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I use Dropbox for sharing pictures, but would never even dream to use a cloud based service for backup purposes. Granted, Jan's case is a bit more complex and

I use Dropbox for sharing pictures, but would never even dream to use a cloud based service for backup purposes. Granted, Jan's case is a bit more complex and I'm really sorry for his loss. Stories like that should really be a lesson to everybody never to completely trust a cloud based service as your main backup. On a side note: I agree that archiving of digital files is a hard problem. The smartest librarians of the world are thinking about how to achieve this for, literally, decades and I'm not sure they even have a good solution to the problem. My personal strategy is redundancy: I buy new hard disks every couple of years and copy all important files, twice. One hard disk is kept off site. It's not perfect, but it's the best I can come up with. Reading horror stories, like Jan's, indicates that it's the better solution. Despite the messiness.

blablabla123 12y ago
I've bought myself a Blue Ray recorder half a year ago and it's as easy to use as Dropbox with OS X...
- mkesper 12y ago
  Are you using dvdisaster to secure against data-loss?
  - slantyyz 12y ago
    I would also add that when using optical discs for backup, M-Discs are probably preferable over conventional dye-based discs.
    - blablabla123 12y ago
      Wow, do they work with conventional recorders?
      - dublinben 12y ago
        No, but they work with conventional readers. You need a special laser to do the physical etching that they're doing.
      - slantyyz 12y ago
        Only if they say "M-Disc" on it. Many consumer recorders, especially if made by LG, support writing to these discs.
  - blablabla123 12y ago
    Thanks for the hint, no, but I'll do that in the future. In the past I actually had the problem of errorneous blocks one or two times. Eventhough these were Noname Multisession CDs that lay too much in the sun. (The media actually turned yellowish). Never had this problem again, but I only use brand media which I put it into proper covers that don't get too much light. But I'll use it in the future... (Not sure if that's of interest anymore, but I used TrueCrypt for business backups.)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
icebraining 12y ago
I use Dropbox for sharing pictures, but would never even dream to use a cloud based service for backup purposes. Why not? They complement well the local hard drives. It shouldn't be the only copy, of course, but then again, nothing should.
true_religion 12y ago
Why not? I find it pretty great in terms of backups (though that's not my purpose for doing it.) I have copies of my files on my work machine, my laptop, my wife's laptop, my gaming machine, and ofcourse dropbox's servers itself. I could lose any one of those without losing the bunch thanks to dropbox synching things. Sure it doesn't help in the case of deletion but its great for the more common case of "my machine suddenly won't boot".
- morganvachon 12y ago
  >I have copies of my files on my work machine, my laptop, my wife's laptop, my gaming machine, and ofcourse dropbox's servers itself. I could lose any one of those without losing the bunch thanks to dropbox synching things. Read the story again. Jan had the same peace of mind you do, until a crash in the Dropbox client deleted ALL of his copies of the affected files. He only unsynced on one device, yet the Dropbox-stored copy, as well as copies he had on other devices, were gone forever, due to a client crash. Don't assume your files are safe just because they are synced to multiple devices; obviously that sync relationship can be disastrous when an unexpected bug rears its ugly head.
- Silhouette 12y ago
  I could lose any one of those without losing the bunch thanks to dropbox synching things. If it's due to a hardware failure, sure. If it's due to a bug as in this case, or an accidental deletion that went unnoticed for some reason, or corruption of a key file by the application that created it, or malware encrypting your entire filesystem until you pay a ransom, not so much. Please don't consider a bunch of sync'd copies to be a complete backup solution, whether the mechanism is a RAID setup on your local machine, or an automatic sync offsite, or a Dropbox-style cloud service, or anything else. These tools are guarding against one specific and relatively common failure mode, which is useful, but they do not guard against a lot of other things that can and sometimes do go wrong.

blablabla123 12y ago

I've bought myself a Blue Ray recorder half a year ago and it's as easy to use as Dropbox with OS X...

mkesper 12y ago
Are you using dvdisaster to secure against data-loss?
- slantyyz 12y ago
  I would also add that when using optical discs for backup, M-Discs are probably preferable over conventional dye-based discs.
  - blablabla123 12y ago
    Wow, do they work with conventional recorders?
    - dublinben 12y ago
      No, but they work with conventional readers. You need a special laser to do the physical etching that they're doing.
    - slantyyz 12y ago
      Only if they say "M-Disc" on it. Many consumer recorders, especially if made by LG, support writing to these discs.
- blablabla123 12y ago
  Thanks for the hint, no, but I'll do that in the future. In the past I actually had the problem of errorneous blocks one or two times. Eventhough these were Noname Multisession CDs that lay too much in the sun. (The media actually turned yellowish). Never had this problem again, but I only use brand media which I put it into proper covers that don't get too much light. But I'll use it in the future... (Not sure if that's of interest anymore, but I used TrueCrypt for business backups.)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

icebraining 12y ago

I use Dropbox for sharing pictures, but would never even dream to use a cloud based service for backup purposes. Why not? They complement well the local hard drives. It shouldn't be the only copy, of course, but then again, nothing should.

true_religion 12y ago

Why not? I find it pretty great in terms of backups (though that's not my purpose for doing it.) I have copies of my files on my work machine, my laptop, my wife's laptop, my gaming machine, and ofcourse dropbox's servers itself. I could lose any one of those without losing the bunch thanks to dropbox synching things. Sure it doesn't help in the case of deletion but its great for the more common case of "my machine suddenly won't boot".

morganvachon 12y ago
>I have copies of my files on my work machine, my laptop, my wife's laptop, my gaming machine, and ofcourse dropbox's servers itself. I could lose any one of those without losing the bunch thanks to dropbox synching things. Read the story again. Jan had the same peace of mind you do, until a crash in the Dropbox client deleted ALL of his copies of the affected files. He only unsynced on one device, yet the Dropbox-stored copy, as well as copies he had on other devices, were gone forever, due to a client crash. Don't assume your files are safe just because they are synced to multiple devices; obviously that sync relationship can be disastrous when an unexpected bug rears its ugly head.
Silhouette 12y ago
I could lose any one of those without losing the bunch thanks to dropbox synching things. If it's due to a hardware failure, sure. If it's due to a bug as in this case, or an accidental deletion that went unnoticed for some reason, or corruption of a key file by the application that created it, or malware encrypting your entire filesystem until you pay a ransom, not so much. Please don't consider a bunch of sync'd copies to be a complete backup solution, whether the mechanism is a RAID setup on your local machine, or an automatic sync offsite, or a Dropbox-style cloud service, or anything else. These tools are guarding against one specific and relatively common failure mode, which is useful, but they do not guard against a lot of other things that can and sometimes do go wrong.