Cloud Storage

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bertilak
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Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

Which do you use, if any?

I have accumulated access to several places in the cloud:
  • OneDrive (Windows gave me this.)
  • Bitcasa (My Samsung laptop gave me this.)
  • Dropbox (Been around for a while. I think it is popular. I did use it to share a bunch of vacation photos.)
  • Google Drive (Google gave me this.)
  • Tiny Pic / Photo Bucket (Useful for posting images here on BH.)
  • AT&T Locker (Because of my AT&T phone.)
  • CrashPlan (Not the same as the above but I list it here because I depend on its "cloud" nature.)
I found that I use OneDrive and CrashPlan. Both are nearly indispensable. The others seem more like clutter that just confuses my digital life but I maintain my unused accounts because either it is automatic or I feel I might someday find it useful.

I am interested in what others have settled in on. If there is a clear winner other than what I have settled on I'll take a look. If there is a clear loser (or two or three) in the above list maybe I will try to de-clutter.
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jebmke
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by jebmke »

I use Google Drive most extensively -- especially for my TaxAide documents since the sharing controls provide more flexibility.

All my photos are on OneDrive.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
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Toons
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by Toons »

I use Google Drive Primarily for everything.
:happy
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powermega
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by powermega »

We use OneDrive as our primary cloud backup, and both of our phones synch our photos there. I also use Google Drive for other some of my own documents and as an additional backup for my phone's pictures.
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pochax
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by pochax »

Google Drive (100GB = $2/month)
lightheir
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by lightheir »

Google drive for all active stuff

Amazon cloud for long-term archival (there is no data cap, unlimited storage)

I have learned the hard way to avoid my once-loved Crashplan after I found out how easy it was to lose over 1.5TB of data with no warning, instantly, when I disconnected an old computer for awhile, then reorganized some files including moving some old files off the HD to regain some space, and when I reconnected it to Crashplan, it deleted all of those moved files without warning. I didn't find out they were gone until nearly 6 months later when I did a random spot check - could have been utterly disastrous if I were relying on crashplan as archival storage (it is NOT archival - it works fine for your active computer but do not rely on it for long-term archival for this reason.)
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

lightheir wrote:Google drive for all active stuff

Amazon cloud for long-term archival (there is no data cap, unlimited storage)

I have learned the hard way to avoid my once-loved Crashplan after I found out how easy it was to lose over 1.5TB of data with no warning, instantly, when I disconnected an old computer for awhile, then reorganized some files including moving some old files off the HD to regain some space, and when I reconnected it to Crashplan, it deleted all of those moved files without warning. I didn't find out they were gone until nearly 6 months later when I did a random spot check - could have been utterly disastrous if I were relying on crashplan as archival storage (it is NOT archival - it works fine for your active computer but do not rely on it for long-term archival for this reason.)
CrashPlan does maintain deleted files but to get them to show in the restore window you need to check a box on the bottom "Show Deleted Files."

Not sure if that is the situation you were in or not.

Hope you got those files back!
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ChiefIlliniwek
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by ChiefIlliniwek »

I use Dropbox for most stuff because I have the most storage with them. They seem to work pretty seamlessly across my Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I also use iCloud Drive a bit and have some stuff on Google Drive and Box. I could probably consolidate everything onto Dropbox but the the stuff I have on the other sites I don't use that often.
111
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by 111 »

Dropbox rarely
Google Drive for basically one active spreadsheet (and Google Photos for all my photos)
Amazon Glacier for another off-site backup of all my photos
lightheir
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by lightheir »

bertilak wrote:
lightheir wrote:Google drive for all active stuff

Amazon cloud for long-term archival (there is no data cap, unlimited storage)

I have learned the hard way to avoid my once-loved Crashplan after I found out how easy it was to lose over 1.5TB of data with no warning, instantly, when I disconnected an old computer for awhile, then reorganized some files including moving some old files off the HD to regain some space, and when I reconnected it to Crashplan, it deleted all of those moved files without warning. I didn't find out they were gone until nearly 6 months later when I did a random spot check - could have been utterly disastrous if I were relying on crashplan as archival storage (it is NOT archival - it works fine for your active computer but do not rely on it for long-term archival for this reason.)
CrashPlan does maintain deleted files but to get them to show in the restore window you need to check a box on the bottom "Show Deleted Files."

