Comparison of Home based Backup to Online Backup

March 2nd, 2009 |Ajay M | 5,337 views | Featured, Tutorials | Comments (28)

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Backing up or making copies of the data on your PC, Laptop, Mac, iPhone, Smartphone, iPod and any other place you store electronic information is like saving for a rainy day. It’s something you just have to do on a regular basis. Your information is just too valuable to lose. If you use any of the above devices regularly, there will come a time when it will crash and possibly all the information you have on it will be lost! No doubt, it will happen.

OK, so now that we understand the importance of backing up the information, the next big question is where. Do I put in on a CD, DVD, external hard drive, online? Well, the best answer for the home today is to use an external hard drive (e.g. models from Western Digital). But do you back up online or use a local hard drive? What do I mean by that? A hard drive can be located in your house (local) or out on the Internet at a secure location (online).

There are pros and cons to both. Let me outline a few real fast.

Local Back Up

With a local drive in your home, you choose the software and hardware to best fit your needs and expertise. When dealing with your sensitive, private information, the local option gives you the most security. You control access to the actual device, both electronically and physically.

Most of the hard drive solutions are very easy to set up. Some are connected directly to your PC and the others can connect directly to your home network (e.g. Western Digital’s World Edition). These network-based hard drives are the best solution, since all of your PCs, laptops, some game consoles, smart phones, etc. can be backed up in one place. Some devices can back up automatically every time you turn on the device – meaning any time you are connected to the network, the system is working in the background to back you up — and others (e.g. phones) through a PC or laptop.

The local solutions entail an up-front cost for the storage device. But the good news is that some units come with excellent backup software solutions included on the drive. You can get a great 1 terabyte system, that is 1 trillion bytes of information, which could be 250,000 mp3 songs, 285,000 photos — any way, you get the picture – store LOTS of your digital stuff for under $150. Most of us don’t even need that much storage space and can save even more money.

Internet Secure Location (online)

Online backup is a method where you use a secure service located on the Internet. With online backup you have to use the software and security levels provided by the backup solution provider. Your data is very secure but not 100% in your control. On the other hand, it is away from home and safe from any sort of disaster that could occur at home. Set up typically involves creating an account and downloading auto-installing software. You do need an internet connection to recover the data, which reduces the convenience of this approach somewhat. Also your speed to back up will depend highly on the quality of your internet connection, which again can be inconvenient. The costs are typically an annual or monthly charge.

Conclusion

So, in reality, which is the best solution; local, online or both? The answer is “both”. A local centralized backup solution for your home is convenient and inexpensive. Plus you gain the extra value of having additional storage to share photos, videos, music and more [and be sure to back those up, too]. Using an online internet-based solution once a month ensures against the potential home disasters. For as little as $5 per month it’s worth the added peace of mind.

An alternative to paying for an online service is to simply buy an extra storage device and back-up to that device and store it away from your home. These drives are so small & inexpensive these days you could easily hook it up, backup and take it to your office or a safe deposit box once a month. But you have to remember each month and you know how that goes! Most important is to start backing up now before you lose something you will surely miss.

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Comment by Jamexpo on 2 March 2009:

The article is really nice and it helped me a lot in understanding both the back-up options. Thanks… the stuff is helpful.

Mona

Comment by khaled on 3 March 2009:

I’ve been backing up to DVD so far, and an a separate internal hard disk for storage. My PC has gone down a number of times over the last few years, but luckily the work has all been backed up on the spare disk. One thing I haven’t considered is if there was a fire of the PC was stolen It would have a big impact. I’m a little worried about storing stuff online regarding the security issue, you hear about how databases of peoples information are lost and found by members of the public or worse a few times a year, so what’s to stop the same thing happening with online storage.

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Comment by CCR on 5 March 2009:

An excellent article. Personally, I back up to cd or dvd and store it at a friends (the ‘disaster’ scenario). Sure its unlikely it’ll ever happen to me but it does happen every day. I’ve lost whole hard drives worth of info twice due to drive failures. I repair computers and generally the top concern is, “can you save my information”. There is a growing demand for online data backup in the small business sector. As a former Amex employee I can well imagine how lack of a geographically isolated backup system would have affected our business when all the storage units and servers were wiped out in Florida during hurricane katrina.

Comment by Etiquetas Adesivas on 5 March 2009:

I was doing a backup of my files on DVD, but decided to do everything now in pen-drive which is much safer, and any computer will work with usb!

Comment by Jordan Janisse on 5 March 2009:

Right on! It is so important to backup your valuable content. Every day thousands of computer files are needlessly put at risk. Finding a solution that is right for you is so important. I also have choosen both – local external hard drive and an online backup service.

