Voda La Void

BobF

abacab

BobF
My primary objection to Cloud backups is my 300baud internet connection.

OK. I hate to be 'that guy', but I just gotta ask...
 
Do you actually have a 300baud connection in 2018, or is that just an expression for slow azz internet service?  I understand some folks live in remote areas without broadband internet....
 
 

That was a slight exaggeration.
 
The real numbers are 3.5Mb x .75Mb
 

One thing to consider is that is about as fast as you can upload to a cloud service anyway, it seems.  It took me a day and a half to transfer 72 GB of audio and I have repeatedly tested my upload speed at 10 Mbps - didn't matter, all I managed was 700 to 800 Kbps, or less.  So it might max you out, but you're not too far off from what you'd be limited to anyways.  
 
Of course, I am not to be confused with an expert here.  Upload speed seems to be an issue with cloud storage in general, and Google Drive seemed to be listed among the fastest, so disappointment is inevitable.  Maybe some techy folks know how to speed that up.  I sure don't.  

One thing I like about dropbox is that you can configure the sync rate in terms of bandwidth consumption.  Maybe others do this too.
 
That may be the max the cloud will accept, but it leaves me NOTHING for other uses or users.  Still, I can see Cloud backup as useful for relatively small volumes of creative output.

abacab
 
 
So depending on your needs, choose your ISP and your storage hosts wisely... YMMV! 

 
Choice of ISP?  Now THAT is FUNNY!!!   No, wait ... THAT is SADly not possible here.
 
There are MANY, MANY advantages to living where I live that far outweigh the uselessness of Cloud backup services though

BobF

abacab
 
 
So depending on your needs, choose your ISP and your storage hosts wisely... YMMV! 

 
Choice of ISP?  Now THAT is FUNNY!!!   No, wait ... THAT is SADly not possible here.
 
There are MANY, MANY advantages to living where I live that far outweigh the uselessness of Cloud backup services though

Much more that bandwidth concerns, I'd be concerned about where exactly my data was going, who exactly has direct access to the server it would reside on, and of course I'm sure they have no issues with Meltdown or Spectre, where someone who leases a slice of space on the same server might be reading the internal registers of the CPU as your data is uploading. I wouldn't trust putting any of my data on some server in the sky, even if it could be completed in five seconds.  I prefer to be the one and only person who has access to it, and just make clones of it to other media on a frequent basis. I even back a lot of stuff up to my phone, so if the house were to go up in flames, or get blown to pieces by a tornado, I'll even have a good chunk of the important stuff zipped up and password protected in my pocket.

the_user_formally_known_as_glennbo
 I even back a lot of stuff up to my phone, so if the house were to go up in flames, or get blown to pieces by a tornado, I'll even have a good chunk of the important stuff zipped up and password protected in my pocket.

Until you lose your phone... 

the_user_formally_known_as_glennbo

BobF

abacab
 
 
So depending on your needs, choose your ISP and your storage hosts wisely... YMMV! 

 
Choice of ISP?  Now THAT is FUNNY!!!   No, wait ... THAT is SADly not possible here.
 
There are MANY, MANY advantages to living where I live that far outweigh the uselessness of Cloud backup services though

Much more that bandwidth concerns, I'd be concerned about where exactly my data was going, who exactly has direct access to the server it would reside on, and of course I'm sure they have no issues with Meltdown or Spectre, where someone who leases a slice of space on the same server might be reading the internal registers of the CPU as your data is uploading. I wouldn't trust putting any of my data on some server in the sky, even if it could be completed in five seconds.  I prefer to be the one and only person who has access to it, and just make clones of it to other media on a frequent basis. I even back a lot of stuff up to my phone, so if the house were to go up in flames, or get blown to pieces by a tornado, I'll even have a good chunk of the important stuff zipped up and password protected in my pocket.

Well firstly, your data is thoroughly encrypted in the cloud. And secondly, I think you probably have as much chance of being burgled and having your backup drivers stolen as you have of someone gaining access to your cloud storage and decrypting it. 
 

sharke
 
Well firstly, your data is thoroughly encrypted in the cloud. And secondly, I think you probably have as much chance of being burgled and having your backup drivers stolen as you have of someone gaining access to your cloud storage and decrypting it. 
 