Not sure if that is the situation you were in or not.

Hope you got those files back!

I was well aware of that 'show deleted files' feature, and was counting on that to serve as my long term storage.

Unfortunately, what happens if that if you do what I did, which is reorganize or rename some files/folders on that old computer, and then it reconnects with Crashplan, Crashplan will think that you deleted the files, and removes them from even the 'deleted files archive.' The worst part was finding about it months later - it does this without warning. I literally spent hours trying to see where I went wrong, as I didn't do anything risky in terms of normal computer file handling (I'm fairly proficient with computers/web stuff) so if it could happen to me this easily, it absolutely can and will happen to others, especially when adding/removing computers to the Crashplan network.

Again, Crashplan is meant to be an 'active' computer backup, meaning it monitors your active files on your active computer. It is NOT designed or meant for long-term archival storage. The safest way to use it for archival storage would mean that every time you buy a new computer, you move ALL your old files onto your new one so they never run into the problem I had. Good luck with hard drive space if you do that. So while Crashplan sells itself as 'unlimited' backup, it's really a lot more limited than it seems.

Amazon cloud, on the other hand, is truly an 'unlimited' data backup service. You can keep as much as you upload to it. But it lacks the active file monitoring of Crashplan or other systems. I actually never needed Crashplan, as I use Google drive for all my documents already, and that autobackups in realtime.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

ChiefIlliniwek wrote:I use Dropbox for most stuff because I have the most storage with them. They seem to work pretty seamlessly across my Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I also use iCloud Drive a bit and have some stuff on Google Drive and Box. I could probably consolidate everything onto Dropbox but the the stuff I have on the other sites I don't use that often.
With DropBox I don't think you can mirror local files. For example, edit a Word document on your local system and have it automatically update to the cloud. But I don't use it enough to be sure of that.

OneDrive, Bitcasa and (I'm pretty sure) Google Drive work that way. Very convenient. Not so much that I want to share it or edit it from multiple systems, but if my laptop is lost, stolen, or destroyed once I replace it, all my OneDrive data is still there. Unlike with a backup (e,g, CrashPlan) I don't need to wait through a lengthy restore, but can start accessing the files immediately. It will be slow because they need to be downloaded as I access them but full synchronization will eventually complete in the background. I've never been through that so I don't know how seamlessly it will work.
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mptfan
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by mptfan »

Toons wrote:I use Google Drive Primarily for everything.
:happy
Me too.
ChiefIlliniwek
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by ChiefIlliniwek »

bertilak wrote:
ChiefIlliniwek wrote:I use Dropbox for most stuff because I have the most storage with them. They seem to work pretty seamlessly across my Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I also use iCloud Drive a bit and have some stuff on Google Drive and Box. I could probably consolidate everything onto Dropbox but the the stuff I have on the other sites I don't use that often.
With DropBox I don't think you can mirror local files. For example, edit a Word document on your local system and have it automatically update to the cloud. But I don't use it enough to be sure of that.

OneDrive, Bitcasa and (I'm pretty sure) Google Drive work that way. Very convenient. Not so much that I want to share it or edit it from multiple systems, but if my laptop is lost, stolen, or destroyed once I replace it, all my OneDrive data is still there. Unlike with a backup (e,g, CrashPlan) I don't need to wait through a lengthy restore, but can start accessing the files immediately. It will be slow because they need to be downloaded as I access them but full synchronization will eventually complete in the background. I've never been through that so I don't know how seamlessly it will work.
On my Mac I downloaded the Dropbox app and it will automatically update the file on the Dropbox server if I change anything so that it is updated for anyone that you shared the file with and on all your devices. I used to use Dropbox for sharing and updating files with coworkers in India it works great. There is also a windows app that works the same way but I have never used it.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

lightheir wrote:Again, Crashplan is meant to be an 'active' computer backup, meaning it monitors your active files on your active computer. It is NOT designed or meant for long-term archival storage. The safest way to use it for archival storage would mean that every time you buy a new computer, you move ALL your old files onto your new one so they never run into the problem I had. Good luck with hard drive space if you do that. So while Crashplan sells itself as 'unlimited' backup, it's really a lot more limited than it seems.

