It shouldn't happen to an IT consultant
Spend your time doing business, not IT.
Saturday 27 December 2008, 2:06 AM
Unlimited storage???!!!!!
Backing up data online, has many clear advantages. But till now I’ve not found an affordable way of storing enough data to make it worthwhile. Is Livedrive the answer?
Currently I recommend that my clients’ data is backed up to local hard disks whether that’s via USB, Ethernet and/or on separate drives in each machine. Ideally drives should be removable or portable, that way backups can be regularly swapped with one that's off-site. I use Acronis TrueImage to create encrypted incremental backup files of the drive image. It is though far from perfect, I’m still looking for something more reliable. I would dearly love to at least supplement it with an online backup.
So far I’ve not found a way. Limited upstream bandwidth is in part an issue but the greater problem is cost, a 1TB SATA drive is available for around £80. It’s not unusual to find it costs well over £1000 per month for the same online backup. Of course they’re not charging to cover the costs of storage, it’s the bandwidth you are paying for.
Livedrive, still in beta, offers, they say, unlimited storage. with web and mobile file access plus other claimed cleverness. The cunning bit though, if it works, is the caching and intelligent background syncing of files designed to minimise bandwidth and maximise speed.
It looks good so far, their terms of service don’t mention fair use or other restrictions, the man behind it set up Fasthosts, so he should be a somebody who understands a hosting service’s business models. Whilst there’s no mention of pricing it appears be pitched at least in part at consumers, “Access the same iTunes music library from all of your PC's” and “Publish to straight YouTube coming soon” so I expect it will be affordable.
Online backup has to be just that a backup, assume that at any time your host may go bust or delete all your data due to a billing error (or have it stolen –make encryption your job). It is though excellent to have. Nothing else prevents so many potential IT disasters becoming a crisis. Lets hope this is a model that proves to be as revolutionary as on first sight it seems. I’ll give it a go and get back to you.
Currently I recommend that my clients’ data is backed up to local hard disks whether that’s via USB, Ethernet and/or on separate drives in each machine. Ideally drives should be removable or portable, that way backups can be regularly swapped with one that's off-site. I use Acronis TrueImage to create encrypted incremental backup files of the drive image. It is though far from perfect, I’m still looking for something more reliable. I would dearly love to at least supplement it with an online backup.
So far I’ve not found a way. Limited upstream bandwidth is in part an issue but the greater problem is cost, a 1TB SATA drive is available for around £80. It’s not unusual to find it costs well over £1000 per month for the same online backup. Of course they’re not charging to cover the costs of storage, it’s the bandwidth you are paying for.
Livedrive, still in beta, offers, they say, unlimited storage. with web and mobile file access plus other claimed cleverness. The cunning bit though, if it works, is the caching and intelligent background syncing of files designed to minimise bandwidth and maximise speed.
It looks good so far, their terms of service don’t mention fair use or other restrictions, the man behind it set up Fasthosts, so he should be a somebody who understands a hosting service’s business models. Whilst there’s no mention of pricing it appears be pitched at least in part at consumers, “Access the same iTunes music library from all of your PC's” and “Publish to straight YouTube coming soon” so I expect it will be affordable.
Online backup has to be just that a backup, assume that at any time your host may go bust or delete all your data due to a billing error (or have it stolen –make encryption your job). It is though excellent to have. Nothing else prevents so many potential IT disasters becoming a crisis. Lets hope this is a model that proves to be as revolutionary as on first sight it seems. I’ll give it a go and get back to you.
Previous