Exactly!  Bitflipper's tale of being burgled is a reason you should keep backups in at least 3 places!!!  The only stuff he had left was some stuff he had kept in a shoebox... 

abacab

sharke
 
Well firstly, your data is thoroughly encrypted in the cloud. And secondly, I think you probably have as much chance of being burgled and having your backup drivers stolen as you have of someone gaining access to your cloud storage and decrypting it. 
 

Exactly!  Bitflipper's tale of being burgled is a reason you should keep backups in at least 3 places!!!  The only stuff he had left was some stuff he had kept in a shoebox... 

Well I have to wonder how many folks uploading their entire hard drives to the cloud have read the entire agreements with whoever they signed up with, and did they fully understand the entire document's implications along with things like, what specific server located where on Earth does that image of your hard drive end up on? How many other copies of it exist? Who has access to all the images locally? Remotely? Who has knowledge of the inner workings of the encryption algorithms? Etc...
 
We tend to believe that high tech computer stuff is safe, until we find out that it really wasn't all along. At one time, we believed that WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) was just as secure as connecting a computer to a network over a wire. Now we know it can be cracked in under a minute. Then a few generations later we believed that WPA2 was ultra safe but nope, last year US-CERT issued an advisory that there are several key management vulnerabilities in WPA2, allowing for decryption, packet replay, TCP connection hijacking, and HTTP content injection. Then we find out that just about every processor on the planet has at least one, or possibly two security flaws in the hardware itself.
 
Bottom line is if there is nothing at all of any importance on your hard drive, then it probably doesn't matter. Upload it to the cloud without any encryption, because there is nothing there to be had.  I try to keep almost no important information on my seven machines here at home, because I'm quite convinced that there is no real security in computer security protocols. Only the illusion of it.  That said, I keep at least three copies of my hard drive on multiple physical backup drives, some like my NAS could be stolen along with my computer, but other copies are located elsewhere and would be my backup, backup in a worst case scenario.   ;)
 

the_user_formally_known_as_glennbo
 
Well I have to wonder how many folks uploading their entire hard drives to the cloud have read the entire agreements with whoever they signed up with, and did they fully understand the entire document's implications along with things like, what specific server located where on Earth does that image of your hard drive end up on? How many other copies of it exist? Who has access to all the images locally? Remotely? Who has knowledge of the inner workings of the encryption algorithms? Etc...

Why would I bother? I'm not backing up gigabytes worth of other people's financial info. In fact I'm not backing up anyone's financial info. Or medical records, or anything else of significant value to anyone besides myself. 

Yes my songs are on there. But I'm reminded of a story about a Berkley student talking to a professor about how much of a pain the butt it was to copyright everything she writes. The professor asked her why she was bothering to copyright every single song she wrote. She said well if I don't someone might steal one of my songs. As you might expect, the response was honey if I were you, I'd be saying a prayer every night for someone to steal one of those songs of yours.

If some hacker wannabe in the middle east really wants one of my songs or all those pictures of our cats, they can have them. They don't even have to hack. Just ask and I'll happily send them along.

JohanSebatianGremlin
Why would I bother? I'm not backing up gigabytes worth of other people's financial info. In fact I'm not backing up anyone's financial info. Or medical records, or anything else of significant value to anyone besides myself. 

Yes my songs are on there. But I'm reminded of a story about a Berkley student talking to a professor about how much of a pain the butt it was to copyright everything she writes. The professor asked her why she was bothering to copyright every single song she wrote. She said well if I don't someone might steal one of my songs. As you might expect, the response was honey if I were you, I'd be saying a prayer every night for someone to steal one of those songs of yours.

If some hacker wannabe in the middle east really wants one of my songs or all those pictures of our cats, they can have them. They don't even have to hack. Just ask and I'll happily send them along.

Precisely why I said this in my post above.
 
"Bottom line is if there is nothing at all of any importance on your hard drive, then it probably doesn't matter. Upload it to the cloud without any encryption, because there is nothing there to be had."

the_user_formally_known_as_glennbo
 
Precisely why I said this in my post above.
 
"Bottom line is if there is nothing at all of any importance on your hard drive, then it probably doesn't matter. Upload it to the cloud without any encryption, because there is nothing there to be had."

Well I guess was just kind of confused. You did two long paragraphs making points about the perils of people not reading or understanding EULA's and how even secure technology isn't really secure. Then you kind of invalidate all of that by more or less saying that for 99.99999% of the people, none of that matters.

I guess I agree with you. But if you really feel that none of that matters for most people, why mention it at all?