Online storage

[GarraGee]

I should appreciate the boards collective view on the best online storage site.

Don't mind paying a 'reasonable' sum, but free would be nice.

Probably no more than 3-5 GB, at least for the time being.

As ever, much appreciated.

GG

[supremetwo]

Zoolz has several paid-for options.

There is onedrive in Windows with auto-sync up to 5Gb.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/onedrive- ... d-storage/

[mc2fool]

I use Google Drive (15GB free) for non-secure stuff and https://www.sync.com/ (5BG free*) for secure end-to-end encrypted storage of more sensitive files, and I'm happy with both.

Both store online and auto-sync up whatever is in their respective folder trees between devices (a W10 Pro desktop & W10 Home laptop in my case). My total usage is actually less than 5GB, so I could put it all on sync.com, however Google Drive has (unsurprisingly) better and easier to use integration on my Android phone, hence using that for non-secure stuff that I want available on the phone.

* they advertise 5GB free but once you sign up and get going they give you another 1GB, so it's actually 6GB for free.

[Slarti]

I should appreciate the boards collective view on the best online storage site.

Don't mind paying a 'reasonable' sum, but free would be nice.

Probably no more than 3-5 GB, at least for the time being.

As ever, much appreciated.

GG

Whatever you do, please ensure that the online (cloud) storage is not the only copy of the data, as there are a number of tales of people having access to their data suddenly revoked. Either Microsoft or Google (can't be certain which) has done this to people's thesis, shortly before submission was due, due to them changing their allowable data rules and the theses having words in it that they did not like.

Slarti

[UncleEbenezer]

Whatever you do, please ensure that the online (cloud) storage is not the only copy of the data, as there are a number of tales of people having access to their data suddenly revoked. Either Microsoft or Google (can't be certain which) has done this to people's thesis, shortly before submission was due, due to them changing their allowable data rules and the theses having words in it that they did not like.

Slarti

Wouldn't quibble with the advice. But how do you tell any such tales from "dog ate my homework"? Which is frankly more credible, as it doesn't rely on the same level of idiocy to reach such a situation!

[Slarti]

Whatever you do, please ensure that the online (cloud) storage is not the only copy of the data, as there are a number of tales of people having access to their data suddenly revoked. Either Microsoft or Google (can't be certain which) has done this to people's thesis, shortly before submission was due, due to them changing their allowable data rules and the theses having words in it that they did not like.

Slarti

Wouldn't quibble with the advice. But how do you tell any such tales from "dog ate my homework"? Which is frankly more credible, as it doesn't rely on the same level of idiocy to reach such a situation!

Well in the instance I was thinking of, the young lady in question got it back, after intervention by her Uni, so it sounded true.

There was also a story by a journalist (in the Register?) about being locked out of all of his cloud services for no obvious reason. Can't remember exactly who or when and so can't find it.

Slarti

[gryffron]

How critical is your data?

Read the suppliers policy on data backups and compensation. Some sites offer dual site live backup, but that's usually much more expensive. Some do a 24hr backup. Most rely on RAID servers, which can still lose data. Some nothing at all. Basically, the more robust you want, the more you'll pay.

It's a fair bet that anything free is not reliable. It can be removed at any time. And whilst such provision may still be useful for data sharing or as an extra backup of your data, I certainly would not rely on it as a primary data store. Not even a primary backup, as you can bet it will be revoked the day your hard disk fails.

Gryff

[UncleEbenezer]

There was also a story by a journalist (in the Register?) about being locked out of all of his cloud services for no obvious reason. Can't remember exactly who or when and so can't find it.

Slarti

The most likely candidate in the Register would be Alistair Dabbs's weekly column, in which he relates - in humorous fashion - all kinds of misadventures that have befallen him. Written with tongue in cheek, and to be taken with a pinch of salt.

(Once upon a long time ago I wrote a column in the Register myself ...)

[AF62]

Whatever you do, please ensure that the online (cloud) storage is not the only copy of the data, as there are a number of tales of people having access to their data suddenly revoked. Either Microsoft or Google (can't be certain which) has done this to people's thesis, shortly before submission was due, due to them changing their allowable data rules and the theses having words in it that they did not like.

I keep my documents synchronised to Google Drive, Microsoft's OneDrive, and Dropbox (as a legacy user I still have 30GB free for OneDrive and 25GB in Dropbox), but those are synchronised via a Synology based NAS drive so I have a local copy as well as needed. There are online tools which will allow you move data between various cloud storage services, although you obviously have to trust them.

The combination of the three works well for me; Android's baked in Google Drive, Microsoft's Office products play well with OneDrive, and Dropbox is there as a fallback.

Added to this I use Google Photos unlimited storage with the 'High quality' setting, which is good enough for me if I needed to get anything back in the case of disaster.

[stevensfo]

Whatever you do, please ensure that the online (cloud) storage is not the only copy of the data, as there are a number of tales of people having access to their data suddenly revoked.

We have lots of students working on theses and I can't imagine any of them trusting online storage for such an important and valuable document. They all seem to use USB keys, often more than one. If small enough, another idea is to keep emailing the document to yourself. For encryption, I've use Axcrypt for about 20 years. It's open-source, very small and does the job. Just don't forget the password!


Steve

[didds]

slight deviation here, but following on from others' postys...

My usual advice to anybody that akss me is to have several "backups" if possible...

one local on tyhe same PC
one local-ish on an external hard drive (which can be removed and stored elsewhere away from the home/office eg in case of fire
one in the cloud.

It all depends on your level of paranoia ultimately, incorporating the delicacy of the data contents.

didds

[didds]

slight deviation here, but following on from others' postys...

My usual advice to anybody that asks me is to have several "backups" if possible...

one local on tyhe same PC
one local-ish on an external hard drive (which can be removed and stored elsewhere away from the home/office eg in case of fire
one in the cloud.

It all depends on your level of paranoia ultimately, incorporating the delicacy of the data contents.

didds

[kiloran]

I would be a bit wary of using a non-mainstream cloud provider. Here today, maybe gone tomorrow. I do use Google Drive a fair amount since they will probably be around longer than me but not for critical backups. I think Google, Microsoft, etc have very reliable cloud solutions, but I'm sure if my data disappeared for some reason, it would be close to impossible to communicate with them to get the problem fixed; a non-mainstream UK cloud supplier may be better in this respect.

I use a monthly full-PC backup to an external USB hard drive (stored well away from the PC), and I also have a windows batch script to copy the more critical files and folders to a USB memory stick on my ADSL router. I run the script (simple double-click on a desktop file) on an ad-hoc basis, occasionally several times a day.

--kiloran

[Slarti]

Whatever you do, please ensure that the online (cloud) storage is not the only copy of the data, as there are a number of tales of people having access to their data suddenly revoked.

We have lots of students working on theses and I can't imagine any of them trusting online storage for such an important and valuable document. They all seem to use USB keys, often more than one. If small enough, another idea is to keep emailing the document to yourself. For encryption, I've use Axcrypt for about 20 years. It's open-source, very small and does the job. Just don't forget the password!


Steve

Having assisted a number of parents recover only copy of vital work from dead PCs, or taken one look and then directed them to professional data recovery companies, I could easily imagine it.

Slarti