Dropbox Glitch Perfect Reason Why Backups Should Be Local

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This is why I follow this advise: "If you want to keep the file, back it up three different ways". I don't use cloud storage myself, but have three external backup drives. I like the idea if I need a file, I don't have to be online to access it.
 
I personally still rely on backups on different drives on the same machine but cloud storage could help however it should never be instead of local storage but rather in addition to. if the cloud service fails you still have local and if local fails you still have cloud.
 
If i want to share a file (e.g. between work and home computers) I use cloud. If I want to keep a file I backup to an external HD. If the file is important I make an extra backup to my work centralized file system, where, in addition, IT makes daily incremental backups and weekly full backups.

 
Cloud (noun, singular): A dynamic arrangement of multiple potential single points of failure, with a user at one end and their data at the other

Let that sink in for a second. =)
 
I agree with the guys above and recommend multiple backup methods for anything that's irreplaceable or time consuming to reproduce.

If you can get past security implications of putting your files into cloud backup services, then I believe it's a viable and smart way to backup files. There are services out there that give you UNLIMITED storage space for very reasonable costs.

Just like I don't trust my local hard drive from failing, I wouldn't never trust the cloud from failing as well. But chances are that my local copy will not fail at the same time my could copy fails. And if you add a third backup medium, the chances of losing all three at the same time becomes even smaller.

Cloud backup data loss should help identify single points of failure in your backup schema, but it's definitely not a "perfect reason why backups should be local".
 
You are equally likely to screw something up locally. I've had issues personally with backups working fine initially, but then as the system grows, I've run into hard limits imposed by the underlying technology: path length, bit rot, catalog size or corruption, memory limits, Windows locking files, etc. I used to backup servers to DVD's using dump/restore/bzip2, then found out that I couldn't restore after the compressed files exceeded 2 GB in size, because they couldn't be read back even though growisofs was happy to write them. I've run into quirks of all kinds with backup systems like Retrospect, Bacula, Genie Timeline, Cobian backup and others using both tape and hard drives. I've gone back and forth regarding whether a "push" or "pull" backup system is best, and still haven't made up my mind. It is really tricky to get right, and you usually don't find out you got it wrong until it's too late. Then it's reinstall everything, scrape what data you can out of the backup system, and back to the backup system drawing board.
 
Anyone who uses dropbox as a backup solution is an idiot. Its is good for syncing files across multiple devices and it does a damn good job. I use it for school work. Start something on my laptop and switch to my desktop without having to transfer any files manually. It is excellent.

My dropbox folder is backed up on a daily basis to a separate harddrive.

All real backups should be done locally to a separate drive or to an outside source that specializes in data backup (even then, most people's upspeed prevents them from doing any large backups outside of their WAN.
 
...'backup using a portable HDD or SSD, toss it into'...
SSD for backup? That is really bad advice. SSDs keep data for 6 months only after unpluged from power. Take care with your advices...
 


Three different ways, with one of those ways being off-site in another region. Unless one of your backups is 100+ miles away, a local natural disaster could destroy all of your copies.
 
A virus could wipe all data on hard-drives connected to your computer, a fire could destroy your home and all your drives/photos, a malicious user could log on to your computer and delete your backups, a lightening strike could destroy your electronics (happened to me).

RAID isn't going to solve these problems. It isn't meant to. Multi-region cloud storage has a place and that is for maximum resiliency. Don't trust all your data to one service necessarily, and don't be lax with your security, but for individuals services like Dropbox are the only viable solution.
 
Kewlx25 said:
Three different ways, with one of those ways being off-site in another region. Unless one of your backups is 100+ miles away, a local natural disaster could destroy all of your copies.
Click to expand...

Yes, one of my critical backups is in another state, plus on a few servers.
 
I've been using DropBox for about two years now. At first I used to manually upload photos from my phone, then immediately log onto my computer at home and download the files to a hard drive so I would have a backup copy in case I lost my phone and/or something happened to DropBox (like going bankrupt, as many storage companies have in the past).

As time went on, I subscribed to DropBox Pro and took advantage of the automatic upload feature, as well as automatic sync with my Asus Transformer Pro and Barne & Noble Nook. But never have I looked upon those auto upload/auto syncy features as a "backup". I've always continued copying my pictures manually from DropBox to a hard drive on my main computer at home, and over time I've added two additional hard drives on other computers as an additional safety measure.

In short, if DrobBox suddenly went bankrupt and disappeared from the net forever, and I simultaneously lost my phone and had my tablets stolen out of my luggage at the airport, I'd STILL have 3 copies of everything on 3 different home computers. In my opinion, anyone who doesn't follow a similar procedure is just asking for trouble. Take my advice - storage is cheap. Don't depend on a 3rd party to store files for you, no matter how convenient it sounds at the time. Eventually, something will happen and you will come to regret it.
 
It's always easy to act clever in hindsight, counting 100's ways more secure than DropBox. But in reality, services like DropBox has probably saved files for millions of people over the years, people who would otherwise never had bothered or had the knowhow to do proper and safe local backups. The automation and low learning threshold of something like DropBox means it's a good enough backup service for the large majority.
 
I don't ever rely on one piece of technology for backups. I work I wrote Robocopy scripts set on a daily and weekly schedule to copy files to different locations and then volume shadow at different times. Even tho the backups and volume shadows are completely automated it's always good idea to go back and check the backups to make sure it actually worked. Also I make use Microsoft's DSF to sync the files between different file servers both onsite and offsite.

I personally don't trust cloud backup / sync to get it 100% right all the time. For personal stuff probably not too big of a deal long as you are backing it up locally yourself on a regular basis. But for Enterprise nope, we do it ourselves.
 
ho ho don't spend money in local storage. If you think your cloud storage service enough space for you precious data but has a 0.0001% chance to delete your files then backup your data in 2 different cloud storage services. I use Wuala Dropbox and OneDrive. Important files are kept in more than one cloud. You do the math and see how probable is to have 2 different cloud services fail at the same time.
 
I want to start by saying first off that Dropbox isn't a backup service, it's a sync service; obviously file deletions are still bad, but it's for getting stuff onto your other devices. If you want to back stuff up then there are much better services for that, such as a CrashPlan, which offer unlimited storage but are intended mostly for one-directional backup (with client-side encryption if you want it), only restoring files when you need to. For syncing I now prefer Bittorrent Sync; it's still a bit tricky to setup, as accidentally touching a file in a read-only share can prevent it from receiving any updates.
 
Just wanted to add that my back-up system is; local backup using an external disk attached to each machine (except gaming PC, since it's portable), with a NAS handling secondary backup for all machines. This NAS also backs up overnight to CrashPlan for a third, off-site backup using client-side encryption (I have copies of these keys on my phone and in a fire-proof safe, so if the worst should happen I shouldn't be able to lose access to the CrashPlan backup).
 
The average person doesn't know what the "cloud" is - it just sounds neat to them. I explain it to them as "Imagine a computer sitting in the middle of a busy mall for anyone access; your files on stored on there, and as long as they have your password; anyone can access them"
 
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