Online Backup, is it SAFE?

You may find this link of interest...

..Most commonly used backup methods

Maybe. I don't use such services, preferring to maintain my own backups, which I know are safe, cheap, and reliable. Why worry?

If it's Carbonite, beware that it does not run well on Macs.

You have to remember that pretty much any online server can be hacked; I prefer to trust my backups on media I have control over.

There are two aspects to the safety of online backup:

1. Will your data be available to you when you need it?
2. Will your data be available to anyone else without your permission?

#2 is easier to answer than #1. The answer to #2 is that your data is secure only if it's encrypted at your end, with a password known only to you. Some online backup services work that way, some don't. You want one that uses open encryption standards, so you can recover the data without having to use black-box software.

You need local backups. What if internet is not available?

Security issues aside, internet backup is good if you travel

and need to access a backup and don't have your physical

backup media with you.

To be safe, don't backup anything on an internet server that

has a banking, credit card, or other financial account numbers

and especially Social Security numbers. Keep that stuff on multiple

local media.

IMO, there is no such thing as too many backups, especially

if you depend on your computer for business.

Murphy can show up anytime and show that you needed one

more backup than what you have.

According to me, what is far from you, does not belong to you anymore, on a certain way ! It can be safe, available 24/7, encrypted etc ...

I do not blindly trust those solutions : iCloud, Dropbox etc ... that's why i'm just using them for a very few number of information AND I always have copies on physical mediums of all my datas.

Mr Wozniak's opinion, for me, should be taken into account.

http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2012/08/06/steve-wozniak-apple-doutes-icloud-journa liste-piratage_n_1746620.html

The question was: "Online Backup, is it SAFE?"

And the consensus of the answers given above is: NO, it isn't safe.

I agree with all of these posts, to which I would add: it's also expensive. You'll need to pay a regular supscription for the rest of your life, and this will of course increase all the time because you'll need more and more space, and as the cost of the subscription increases.

There's no way I would use the Cloud to store any personal stuff.

mynameismyname wrote:

I do back up every night using Time Machine. But I'm saying for $5/month it's worth to have a BACK-UP OF A BACK UP,

Do not "back up your back ups". Create redundant backups of your systems.

It seems you want to justify your decision to use a backup subscription service. In that case you already made up your mind and are seeking reassurance, not an answer to your question.

Reassurance that backups stored in a manner that you do not control are guaranteed to remain secure from loss or theft cannot be responsibly provided by anyone... unless the answer is "no".

Let's be clear, NO backup can ever be be guaranteed to be secure from data loss, local or otherwise. That is why 2 backups is the minimum and more are safer

The OP should go ahead and ADD online backup to his local method.

scrutinize WHAT I let the system back up (mostly clients' files, my collections of fonts and artwork, invoices to clients, etc), it's a prudent thing to do.

Just be prepared that some of your clients would not want their files or any other identifying information of theirs on an online server - as a client of yours, I would be rather upset if you did that without letting me opt out. You might want to keep that in mind.

That decision (for your sake) should be taken by the clients.