turbosocks

I was wondering if anyone on here uses any type of online backup service to backup files from a laptop, desktop, server, external hard drive, etc.



I am in the market for a new external hard drive to store all of my media at home and I also want to back it all up online and setup some type of schedule to 'sync' it to update the backup at certain times.



With the reliability of external hard drives being 'less than great' I don't want to risk losing upwards of 600GB of data that I can't recover, thus the need for an online backup.



I have done a little looking around on the interwebs and came across a few popular sites, but don't have any first hand knowledge. I am leery about the FREE online backup sites and don't want to put 1TB of data at risk of a server going down or the site being whiped off the face of the interwebz... but then again, just because i have to pay for a site, doesn't mean its reliable...



I am looking to pay a ONE time fee for the storage instead of a monthly fee.



looking to spend no more than ~70-80$ for the backup, then ill spend another 100$ or so on the external drive.



Reason I want to have a 'failsafe' if you will is it would really SUCK to lose out on some irreplaceable stuff and hundreds of gigs worth of media.. Right now my HD has 205GB of movies (~300) and around 220GB of shows (~750) thousands of pictures, software, music, documents, etc.

chapp

Dont know if its available to you guys over the water but BestBuy do a program called MyHub for £29.99 for unlimited backup here in the UK.

DTN

The advantage to online backups is that all of your computers can synchronize to them. For instance,Ubuntu One allows me to have a common folder which is synchronized between all of my different computers. It allows synchronization of my contact lists between Outlook and Evolution (I cannot do my iPhone because I do not pay). It allows me to choose to optionally share my files as well http://ubuntuone.com/p/PUK/ .



This is a free service. It allows 2 gigs to be backed up. Once I stripped my music and video from my backups, I was left with aproximately 600 megs of unreplacable stuff that I need on all of my computers to call them "My Own".



The disadvantages to online backups is that it generally costs money. You can get a small amount of storage for free online, and you can pay for additional.



Also, you do not control your data, the person who owns the farm controls your data. Firstly, they put money into the hard disk and are expecting a return from that money.





You can make a secure backup system with a one-time purchase and your existing hardware.



1. A piece of crap $100 computer, or a $200 boxee box (media center which could serve a purpose on your television or at a remote site).

2. Purchase a $100 1TB external hard disk.

3. Purchase a $50 flameproof box. (may need to upgrade with breathing holes depending on power usage of computer)

4. hook it up with Ubuntu Server edition

Now, you've got a networkable system with a huge amount of storage locked inside a flameproof box running Linux (extreme low power fast OS which won't max out your processor creating heat).

5. install sftp (sudo apt-get install ftp)

6. make sure your user account has a very strong password (2 caps, 2 lower case, 2 special, 2 numbers and at least 16 characters long)

7. Put your server behind a NAT enabled Router.

8. I know you have a DNS server translations available, so you register port 22 to backup.turbosocks.com

9. map sftp://backup.turbosocks.com as a network drive on all of your machines.

10. set up synchronize directories to your network drive.



And there you go... You've now go fast, easily accessable, reliable, secure, synchronized storage across all of your devices, for a one time purchase of $250