files, documents, and program files etc to DVD. That way, if my system ever crashes or if I have a major problem, all I have to do when things return to normal is copy the files I need to my new hard drive. Some people might not consider this as a proper backup, but it works for me.

Not intending to be personal here, but suggesting that my DVD backups might get destroyed if a tsunami hit is a bit over the top isn't it? Sure, what happened in Japan recently was a terrible thing, but they honestly don't happen all that often, and as someone else has already said, if a tsunami did hit then the safety of my data would be tha last thing on my mind.

Secondly, my PC is just that, a PERSONAL computer, so I don't have to worry about business records being lost. Even if I was running a business, I wouldn't use an online service for storing my backups, because again as others have mentioned, I wouldn't want my private information available to anyone out there who knows how to access (legally or illegally) such a system.

As far as smart phones are concerned, I don't have one, I don't need one and I don't want one. Call me old fashioned if you like, but I only use my mobile for phone calls, text messages and taking the very occasional photo if I don't have any of my cameras with me. I don't need instant access to emails and/or the internet or any of the other myriad of services available via a smart phone. If I'm away from home and an important email comes in or someone suggests that I look at this or that on the internet asap, then it can wait until I get home.

Finally, I'm a realist, although I don't care if you call me a fatalist. If any kind of disaster, natural or otherwise is going to strike my home, then it's going to happen anyway and there's nothing I can do to prevent it. If something like that does happen though, and the worst thing that results is that my computer (including my DVD backups) and other personal belongings are damaged or destroyed, then it won't be the end of the world for me because I'll still be alive and material things can always be replaced. Sh*t happens everyday, but I'm not going to sit around worrying about all of the "what ifs".

Depending on your geographical location, a tsunami might be a far cry. However, I am told that DVD's (as do other media) tend to break down after time deteriorating their ability store and access data. As suggested in the previous post, data that may seem of little worth today could cause undue anxiety after some catastrophe or just regular loss of data at a later date.

I have considered an online back up option, but I didn't want all my private info out there somewhere for others with an inside access to get to.

I am VERY concerned now about my data & phone calls could all be scanned as they travel through the ether & space via satellite.

Cloud computing & storage is a fine way for our private data to be read enroute to storage & the fact of it being stored in multiple places gives data mining companies even greater scope to read our private stuff. That would apply exponecially if the storage company provided the service free. They have to make money on it somehow!

One of my phone numbers is a 'private number' phone number which I only give to certain people but out of the blue recently I started getting phone sellers ringing me on it. So vicious was the campaign to get me to answer the call, my phone would ring 17 times in a row! I knew who was calling because I use caller ID on that number. I finally put the phone on silent so as not to hear the damned thing! x:(

My suspicion is that the cloud storage company that handles one of my internet & email ISPs (a subscription service) mined the number out of an email I sent to someone.

This to me is the last straw! I have previously been suspicious of data being mined out of emails. That is seperate to the email address harvesters that troll the free email sites checking for emails filled with several generations of email addresses on uncleaned joke mail. They sell all those addresses to mailing list buyers for spam production.

If recipient's addresses can be mined that easily when not BCC'd, how easy is it for all sorts of data to be mined out of back-ups being sent to the clouds?????

:-[

There are backup solutions available that could save your data from a nuclear holocaust, but they cost a fortune. Or, you can use faith-based backups for free.
The determining factor should be "What is my data worth?".
Maybe you only use your computer for web-surfing and personal email, and you don't have anything worth saving on it. Then it isn't worth backing it up.
Maybe you have all of your photos on it. Definitely worth the time and money to at least burn a couple of DVDs once in a while and store them at some friend's and relatives houses.
Maybe you have a thousand hours worth of work on it. What's that worth to you?
Backups are like taking care of anything valuable, the more that it's worth, the more you should invest in protecting it.