Craig's Online Backup Service Review
What are the main differences between online backup and traditional backup?
Online Backup is a revolution over traditional backup; though it won't completely replace traditional backup due to network bandwidth constraint. Traditional backup solutions include (1) enterprise backup (such as EMC, HP, Sun and Veritas), which is extremely complicated and expensive; (2) consumer USB device-based backup, which is affordable, but is less reliable as the backup device is not redundant.The main advantages of Online Backup are: (1) Easy and simple; (2) Offsite reliability and security. Your backup data is guarded in a remote managed facility by professional people.
The main drawbacks of Online Backup are: (1) Cannot restore a computer system. Online Backup is only good for backing up user data, not operating system files; (2) Slow speed. ADSL and Cable Modem usually has an upload speed limit of 384Kbps, which is about 48KB/sec.
The mitigating factors are: (1) usually your personal or business data files are much more important than operating system files; (2) most online backup software supports incremental backup. So once the initial backup is finished, the subsequent backup can be much faster. Some online backup software can compress data for faster transferring. DriveHQ Online Backup even supports a unique "MagicUpload", which can increase the upload speed even further.
What are the main differences between different online backup services?
Different Online Backup services are very different. As we have evaluated a lot of online backup services, the conclusion is a lot of online backup services are not usable at all. (1) Some Online Backup services don't have a backup client. Users must upload files using a web browser; (2) Some service only offer online backup software without a web-based online storage service; (3) some services only support Windows; (4) Some services also support FTP; (5) Some services don't support data encryption; (6) Other features may or may not be supported include: file versioning; scheduled backup; real-time backup; shadow copy support (backup files being used); backup Outlook emails, etc.
What about Gmail / GmailFS? Is it a good Online Storage / Backup solution?
Email is quite different from files. Gmail / GmailFS may be a cheap solution for casual users, it is certainly not a viable solution for serious users or for business purposes. GmailFS is not officially approved by Google; so any data is not guarantteed. GmailFS lacks real backup features, such as: Scheduling, backup sets, file versioning, support for very large files and is simply not efficient as a file system.
Yahoo offers unlimited email storage, why most online storage services only offer limited storage for free?
Well, unlimited email storage is just a business hype, because nobody can have unlimited emails; in fact, most email accounts only use less than 100MB of email storage. In the online storage / online backup case, it is quite different. Users can easily upload gigabytes of files. If given unlimited storage, a user can easily use over 50GB of storage, which can be quite expensive.Isn't storage cheap or free? I can buy a USB drive at a very low price.
Well, there are cheap storage and expensive storage. A USB drive designed for consumers is cheap. But it has limited features and doesn't come with any online features; you cannot share files with friends remotely. A USB-drive also doesn't have data redundancy, and lacks offsite reliability.A business class storage can be much more expensive as it involves RAID, backup battery, NAS or SAN devices / servers, and redundant systems. Dependent on the type of storage, and software and service features, online storage can be much more expensive than a USB drive, but is still a lot cheaper than enterprise storage systems.
Is online backup secure? I have financial data or healthcare data that requires high security.
Some online storage / backup services support HTTPS/SSL, which is secure in transferring data; some services even can encrypt data stored on server, which is even more secure. If you combine HTTPS/SSL and Data encryption, it should meet any security requirements. However, you must make sure you choose a right backup service. A lot of online backup services don't support high security.I want to use Online Backup service to backup my server; how do I know if the backup is running fine (as I don't logon to the server)?
Some Online Backup applications can send automatic status notification emails.