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sigh Dropbox should not be used as a backup system. A system that synchronizes live should never get that role, except if they can guarantee that old data is ne

by DeepDuh 14y ago

sigh Dropbox should not be used as a backup system. A system that synchronizes live should never get that role, except if they can guarantee that old data is never overwritten, new is always appended. This is not the case with dropbox - I've experienced multiple scary occurrences of old versions going to the nirvana with certain user actions. In certain cases the old data just appears to be gone, in other cases the web interface shows them but a restore results in an error message. Especially data move appears to be buggy. Dropbox appears to be simple, but the backend processes are really not and there is too much going on for it to be a reliable backup system, especially if you also share some of your data to team mates. edit: emphasis formatting, niceifying.

buro9 14y ago
No sigh was necessary, I understand. I even mentioned that I have a NAS and off-site backup... so either you didn't read it all or you stopped the moment you encountered the word "Dropbox" and started typing. That said, people DO use DropBox as backup. If you take a walk around the British Library and asked every PhD student working there how they "Backup" their research and work in progress, I bet every single person who believes that they have a backup will say "Dropbox", and the only exceptions will be a few who don't really have a backup. I know that because I ensured my girlfriend does have a real backup solution in place that is tested. Not one of her peers seems to. DropBox is used for backup because they've made file sync so damn easy that most people can be convinced that if a file exists in many places, it is backed-up. My whole point is that now storage for long term backup is priced in a way that is affordable to most, that consumer services may emerge that offer true backup to consumers and can successfully migrate people from lesser solutions (DropBox, stacks of CD-ROMs, etc). One of the things about backup is that it needs to be easy. Currently the size and cost of backups make it expensive, and the only way to reduce the cost makes it difficult (HDD local copies stored at a friends' house for example). By reducing the cost, perhaps we can finally increase the ease... and then a day may come in which most people have a real backup solution.
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  "I even mentioned that I have a NAS and off-site backup... so either you didn't read it all or you stopped the moment you encountered the word "Dropbox" and started typing." No offense, but this post doesn't quite match what you wrote originally. My sigh was in response to the phrase "Dropbox should work here, ...". You didn't state security as your concern as to why not use Dropbox, rather it was cost. This might lead someone who only needs <2GB backed up to believe that Dropbox is perfectly fine for that task. "DropBox is used for backup because they've made file sync so damn easy that most people can be convinced that if a file exists in many places, it is backed-up." And that's exactly what I'm scared about and why I'm saying it again and again that you shouldn't do it - if only one person listens and avoids potential data loss because of it I've already reached my goal. "One of the things about backup is that it needs to be easy. Currently the size and cost of backups make it expensive, and the only way to reduce the cost makes it difficult (HDD local copies stored at a friends' house for example). By reducing the cost, perhaps we can finally increase the ease... and then a day may come in which most people have a real backup solution." Agreed. IMO no consumer backup system is quite there yet. TimeMachine is very close, if only it would do better logging and have some more intelligence about warning messages.
  - buro9 14y ago
    "No offense, but this post doesn't quite match what you wrote originally. My sigh was in response to the phrase "Dropbox should work here, ...". You didn't state security as your concern as to why not use Dropbox, rather it was cost. This might lead someone who only needs <2GB backed up to believe that Dropbox is perfectly fine for that task." A fair point. In my case, Dropbox use is in addition to local RAID (scratch) NAS (network scratch, access of larger files) + off-site (backup). I only use Dropbox for syncing and sharing. The sync vs backup is an interesting one, simply because most consumers couldn't tell you the difference. For example: Q: "Are your contacts backed up?". A: "Yes, they're sync'd to Google". I did conflate my scenario with thinking about my girlfriend's peers in my post. And then reacted from my perspective again... my bad. "Agreed. IMO no consumer backup system is quite there yet. TimeMachine is very close, if only it would do better logging and have some more intelligence about warning messages" Vigorous agreement here too, except for the TimeMachine bit as that is Mac only and doesn't work for <insert any other system or device that isn't Apple Mac OSX).
reledi 14y ago