Amazon cloud, on the other hand, is truly an 'unlimited' data backup service. You can keep as much as you upload to it. But it lacks the active file monitoring of Crashplan or other systems. I actually never needed Crashplan, as I use Google drive for all my documents already, and that autobackups in realtime.
Re: "never needed Crashplan"

Yes, I would like to wean myself off of it, but I still depend on it. It does two things for me:
  1. Saves me from myself. If I mess something up I can rely on getting a file back immediately.
  2. Once, my laptop was destroyed when a lighting fixture ell from the ceiling! I was able to restore everything to a new laptop from my CrashPlan backup on a USB hard drive. (Actually one hanging off my router and shared with my laptop system -- a configuration CrashPlan doesn't even officially support.) This was tricky, and required me to go through the "adoption" process which I find very hard to comprehend. I had them talk me through it over the phone. If I tried to go that alone I might have really messed up. Their restore interface should simply have a big button: "Restore to new system from a previous backup" instead of a multi-step "adoption" process.

    One incident like that was enough to make it worth the trouble.
At least now that I have all my important files on OneDrive I feel much less exposed. I still need a good archival process.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

ChiefIlliniwek wrote: On my Mac I downloaded the Dropbox app and it will automatically update the file on the Dropbox server if I change anything so that it is updated for anyone that you shared the file with and on all your devices. I used to use Dropbox for sharing and updating files with coworkers in India it works great. There is also a windows app that works the same way but I have never used it.
Oh, that's nice. Didn't know it could do that.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

With all this love for Google Drive I figured I'd take a look. Got it all set up. There is a Google Drive folder on my system. Got the Google Drive support running and sure enough if I drop a file into the local folder it shows up with the browser.

So far so good, but then something happened. I dropped a copy of a 120MB file in the folder and it stated to upload. After about 10 minutes it got an error: Unable to connect. Nothing else was having trouble connecting to the internet. For example the original of the same file was concurrently being updated on OneDrive and that went fine.

Google Drive was sitting there grayed-out and doing nothing. The file has a red X on it. I tried to pause and resume but that did nothing. I moved the file out of and then back into the directory and it is again syncing. Perhaps it will go OK this time but it still leaves me without a nice warm fuzzy!

In the past I had trouble with actively updating my Quicken file while it was being uploaded/synced with various cloud applications. OneDrive gave me the least trouble, although it was not 100% reliable. I would pause syncing while working with Quicken. Over time things got better. Now with Windows 10 I can't find a "pause" option on OneDrive! It seems to be working OK anyway. Perhaps Microsoft has made it more bullet-proof.
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lightheir
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by lightheir »

bertilak wrote:
lightheir wrote:Again, Crashplan is meant to be an 'active' computer backup, meaning it monitors your active files on your active computer. It is NOT designed or meant for long-term archival storage. The safest way to use it for archival storage would mean that every time you buy a new computer, you move ALL your old files onto your new one so they never run into the problem I had. Good luck with hard drive space if you do that. So while Crashplan sells itself as 'unlimited' backup, it's really a lot more limited than it seems.

Amazon cloud, on the other hand, is truly an 'unlimited' data backup service. You can keep as much as you upload to it. But it lacks the active file monitoring of Crashplan or other systems. I actually never needed Crashplan, as I use Google drive for all my documents already, and that autobackups in realtime.
Re: "never needed Crashplan"

Yes, I would like to wean myself off of it, but I still depend on it. It does two things for me:
  1. Saves me from myself. If I mess something up I can rely on getting a file back immediately.
  2. Once, my laptop was destroyed when a lighting fixture ell from the ceiling! I was able to restore everything to a new laptop from my CrashPlan backup on a USB hard drive. (Actually one hanging off my router and shared with my laptop system -- a configuration CrashPlan doesn't even officially support.) This was tricky, and required me to go through the "adoption" process which I find very hard to comprehend. I had them talk me through it over the phone. If I tried to go that alone I might have really messed up. Their restore interface should simply have a big button: "Restore to new system from a previous backup" instead of a multi-step "adoption" process.

    One incident like that was enough to make it worth the trouble.
At least now that I have all my important files on OneDrive I feel much less exposed. I still need a good archival process.