Take care.

-Jordan.
backup.jmjgroup.com
Life is too short!

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Comment by Abenezer on 6 March 2009:

@Jordan

You seem to post the same comment at all sites that talk about online backup, trying to promote your company. Your comment is worthless.

I know that you are copying and pasting the same comments, but this tells me that you don’t have work to do and are desperate for customers to come to your site.

It is much better and professional to advertise in google and/or in industry sites than sitting in front of your computer and commenting yourself. Don’t you value your time?

By the way, you are not alone, and I feel pity for site pushers like you.

Comment by femanol on 9 March 2009:

I use Cobian Backup for Windows which is a great free program. I use it to backup certain folders, encrypt them, and upload them via FTP to my remote server. I also use SuperDuper on my Mac to have a perfect 1-to-1 backup of my Mac harddrive.

Comment by Glass Bottles on 12 March 2009:

I would definitely agree that both options are viable. The more backups you have for your info the better. Thanks for the article!

Comment by Anukul on 13 March 2009:

This post is surely helpful. Made me aware of the Pros & Cons of both types of Backup methods.

Thanks!

Comment by Damchi on 15 March 2009:

IMO copying your stuff over to 1 (one) external hard drive, isn’t safe enough. Imagine if that one hdd goes bad, then what do you do? Especially with these new 1TB+ hdds, you’re at risk of losing a lot of important data. Of course, you can do both (1hdd at home + online), but online storage can get pretty expensive when you’re talking 1TB+ of data.

My home backup plan is this: 1 old pc with 2 hdds, running FREENAS from a USB key. I backup all my important data to the server daily (using Allway Sync). This gets written to hdd1 on the server, then i have the server setup to rsync locally from hdd1 to hdd2 each night. The reason i went with scheduled local rsync instead of simple RAID1 is that this way the server is able to turn off the hdds, while they’re not in use (could be a limitation of FREENAS, maybe a Linux based server can turn off the hdds, even if they’re in RAID1). This saves some electricity + it should have a positive effect on the hdd life, since they’re not constantly on and spinning. Having a local backup on 2 hdds should keep my stuff safe from possible hardware failure. However… There’s always local physical risks that this method won’t guard against – like fire, burglars, etc. That’s why I backup the most important stuff to Mozy (mostly work stuff – spreadsheets and office documents). So i agree, it’s best to use local + online backups, however not a single local backup, but at least a “dual” one.

Comment by Data Storage on 20 March 2009:

I love western digital for personal storage. However, I have found that for small and large businesses, western digital just doesn’t cut it. I like online data storage as well, it is a great way to have access to your documents and data from any computer anywhere.

Comment by John House on 26 March 2009:

Just copying to an external hard drive is not enough… imagine what would happen if your house burnt down – you could potentially lose the data on your PC as well as your external hard drive, which makes online backups essential if you are running a home business.

Comment by Live and Learn on 3 April 2009:

I did not backup my data (have 2 copies) I spent alot of money and entrusted my data with a drobo box. I thought the raid facility would protect me so stored all my data on it.

Everything was fine or so I thought until the box broke down and corrupted all disks. Drobo took about 1 month to supply another box but could not help with lost data. So everything was lost, music, photos, few letters and spreadsheets everything.

After spending much time searching the web I decised the route to go was online or offsite. But at the same time still wanted to use my drobo box (because it is nice new and shiney and surely lightening cannot strike twice).

I ended up using a bit of software from onlinedatastore which allows me to automatically backup to my drobo and offsite at the same time. The only downside is I no longer have much data left to backup.

The moral of the story is do not rely on a single device to store your data regardless of how bomb proof you think it is.

Comment by CMS on 23 April 2009:

I am waiting for a computer with a writable blu-ray recorder. Blu-ray discs hold 25GB/50GB data which is the capacity of a small hard drive, but it gets even better recent development by Pioneer has pushed the storage capacity to 500GB on a single disc by using 20 layers. Just imagine how easy it will become to make a back up when you only need one blu-ray disc to secure 500 GB of data.

Comment by Self Improvement on 15 May 2009:

In some cases using the Home based backup strategy is very time consuming. Imagine you want to back up all your server files and data, using the first method is all depends on your internet connection, but with he help of “online storage” services , you can easily take advantages of a very high speed data transfer.

Comment by William on 25 May 2009:

Great article, Backup is definitely overlooked far to often I am one who irregularly backs and I need to do it more often but home backup systems as I do currently are very time consuming, I think online Backup is a great solution and definitely something I will have to invest into. The cost of a hard drive would cover several years of an online backup service for me.