"Cloud" Online Backup Storage

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Author Message W. Dean Walker, AIA, CCS, SCIP Senior Member Username: wdwalkerspecs Post Number: 45 Registered: 08-2006 Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 04:27 pm:    What online backup storage systems are specifiers using? I tried the free version of IDrive for a few weeks, liked it and bought the yearly subscription. I was able to restore some current projects to my laptop when my desktop went down last week. That saved me. Jeffrey Wilson CSI CCS Senior Member Username: wilsonconsulting Post Number: 50 Registered: 03-2006 Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 05:11 pm:    I have used Carbonite for the last couple years. Have not had occasion to restore lost files, but it has a simple interface for doing so. I also like Cabonite's options for monitoring backup status. For a while, I had all files visually coded in the folders to indicate whether they were backed up or in process. After developing a level of comfort that everything was getting backed up properly, I turned this feature off. Now, it processes completely in the background without ever bothering me. As a double backup, I use offsite storage that's part of Norton 360. I also have an on-site backup drive that copies files automatically via Windows 7. In addition, I manually copy each project to the backup drive + a USB drive on my key chain every time a change is made. I think that's about 5 levels of backup -- d'you think my data is safe yet? Robin E. Snyder Senior Member Username: robin Post Number: 355 Registered: 08-2004 Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 05:17 pm:    wow, Jeffrey - everytime a change is made??? That is alot of backing up! Dean - I use carbonite as well and have been pleased with them. I have them backing up both my server and my local hard drive (i keep some personal files on the hard drive). When I do finish a large job, I copy it to my hard drive, so carbonite effectively backs it up twice, so that is my double back-up system Jeffrey Wilson CSI CCS Senior Member Username: wilsonconsulting Post Number: 51 Registered: 03-2006 Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 07:03 pm:    I should clarify, Robin: A project folder is backed up manually when I finish a significant quantity of editing. This is really a daily backup for projects worked on in a given day. Zipped, copied to 2 drives -- a few seconds & I have all current projects in several locations including my pocket. You never know when they'll be a tsunami or something... Margaret G. Chewning FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: presbspec Post Number: 204 Registered: 01-2003 Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 08:45 am:    Hey ya'll, what is "cloud"? I've seen it advertised and thought it was a MS product that came out with Windows 7; then I just saw a Cisco ad advertising "Cloud". Just curious. Marc C Chavez Senior Member Username: mchavez Post Number: 408 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 11:14 am:    the cloud is bits of servers all over the world that make up storage space (or computing space)that is not necessarily contiguious you access it by signing on with a provider and then you upload a bizillion tons of data (or work on it) it may be stored, as I mentioned, in many different places OR if processing it may use many different computers- you will never know but that does not matter your access to it is via your provider. here at our offices we use all the 5 offices computers at rendering engines at night for work that needs to be done at one office - that is kind of cloudish. or google "the cloud" Marc Nathan Woods, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 382 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 11:44 am:    It is not necessarily discontinuous servers sprinkled throughout the world. There are many services like DropBox that consolidate their servers, and you just take a chunk. Think of the cloud as an external hard drive, and you can access it from anywhere with an internet connection, including your phone. I really like DropBox. Watch the short video on their site. It's well done and makes its point. It's a terrific way to not lose info, or more importantly, retrieve your info very conveniently from anywhere you might happen to be. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1310 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 12:39 pm:    Actually, "cloud" refers more generally to services located on the internet that users are accustomed to having on their own computers. This runs the gamut from storage (as discussed here) to software applications running remotely. The advantage is that the cloud-computing provider maintains the equipment, keeps software up-to-date, and provides a data center with power backup etc. Some very large corporations are moving to this model, where they don't even run their own software anymore. I find this hilarious because we're back to the model from the 1960s--you have a dumb (almost, now) terminal and all the computing is done on a big (virtual, now) machine somewhere. You may want to check out Amazon. They now have a very new cloud-storage service that is free. They are promoting it as part of their effort to have buyers of music keep it on their servers so you can listen anywhere. But, you can store any type of file you want to.