I'll chest-thump and one-up-you on the being-prepared for computer disasters story! :sharebeer

About 5 years ago, I made the permanent move to Google drive and living mostly on the cloud for active files. All office files, pdfs, etc are handled through google docs,gmail, and gdrive.

As a result, I can literally sit down at any web-connected computer, and be 95% fully functional literally the moment you fire up the browser. That last 5% is for the last few things I still use that aren't web-based such as Keepass for passwords, which I prefer to have as a non-browser application. If my laptop was instantly destroyed this second, I can just pick up my old one in the closet, and be up and running instantly, no time wasted with backups. Renders Crashplan unnecessary for office-type docs and pdfs as a result.

One of the biggest benefits of going to the cloud as well is that you don't need to worry about file transfers when getting a new computer or introducing a new computer. It's all there - no application software reinstalls needed.

The main reason I actually still need to know about file backups is that family videos and photos with a young kid accumulate very fast, and while Google does a pretty good job of autobackups, I still want the hi-res video and dSLR jpegs, so I need an archive and backup system that maintains them before I upload it manually to Amazon cloud storage.

So far (knock on wood), I haven't suffered any adverse privacy or hacking issues from going all-cloud, and thus it's been all good. I will admit though that if something in the future does turn up, it will be a hard habit to break, as it works so well.

I would recommend Amazon Cloud storage for archival storage. It costs about $60/yr, but it is for unlimited data upload. The interface is clunky enough to not be good for active file use, but in terms of having yet another offsite copy of your stuff online somewhere in case of disaster, the price is right.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

bertilak wrote:I moved the file out of and then back into the directory and it is again syncing. Perhaps it will go OK this time but it still leaves me without a nice warm fuzzy!
Well, it didn't go OK.

Google Drive says "sync complete" but the file's icon still shows it incomplete and the file is not available on the Internet.
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Toons
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by Toons »

bertilak wrote:
bertilak wrote:I moved the file out of and then back into the directory and it is again syncing. Perhaps it will go OK this time but it still leaves me without a nice warm fuzzy!
Well, it didn't go OK.

Google Drive says "sync complete" but the file's icon still shows it incomplete and the file is not available on the Internet.
delete the file and drop it back in your google drive folder....what kind or type of file is it,if you don't mind? :happy
"One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity" –Bruce Lee
mptfan
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by mptfan »

If you use Google Drive, I recommend using the 2-step verification process with the authenticator app. This will make it next to impossible for someone other than you to access your Google account, even if they somehow got your password. Google "google 2-step verification" for more info.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

Toons wrote:
bertilak wrote:
bertilak wrote:I moved the file out of and then back into the directory and it is again syncing. Perhaps it will go OK this time but it still leaves me without a nice warm fuzzy!
Well, it didn't go OK.

Google Drive says "sync complete" but the file's icon still shows it incomplete and the file is not available on the Internet.
delete the file and drop it back in your google drive folder....what kind or type of file is it,if you don't mind? :happy
I'd already done that.

Next I shut down Google Drive and started it up again. File upload resumed. Still waiting to see if it gets all the way through.

It is my Quicken data file.
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Toons
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by Toons »

bertilak wrote:
Toons wrote:
bertilak wrote:
bertilak wrote:I moved the file out of and then back into the directory and it is again syncing. Perhaps it will go OK this time but it still leaves me without a nice warm fuzzy!
Well, it didn't go OK.

Google Drive says "sync complete" but the file's icon still shows it incomplete and the file is not available on the Internet.
delete the file and drop it back in your google drive folder....what kind or type of file is it,if you don't mind? :happy
I'd already done that.

Next I shut down Google Drive and started it up again. File upload resumed. Still waiting to see if it gets all the way through.

It is my Quicken data file.
Very interesting bertilak.,,
I have been "backing up" my quicken data file to google drive for years...that way I can access it on a couple laptops I travel with.
Go to google drive.
create a folder called quicken
open quicken then back up your current file to the Quicken folder on google drive. :happy
(Maybe this is what you are already doing)
"One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity" –Bruce Lee
takeshi
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by takeshi »

bertilak wrote:I am interested in what others have settled in on. If there is a clear winner other than what I have settled on I'll take a look. If there is a clear loser (or two or three) in the above list maybe I will try to de-clutter.
Clear winner/loser should be based on your specific requirements on any topic -- not popularity.