Though you make a good point, your comment could have avoided sounding pretentious if you shortened it by removing the first few words. Also, please don't use uppercase for emphasis, as mentioned in the guidelines [1]. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. [1]: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  Alright, I've edited it, thanks for the heads up. Dropbox and backup in one phrase tends to awaken my temper as I've had some horrible almost data losses (as in I've had to restore data from the dropbox cache folder that could basically be purged at any point).
Dylan16807 14y ago
The dropbox client itself keeps the old versions of files around for a few days. It doesn't matter if the backend gets confused.
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  Yes, I'm aware of that. This helps, up to the point where you don't notice that something's gone for 'a few days'. Let's say you have your student project's folder shared with two other colleagues. You take a few days off, use your PC for casual browsing, meanwhile your colleagues are working on the project. At the end, one of them (who doesn't quite understand how dropbox works) deletes the files while the other is still working on it and dropbox gets confused. Your PC gets synched at a moment where you don't notice. Come back from your holidays and you will have a nice surprise waiting.
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    The colleague that was actively using the files doesn't notice them disappear? Can you explain how dropbox has lost history for you in the past?
    - DeepDuh 14y ago
      It doesn't matter whether he notices it or not, you can't count on social factors when it comes to backup systems. He might notice it but then he thinks, oh no problem, it's all in Dropbox anyway, I'll talk to Dylan16807 when he gets back. I've never had any complete data losses until now, but I've had this situation where the Dropbox cache was the only place to retrieve files twice and it showed me that it can't be trusted this way. I'm certainly not gonna wait until the real deal happens just to have a personal story on how Dropbox can go horribly wrong. I've been shown the possibility and that's enough for me. As for specifics, the case I mentioned is the one I saw where it can go wrong. IMO the only really save way to use Dropbox without additional backups is if you never share folders and only ever use one system with write-access at the same time - which is not the usual use-case of that product.
ghshephard 14y ago
The ideal solution is the Quadfecta (is that a word?) - Dropbox for (in my experience) excellent versioning/synchronizing (Never failed me) + Backblaze (or its ilk) for continuous Offline backups + Super Duper (weekly/whenever) - for Image Backups - + Something (Arq?) on top of Glacier for long time off-site-archival. For $50 in software (Arq+SuperDuper), $100 for an external HD, and less than $25/month ($4-backblaze, $10 Dropbox, $10 Glacier) you have a backup system that is next to air tight for a Terabyte of Data and a working set (on dropbox) of 100 Gigabytes.
- dtby 14y ago
  > Quadfecta (is that a word?) In case you happen to read with show-dead on: it's a "superfecta."
g-garron 14y ago
I use a combination of Dropbox and S3. I have my MacBook and a Linux server linked to my Dropbox account. So changes in my documents are synced to my Linux. My Linux run three cron-jobs. One daily, one weekly and another monthly. The command is. s3cmd sync --delete-removed ~/Dropbox/documents/ s3://backup-daily/ There are buckets for weekly and monthly too. Note: the command is not exactly like that, check the man page. That way I have backed up all my documents very cheap.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  One thing to be a little careful of - you are sending all of your data to S3, which is, of course, the backing store for Dropbox.
  - sintaks 14y ago
    Dropbox stores their stuff in S3 a little different. It's not a 1:1 correspondence between user files and objects under Dropbox's S3 account. The fact that they use S3 as their backing store means very little. It certainly sounds good to have S3 in back when you talk about scalability and durability, but 1) they could just as easily use something else, and 2) depending on their sharding strategy, a single lost object could impact multiple files at the user level.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      Right - the point I was trying to make, is he was putting all his eggs in one basked. If anything catastrophic happened to S3, he might lose both his S3 as well as his Dropbox backups. If you are going to the effort of having dual-backup systems, may as well try and find something that can't be impacted by a single disaster.
      - sintaks 14y ago
        Ah, right - definitely.
- DeepDuh 14y ago
pbhjpbhj 14y ago
>A system that synchronizes live should never get that role, except if they can guarantee that old data is never overwritten, new is always appended. // Why don't Dropbox enable this use-case. It would surely be very easy to implement. I guess that pack-rat does do this in a way but seems like overkill. I'd like something along the lines of duplicating all files but requiring confirmation of deletions and overwrites.

