These days, in our world of high speed internet, and cellular data speeds that can provide streamable video, larger and larger data storage needs are growing in our personal computing lives. As we grow these vast data stores with our pictures, documents, music, and more, it becomes even more imperative to keep our personal information safe and protected. Many companies have arisen in the marketplace that provide fantastic storage backup, syncing, and redundancy solution. So the question is, “what solution is right for me?”
FILE SHARING:
- Solutions like Dropbox (dropbox.com), Box.net, One Hub (onehub.com) provide solutions where you can not only keep your data offsite, but can also synchronize with multiple computers’ local data stores. This allows for easy collaboration, management, and redundancy across multiple locations. The dangerous part of this kind of a solution is the chance of accidental deletion. Box.net allows you to keep versions, but many other solutions just pull the data from the servers, and you’re file is gone..so if you delete it and let it sync, all your synching computers lose the file. SO …make sure you have a good local backup running continuous as well with this kind of solution.
OFFSITE BACKUPS:
- Some of you may have heard of Mozy, or Intronis, or Carbonite, who are three of the bigger offsite backup providers in the marketplace. These services pride themselves on the “Set it and Forget It” model. Basically, you sign up ($50/yr typical price), run through the easy to use installer, and just let it roll! Your chosen file types (documents, pictures, music etc..) get backed up continuously offsite to redundantly backed up data servers in multiple locations. These are usually 256 AES encrypted connections that provide safe and secure connections to the servers, and I highly recommend this type of a solution.
HYBRID:
- Some solutions do both…Sugarsync, Soonr, 1Backup. - these solutions are considered an all-in-one, that can give you file sharing across multiple groups and computers, and offsite backup in case of disaster or emergency. Very strong solutions indeed, except that typically, these connections are not the most secure, and there is more of a chance of hackers or identity theft. Now don’t get me wrong, these are secure connection, they’re just not the MOST secure.
All in all, there are many fantastic offsite backup and file sharing solutions in the marketplace. So it’s really up to you to choose the one you’d like to use, and you always have Google as your friend to research and find the right one.