That said, I use:

Dropbox mostly for apps on IOS and Mac/Windows (such as 1Password) that I use as most of them seem to have support for it and I only have 3.2GB with it.

Google Drive for documents that I actually create and edit in different locations as well as temporary storage of online order confirmations.

Flickr for photo sharing (a select subset of photos).

Amazon Cloud Drive for backups of all photos since it offers unlimited storage with Prime and my wife loves taking a huge number of photos on trips.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by drachma »

I use drop box to store my personal office type files. Budgeting files, spreadsheets, word docs, and other text-based projects. I also use it to store my (encrypted) 1password file so that I can access and sync my passwords across machines.

Due to its limited size I don't store photos. I don't really do a lot with photos anyway so have not had a need. It's pretty handy; I can sit down at most any computer and access all documents pertinent to me.
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bertilak
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

takeshi wrote:
bertilak wrote:I am interested in what others have settled in on. If there is a clear winner other than what I have settled on I'll take a look. If there is a clear loser (or two or three) in the above list maybe I will try to de-clutter.
Clear winner/loser should be based on your specific requirements on any topic -- not popularity.

That said, I use:

Dropbox mostly for apps on IOS and Mac/Windows (such as 1Password) that I use as most of them seem to have support for it and I only have 3.2GB with it.

Google Drive for documents that I actually create and edit in different locations as well as temporary storage of online order confirmations.

Flickr for photo sharing (a select subset of photos).

Amazon Cloud Drive for backups of all photos since it offers unlimited storage with Prime and my wife loves taking a huge number of photos on trips.
Thanks for the input. I have settled in on a few things based in my specific requirements (or I would say usage habits).
  • OneDrive as an extension to my primary PC, a laptop that goes where I go when I travel, which is only on occasion. It is a protected extension allowing for more seamless replacement of the hardware and/or OS. Way down on the list, it does allow me to share a few things with my smart phone -- primarily my KeePass password file. (It's encrypted.)
  • CrashPlan protects me from mistakes, system failures, and disasters with two layers of remote storage:
    • local, but not physically attached, on a hard drive attached to my router
    • off-site to CrashPlan's servers.
  • My photos are backed up in two ways:
    1. A "camera roll" goes to Google Drive. That is simply in chronological order.
    2. Organized photos go to folders on my laptop and therefore to OneDrive. This is organized. Photos get put in their proper place by subject matter. So far, space is not a problem. If it ever does become a problem I will need to think of a more scalable solution but by that time there will probably be even more alternatives.
  • File sharing is via DropBox.
EDIT: As I was looking around, I just noticed that AT&T (my cell phone service) ALSO keeps a copy of my camera images.
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mptfan
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by mptfan »

takeshi wrote:Google Drive for documents that I actually create and edit in different locations as well as temporary storage of online order confirmations.
It should be noted that documents created using Google Docs, Sheets, Slides or Drawings and saved in Google Drive do not count towards your Google Drive storage limit. In other words, you can create and save an unlimited amount of documents or files using those applications and they do not use up any of your storage space.
hoopy
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by hoopy »

Encryption is a valuable feature for me. I don't like the idea of my backups and documents being available to anyone with a certain level of access to the cloud provider's data center.

I like Spideroak.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by weltschmerz »

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MarkBarb
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by MarkBarb »

I use Dropbox for a few basic things I like to sync because it works well and is easy. I use Google Drive because that's what my kids use and it makes file sharing easy for us as a family. They still live at home, but I have file sharing turned off because we have so many teenage guests on our wifi that I get nervous about viruses. I use Backblaze for backups because it works well and is cheap. My wife and I do a lot of videography and photography, so we have about 10 terabytes of data backed up on Backblaze.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by MarkBarb »

I should add that I use TrueCrypt to encrypt the sensitive files that I keep on Dropbox.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by tinscale »

It should be noted that documents created using Google Docs, Sheets, Slides or Drawings and saved in Google Drive do not count towards your Google Drive storage limit.
Did not know that, thanks!
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by SmileyFace »