by DeepDuh 14y ago

buro9 14y ago

No sigh was necessary, I understand. I even mentioned that I have a NAS and off-site backup... so either you didn't read it all or you stopped the moment you encountered the word "Dropbox" and started typing. That said, people DO use DropBox as backup. If you take a walk around the British Library and asked every PhD student working there how they "Backup" their research and work in progress, I bet every single person who believes that they have a backup will say "Dropbox", and the only exceptions will be a few who don't really have a backup. I know that because I ensured my girlfriend does have a real backup solution in place that is tested. Not one of her peers seems to. DropBox is used for backup because they've made file sync so damn easy that most people can be convinced that if a file exists in many places, it is backed-up. My whole point is that now storage for long term backup is priced in a way that is affordable to most, that consumer services may emerge that offer true backup to consumers and can successfully migrate people from lesser solutions (DropBox, stacks of CD-ROMs, etc). One of the things about backup is that it needs to be easy. Currently the size and cost of backups make it expensive, and the only way to reduce the cost makes it difficult (HDD local copies stored at a friends' house for example). By reducing the cost, perhaps we can finally increase the ease... and then a day may come in which most people have a real backup solution.

DeepDuh 14y ago
"I even mentioned that I have a NAS and off-site backup... so either you didn't read it all or you stopped the moment you encountered the word "Dropbox" and started typing." No offense, but this post doesn't quite match what you wrote originally. My sigh was in response to the phrase "Dropbox should work here, ...". You didn't state security as your concern as to why not use Dropbox, rather it was cost. This might lead someone who only needs <2GB backed up to believe that Dropbox is perfectly fine for that task. "DropBox is used for backup because they've made file sync so damn easy that most people can be convinced that if a file exists in many places, it is backed-up." And that's exactly what I'm scared about and why I'm saying it again and again that you shouldn't do it - if only one person listens and avoids potential data loss because of it I've already reached my goal. "One of the things about backup is that it needs to be easy. Currently the size and cost of backups make it expensive, and the only way to reduce the cost makes it difficult (HDD local copies stored at a friends' house for example). By reducing the cost, perhaps we can finally increase the ease... and then a day may come in which most people have a real backup solution." Agreed. IMO no consumer backup system is quite there yet. TimeMachine is very close, if only it would do better logging and have some more intelligence about warning messages.
- buro9 14y ago
  "No offense, but this post doesn't quite match what you wrote originally. My sigh was in response to the phrase "Dropbox should work here, ...". You didn't state security as your concern as to why not use Dropbox, rather it was cost. This might lead someone who only needs <2GB backed up to believe that Dropbox is perfectly fine for that task." A fair point. In my case, Dropbox use is in addition to local RAID (scratch) NAS (network scratch, access of larger files) + off-site (backup). I only use Dropbox for syncing and sharing. The sync vs backup is an interesting one, simply because most consumers couldn't tell you the difference. For example: Q: "Are your contacts backed up?". A: "Yes, they're sync'd to Google". I did conflate my scenario with thinking about my girlfriend's peers in my post. And then reacted from my perspective again... my bad. "Agreed. IMO no consumer backup system is quite there yet. TimeMachine is very close, if only it would do better logging and have some more intelligence about warning messages" Vigorous agreement here too, except for the TimeMachine bit as that is Mac only and doesn't work for <insert any other system or device that isn't Apple Mac OSX).

reledi 14y ago

Though you make a good point, your comment could have avoided sounding pretentious if you shortened it by removing the first few words. Also, please don't use uppercase for emphasis, as mentioned in the guidelines [1]. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. [1]: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

DeepDuh 14y ago
Alright, I've edited it, thanks for the heads up. Dropbox and backup in one phrase tends to awaken my temper as I've had some horrible almost data losses (as in I've had to restore data from the dropbox cache folder that could basically be purged at any point).

