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Or just save yourself the trouble and pay for cloud storage - avoid spending your time on maintenance, data checks and off-site storage (in case your house burn

Or just save yourself the trouble and pay for cloud storage - avoid spending your time on maintenance, data checks and off-site storage (in case your house burns down etc.). The value proposition is there unless you value your time very low, really have major security concerns or have extreme amounts of data. Notably this article is from 2008, which is when Dropbox was first founded.

IYasha 4y ago
Umm... NO. 1. Datacentre has limited responsibility - if your data is lost, refund is the best you can wish for. Frankly, they don't care beyond that. And even if they did, there's usually nothing they can do. 2. Disk-as-a-service - you pay, you get, you stop, you lose. Everything. 3. Oops, your cloud provider blocked your account. For the great justice, for porn, because their stupid government decided that your stupid government is their new enemy, or because it's just Google. 4. You don't have Internet anymore. Earthquake caused by either a volcano or drunk neighbors disrupted your only line. And they're too busy to fix it. 5. You've lost your key. Gaymower. 6. (there may be more)
- zvr 4y ago
  7. You're about to die and you want your children to inherit this collection of precious data.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    This. We don’t like to think about this, but when my dad passed we were eventually able to find some of his writing and other things that were important to him and us, that we didn’t really know about. His google drive kept his digital stuff safe, but stopped doing so after the credit card shut down.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  There is forever.com, they promise to keep data for 100 years at least. I paid $160 for 10GB of storage. They even promise to transcode your videos for you as file formats become obsolete.
  - xorcist 4y ago
    > they promise to keep data for 100 years at least Or they go bankrupt, whichever comes first. Statistically speaking I know which I'd bet on.
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
      Their business model is specifically not to go bankrupt, so there is hope ... With interest rates on the rise, and the price of GB consistently deflating, I think economics is on their side. I'm willing to take a 100-year bet).
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    > I paid $160 for 10GB of storage That's fine but you're in a thread where I started by saying terabytes.
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
      Of course, you can buy a terabyte from them, just would cost more.
nine_k 4y ago
Cloud storage is an important option, among several others. It complements, but does not replace, other forms of backing up stuff that you really don't want to lose. (It goes without saying that you have to have more than one place to store your backups.)
crabbone 4y ago
What if you are the cloud storage? Is it like turtles all the way down?
marsten 4y ago
Cloud storage is useful for personal backup, but it's tricky on the millennium timescale of the article since no company will survive very long. If you kept duplicate copies at the top N cloud providers at any given time, then you could probably go for 1000 years if N>=3. But this would require an active effort to keep your data alive as companies came and went. A true archival copy can be ignored and still be readable.

IYasha 4y ago

Umm... NO. 1. Datacentre has limited responsibility - if your data is lost, refund is the best you can wish for. Frankly, they don't care beyond that. And even if they did, there's usually nothing they can do. 2. Disk-as-a-service - you pay, you get, you stop, you lose. Everything. 3. Oops, your cloud provider blocked your account. For the great justice, for porn, because their stupid government decided that your stupid government is their new enemy, or because it's just Google. 4. You don't have Internet anymore. Earthquake caused by either a volcano or drunk neighbors disrupted your only line. And they're too busy to fix it. 5. You've lost your key. Gaymower. 6. (there may be more)

zvr 4y ago
7. You're about to die and you want your children to inherit this collection of precious data.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  This. We don’t like to think about this, but when my dad passed we were eventually able to find some of his writing and other things that were important to him and us, that we didn’t really know about. His google drive kept his digital stuff safe, but stopped doing so after the credit card shut down.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
There is forever.com, they promise to keep data for 100 years at least. I paid $160 for 10GB of storage. They even promise to transcode your videos for you as file formats become obsolete.
- xorcist 4y ago
  > they promise to keep data for 100 years at least Or they go bankrupt, whichever comes first. Statistically speaking I know which I'd bet on.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
    Their business model is specifically not to go bankrupt, so there is hope ... With interest rates on the rise, and the price of GB consistently deflating, I think economics is on their side. I'm willing to take a 100-year bet).
- fsckboy 4y ago
  > I paid $160 for 10GB of storage That's fine but you're in a thread where I started by saying terabytes.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
    Of course, you can buy a terabyte from them, just would cost more.

nine_k 4y ago

Cloud storage is an important option, among several others. It complements, but does not replace, other forms of backing up stuff that you really don't want to lose. (It goes without saying that you have to have more than one place to store your backups.)

crabbone 4y ago

What if you are the cloud storage? Is it like turtles all the way down?

marsten 4y ago

Cloud storage is useful for personal backup, but it's tricky on the millennium timescale of the article since no company will survive very long. If you kept duplicate copies at the top N cloud providers at any given time, then you could probably go for 1000 years if N>=3. But this would require an active effort to keep your data alive as companies came and went. A true archival copy can be ignored and still be readable.