I've got 4TB of NAS at home and have considered moving to a personal storage cloud (use my storage on home network but be able to access from any device even if outside my home network - the storage is yours so you don't pay per GB fees). Would be curious if anyone has gone this route (some solutions include WD-MyCould, Seagate-PersonalCloud, Drobo, BeyondCloud, Cloudbox, etc.). My issue with the cloud vendors is I don't want to pay the per GB fees as for RAW photos this would get very expensive.
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by vinnydabody »

I use DropBox for the important stuff, mainly because there's no good solution for integrating Google Drive and Linux yet.
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bertilak
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by bertilak »

Please see my post in the Windows 10 upgrade thread: viewtopic.php?p=2818454#p2818454

I found that there is an issue with OneDrive support on Windows 10. Some Win 8.1 functionality has been slightly crippled. This was intentional as part of an ongoing re-design.
May neither drought nor rain nor blizzard disturb the joy juice in your gizzard. -- Squire Omar Barker (aka S.O.B.), the Cowboy Poet
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lthenderson
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Location: Iowa

Re: Cloud Storage

Post by lthenderson »

I use Dropbox for mass transfers of files or just making files I may need access to while on the road.

For backup, I have used Carbonite for the last five years. It works really well and for unlimited data storage (I have 360GB of data, mostly photos and music) I pay $50/year. It seems quite a few people are now using Google Drive and paying cheaper rates, at least for less data, so perhaps it is time to research it again and see if it pays to switch over.
AKBTX14
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Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2014 2:46 pm

Re: Cloud Storage

Post by AKBTX14 »

Backblaze for me. $95 for two years (unlimited data, large ISO files backup as well as portable hard drives). I have been using it for the last 6-7 years. I have 500GB of data/photos/etc.
cholan
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Location: new york

Re: Cloud Storage

Post by cholan »

bertilak wrote:Which do you use, if any?


I found that I use OneDrive and CrashPlan. Both are nearly indispensable. The others seem more like clutter that just confuses my digital life but I maintain my unused accounts because either it is automatic or I feel I might someday find it useful.

I am interested in what others have settled in on. If there is a clear winner other than what I have settled on I'll take a look. If there is a clear loser (or two or three) in the above list maybe I will try to de-clutter.
Same here. I am using Dropbox to sync across 10 computers. Dropbox is amazingly elegant and very reliable.
I am using Crashplan for different set of files that cannot be dropped into Dropbox.
Like you, I do have several other backups which are automatic, just in case.
...leaving not a rack behind.
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oneleaf
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by oneleaf »

I use Amazon's S3 service, as I like the commandline options for it. I also use Linux's native EncFS encryption, which allows incremental backup. EncFS and S3 give me all the features I need. The price is nowhere near as good as, say, Crashplan, for very large files, but for only a few GB of the most important files, S3 is cheap enough. I do not use Crashplan because I do not want to leave a Java service running all the time on my machine, and it is just another software layer that I do not want to deal with. The perfect solution for me would allow Rsync and SSH, but there are no really affordable options for it.
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JaneyLH
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by JaneyLH »

Although I worked in Silicon Valley -- starting BEFORE it was called Silicon Valley and when the buzzword was "data processing" -- I am a semi-Luddite about clouds, cloud backup, and the like. Bottom line, I refuse to pay for monthly subscriptions to anything. So the idea of having to pay for cloud storage is anathema to me. You can buy a 5 TB Seagate drive for $109 today. Buy two so you can have a backup of your backup. I copy my Photos, Documents, Music, and Video folders regularly. It happens overnight and doesn't take me long. I must confess that I intend to get a bank safe deposit box and keep one copy there, but I haven't yet gotten around to it. It's pretty rare that someone's house burns down, so my innate risk management impulse is to put it off for later -- but I will do it soon with my photos, which take up most of my storage and are my most precious data.

I have replaced computers multiple times and have not found it unduly burdensome to restore these folders from the backup hard drives, again usually choosing it to run overnight. I just added a 2 TB solid state drive to my laptop, and my computer tech service migrated my date flawlessly.

I am happy to use Google Photos and Amazon Prime Photos to backup my phone and iPad photos for free. Hopefully at least one of these will survive long term. At least there's backup! When one goes out of business or starts charging, I can then download the photos from the other and do something else with them.
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abuss368
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Re: Cloud Storage

Post by abuss368 »

We have been using iCloud and love it. With Apple products it just works.
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