Storage media are quite cheap and reliable nowadays.  You might be better off getting an external hard drive solely for back-up.

I don’t trust on-line storage services. Storage media are quite cheap and reliable nowadays. You might be better off getting an external hard drive solely for back-up.

Yes I have a 1tb external hard drive, I’d like a second online back up for various reasons. Ty for the advice though

You have to worry about hackers, copyright nazi’s, government intrusion and catastrophic system failures. All of which have occurred.

Keep your data local.

When I first learned programming over 40 years ago, the computer system at my alma mater had everything centralized, including data storage.  Now we have the “cloud” which, frankly, is a step backwards.  I’m sure the main reason it’s being pushed onto people is to provide an easy means by which certain parties can snoop on whatever one has stored.

Buy a pocket drive. They don’t even require power chords and run off the UBS peripheral.

Here are some options:

https://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10036

… but unless you NEED to backup something online (or share it publicly), don’t bother with cloud services or dropbox …. and just use local storage. We use dropbox too, but just to send someone a big Photoshop document or something.

Otherwise, if you DO need online storage there is a way to convert GOOGLE into online storage and it’s FREE. Look into that “Google Drive”. concept. I once needed a LARGE bunch of space online and used the available storage at GMAIL. Here is how something like that is done:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/2-ways-to-turn-gmail-into-online-storage/

Hi JJ… if you’re just looking for a backup don’t go online. Buy a pocket drive. They don’t even require power chords and run off the UBS peripheral. Here are some options: https://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10036 … but unless you NEED to backup something online (or share it publicly), don’t bother with cloud services or dropbox …. and just use local storage. We use dropbox too, but just to send someone a big Photoshop document or something.

Thank u for the link, these products look better than the ones on amazon I was looking at. Other than my Mandolin as far as importance, my data cannot be replaced if lost. Done deal ty

This one came out only days ago:

https://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10646

But portability is not as important to me as safety. So I have 2 of these in case one dies:

https://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10613

Instead of a birthday / Christmas gift, I ask Santa for more storage.

I recently purchased a subscription to dropbox.com

When did dropbox stop being free?

There are only two advantages to cloud storage:   The first is it’s off site.  This protects your data in case of catastrophe like fire and flood.  The fire that ruins your hard drive will ruin the external drive on the shelf above it.  However there are other ways of doing off site storage that don’t require putting your data at the mercy of people you don’t know.

The second advantage is it’s open access.  This is great if the data needs to be shared to many people in a widely distributed project team, but less than worthless if you want to keep the data private to just yourself.

If you don’t need both of those things there’s no good reason to use cloud storage, and it becomes just another way for you to give money to your internet connection provider.

My personal recommendation for data security is simply keeping a backup external drive in a fire and water proof safe.  If you’re self employed you can write off the cost of both the drive and the safe.