Stashing Your Stuff Online? - Comments Page 1

Hi Bob,
I live in the U.K. and it seems weird that people are prepared to file information (quite often personal/important)on someone else's system.
Why not back up on an external hard drive as these are relatively cheap and you know where your stuff is.
Always read your emails,even keep some that seem relevant but currently either not at this time for me,or simply the concept or execution of what you are saying flies way,way over my head.
Hope to understand all (one day),Ed.

About Prime Photos
Prime Photos provides unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive with an additional 5GB of free storage space for active Prime members in the U.S.

See https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_bc_nav?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201634330

ref:
"Amazon Prime subscribers and owners of Amazon Fire devices get unlimited free storage space for photos only; otherwise, unlimited photo storage costs $12 per year. An Unlimited Everything account on Amazon Cloud Drive costs $60 per year."

I've been using the Copy cloud storage solution from the makers of the Barracuda line of network security products and it seems pretty good. You might want to give it a try.

Use this link and we'll both get a bonus 5G of storage!

https://copy.com?r=P9zMKP

I hesitate to use cloud services because of EVERYTHING being hacked. I prefer to keep my photos private in a place where even if I'm not connected to the Internet I can access them at any time. If each account could be guaranteed to be hack free I would think differently, but we all know that ain't gonna happen.

I have 54GB of free storage with Tresorit, the high storage derived from introductory offer and introducing others. The advantage is that the storage is totally secure and has end-to-end encryption. I don't really need more storage than that. It works well.

Hi Bob:

Don't forget about flickr for cloud storage of photos and video. They offer 1TB for free but you can get more for a price. See:

https://www.flickr.com/help/limits/#150470666

You also need (or create a free) Yahoo ID (essentially an email account).

Mike, I'm with you on this. Call me old fashioned but I put all my personal files on a thumb drive, and after a recent crash with Win 10, I'm so glad I did.

I would NEVER put anything on a cloud that I wouldn't put on a public web page for all to see. That said, I have very little I'm willing to share. Backup storage on a cloud with all my private information? NEVER!

Having worked under security requirements all my life I cannot understand anyone wanting to hand over data, most of it probably personal, to anyone else. A large capacity hard drive is going to be a lot cheaper also.
I will never use any form of 'cloud' storage / facilities.

Did I miss Carbonite?? I've used them for years at about $60 US a year and their service is great. I've done two new computer restores and they were there every step of the way to help even when I went from Windows to Mac. I will agree however that the right person can get into that "cloud" and wipe you out. I am considering just getting and external hard drive and store everything on it backing up the computer once or twice a week. Any thoughts keeping in mind that you do have the responsibility to make sure the hard drive is protected. You don't want to leave it next to the computer. It needs to follow you around or locked up in a fire proof safe.

Very interesting Bob. But I must admit that I have given some thought to storing some of my info in one of these cloud based facilities. But at the end of the day I prefer to keep my data and photographs on remote hard drives that only get plugged into my computer when I want to backup or save information that I know cannot be hacked because I always turn of/disconnect my internet connection before turning on a remote hard drive. Question do you get a free pair of wings if you sign up for a cloud facility? I agree with what Mike Brose has to say about hackers.
David Guillaume

I lean to agree with the no trust crowd and stick with local backups. What hasn't been hacked lately?

I use Dropbox because I don't like Google Drive. Google Drive works best with Google Docs and Slides; but when I use "save as" to translate my Microsoft files into that format, layout details get messed up. And Google office software just isn't as versatile as Microsoft for creating files, so I don't want to use Google Docs all the time.

Dropbox, on the other hand, just stores whatever files I give it without changing anything. I store my classroom teaching files, and it's easy to share folders with colleagues-- even those who don't have Dropbox themselves. Dropbox automatically updates any changes to my files on each computer I have connected to it, and then I can use those files locally without online access if I want.

One caveat: Change your Dropbox settings so the program does NOT start automatically when you turn on your computer. One time I had a virus on one computer, and before I recognized the problem it had infected the Dropbox folders on my other connected computers. Dropbox does let you revert to a previous file version, but that's tedious for many files. Now I just start Dropbox manually, and I know all is well.

Just the thought of storing personal info with someone else makes me cringe. Bob, I realize you are only trying to help us, but, in this case I have to disagree with you. Our government doesn't have to spy on us if we voluntarily give them the information. I want to make it as hard as possible for the NSA, etc. to find out about my comings and goings.

I store all my personal files and data on a RAID 1 enabled NAS drive at home. I don't need others to look after or look at my data. And I don't need access to it that desperately when I'm at the local coffee shop. It can wait until I'm home to work with it.

Just to let you know I enjoy your articles, but I tend to agree with lower case ed and Rich F.

Bob, you mentioned 3 extra GB from Dropbox for photo storage. I've never seen or heard any mention of that before. Can you explain how you get/activate that?
I use Dropbox mainly for one specific purpose and that is to share photos and occasionally other files with other people/groups. Unless you have a website, there is really no other way I know if to share more than very limited amounts of data, IE: email attachments or embedded files. And If you want to want to share with a group you almost always have to provide an address to an online file. With Dropbox, it's easy.

Bob, what is the best way to backup my phone contacts, WeChat, and WhatsApp data files to the cloud? I am talking about a real time or regular backup (say once daily) with wifi, and then once set, I can forget about it.

I know there are solutions for photos and videos with, say Dropbox. For music, since I do not add to my collection all the time, I am happy using a program like Wondershare to backup to my PC.

I had a few incidences where either the SD card in my phone went kaput or only the mother board of the phone went kaput alone, or in the case when the whole phone may be lost. When the mishap happened, I still managed to get back my contacts, WeChat and WhatsApp data files, but not without some hassles and lost of some most recent data.

I know WhatsApp had a daily update through wifi to Google and a daily fixed time backup from phone storage to SD card and vice versa. That seems to solve the WhatsApp issue, but what about contacts and WeChat?

Like many who've responded, I'm concerned about the security of cloud services. But I have two other concerns that haven't been mentioned - 1: On a metered connection, the use of cloud files can quickly use up my data allowance. 2: Cloud provider management may decide (in some instances, have decided) to discontinue the service or change the terms, resulting in loss of data. Local storage media is relatively inexpensive, and completely under *my* control (provided I protect it properly).

I purchased the iCloud device and it was so easy to setup and backup. I also, used one or two of the suggested backup programs, you detailed in this article and past articles. I said, I would look through your Archives. :)

I have 2 free programs - Macrium Reflect - Free Edition and Virtual Clone Drive - Free - I am very satisfied. I thought that both of these programs would go to a Cloud, but, they used my External Drive. This pleased me. :)

Now, iCloud does put your BackUp on their Cloud. When I purchased the iCloud device, I was given 1TB of cloud space to use, for 1 year. After that, I will have to pay, at this point, I don't know what they charge, okay?

So, I have one BackUp on a cloud, one BackUp on a DVD Disc and one BackUp on my External Drive. I'm a happy camper. :)