Dylan16807 14y ago

The dropbox client itself keeps the old versions of files around for a few days. It doesn't matter if the backend gets confused.

DeepDuh 14y ago
Yes, I'm aware of that. This helps, up to the point where you don't notice that something's gone for 'a few days'. Let's say you have your student project's folder shared with two other colleagues. You take a few days off, use your PC for casual browsing, meanwhile your colleagues are working on the project. At the end, one of them (who doesn't quite understand how dropbox works) deletes the files while the other is still working on it and dropbox gets confused. Your PC gets synched at a moment where you don't notice. Come back from your holidays and you will have a nice surprise waiting.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  The colleague that was actively using the files doesn't notice them disappear? Can you explain how dropbox has lost history for you in the past?
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
    It doesn't matter whether he notices it or not, you can't count on social factors when it comes to backup systems. He might notice it but then he thinks, oh no problem, it's all in Dropbox anyway, I'll talk to Dylan16807 when he gets back. I've never had any complete data losses until now, but I've had this situation where the Dropbox cache was the only place to retrieve files twice and it showed me that it can't be trusted this way. I'm certainly not gonna wait until the real deal happens just to have a personal story on how Dropbox can go horribly wrong. I've been shown the possibility and that's enough for me. As for specifics, the case I mentioned is the one I saw where it can go wrong. IMO the only really save way to use Dropbox without additional backups is if you never share folders and only ever use one system with write-access at the same time - which is not the usual use-case of that product.

ghshephard 14y ago

The ideal solution is the Quadfecta (is that a word?) - Dropbox for (in my experience) excellent versioning/synchronizing (Never failed me) + Backblaze (or its ilk) for continuous Offline backups + Super Duper (weekly/whenever) - for Image Backups - + Something (Arq?) on top of Glacier for long time off-site-archival. For $50 in software (Arq+SuperDuper), $100 for an external HD, and less than $25/month ($4-backblaze, $10 Dropbox, $10 Glacier) you have a backup system that is next to air tight for a Terabyte of Data and a working set (on dropbox) of 100 Gigabytes.

dtby 14y ago
> Quadfecta (is that a word?) In case you happen to read with show-dead on: it's a "superfecta."

g-garron 14y ago

I use a combination of Dropbox and S3. I have my MacBook and a Linux server linked to my Dropbox account. So changes in my documents are synced to my Linux. My Linux run three cron-jobs. One daily, one weekly and another monthly. The command is. s3cmd sync --delete-removed ~/Dropbox/documents/ s3://backup-daily/ There are buckets for weekly and monthly too. Note: the command is not exactly like that, check the man page. That way I have backed up all my documents very cheap.

ghshephard 14y ago
One thing to be a little careful of - you are sending all of your data to S3, which is, of course, the backing store for Dropbox.
- sintaks 14y ago
  Dropbox stores their stuff in S3 a little different. It's not a 1:1 correspondence between user files and objects under Dropbox's S3 account. The fact that they use S3 as their backing store means very little. It certainly sounds good to have S3 in back when you talk about scalability and durability, but 1) they could just as easily use something else, and 2) depending on their sharding strategy, a single lost object could impact multiple files at the user level.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    Right - the point I was trying to make, is he was putting all his eggs in one basked. If anything catastrophic happened to S3, he might lose both his S3 as well as his Dropbox backups. If you are going to the effort of having dual-backup systems, may as well try and find something that can't be impacted by a single disaster.
    - sintaks 14y ago
      Ah, right - definitely.
DeepDuh 14y ago

pbhjpbhj 14y ago

>A system that synchronizes live should never get that role, except if they can guarantee that old data is never overwritten, new is always appended. // Why don't Dropbox enable this use-case. It would surely be very easy to implement. I guess that pack-rat does do this in a way but seems like overkill. I'd like something along the lines of duplicating all files but requiring confirmation of deletions and overwrites.