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A good reminder that Dropbox is not a backup client, and should not be relied on for backups, any more than RAID should be.

by Lazare 12y ago

naiyt 12y ago
Exactly what I came here to say. Syncing services can be great, but should not be a replacement for proper backups.
danieldk 12y ago
I disagree. A local tape NAS is also not a good backup, (god forbid) your house can burn down. A remote service like Backblaze is also not a good backup, they could go bankrupt or a software error could corrupt all your backups. A good backup policy uses a mixture of onsite and offsite, and Dropbox can be a (convenient) part of that. E.g., I store (non-sensitive) files in Dropbox, which gives me a certain period of undelete possibilities. My Dropbox folder is backed up on a local time machine backup. Critical parts of my Dropbox are also backed up using tarsnap, etc. A good backup policy diversifies, and Dropbox can be part of that.
sz4kerto 12y ago
It can be a backup client, as long it's not the only one. I use OneDrive + a local NAS as my backup. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but having at least one copy locally and one copy in the cloud is quite safe. Obviously these two must not be synced in realtime (because if the sync software screws something up, then you might lose everything) -- so I just keep everything on OneDrive, and every couple of weeks manually copy the files (this is still not 100% safe because of possible file corruption issues, but it's OK for me).
Dylan16807 12y ago
It's about as good as any online backup system. It's much much better than raid. If you want to be picky you shouldn't rely on backups unless you have multiple independent backup systems, at least one offsite, at least one offline.
- m_mueller 12y ago
  Sorry, but this is just wrong. Any system that offers multi user sync is inherently more complex than it needs to be as a backup solution. A backup should generally be - convenient enough that you do it without thinking about it. - technically as simple as possible, so it's easy to understand and review. - secure. Dropbox fullfills the first point, but not the second, and the third is debatable. Spideroak as a counterexample is just as convenient, has a pure incremental backup mode and is client-side encrypted, the gold standard of security.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    You really don't need any of those to be a solid backup system. What matters is that you make backups, the backups last long enough, and there's testing of backups. Also from what I've seen spideroak is significantly more complex than dropbox.

A good reminder that Dropbox is not a backup client, and should not be relied on for backups, any more than RAID should be.

by Lazare 12y ago

A good reminder that Dropbox is not a backup client, and should not be relied on for backups, any more than RAID should be.

naiyt 12y ago

Exactly what I came here to say. Syncing services can be great, but should not be a replacement for proper backups.

danieldk 12y ago

I disagree. A local tape NAS is also not a good backup, (god forbid) your house can burn down. A remote service like Backblaze is also not a good backup, they could go bankrupt or a software error could corrupt all your backups. A good backup policy uses a mixture of onsite and offsite, and Dropbox can be a (convenient) part of that. E.g., I store (non-sensitive) files in Dropbox, which gives me a certain period of undelete possibilities. My Dropbox folder is backed up on a local time machine backup. Critical parts of my Dropbox are also backed up using tarsnap, etc. A good backup policy diversifies, and Dropbox can be part of that.

sz4kerto 12y ago

It can be a backup client, as long it's not the only one. I use OneDrive + a local NAS as my backup. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but having at least one copy locally and one copy in the cloud is quite safe. Obviously these two must not be synced in realtime (because if the sync software screws something up, then you might lose everything) -- so I just keep everything on OneDrive, and every couple of weeks manually copy the files (this is still not 100% safe because of possible file corruption issues, but it's OK for me).

Dylan16807 12y ago

It's about as good as any online backup system. It's much much better than raid. If you want to be picky you shouldn't rely on backups unless you have multiple independent backup systems, at least one offsite, at least one offline.

m_mueller 12y ago
Sorry, but this is just wrong. Any system that offers multi user sync is inherently more complex than it needs to be as a backup solution. A backup should generally be - convenient enough that you do it without thinking about it. - technically as simple as possible, so it's easy to understand and review. - secure. Dropbox fullfills the first point, but not the second, and the third is debatable. Spideroak as a counterexample is just as convenient, has a pure incremental backup mode and is client-side encrypted, the gold standard of security.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  You really don't need any of those to be a solid backup system. What matters is that you make backups, the backups last long enough, and there's testing of backups. Also from what I've seen spideroak is significantly more complex than dropbox.