I'm sure there are at least a few guys here who use online (cloud) storage for music project backups and/or other things.  I'm considering cloud backup for my Cakewalk projects.  I checked out IDrive so far, but I'd like to hear what some of you think about what you may be using for the same thing.  I need price info, ease of use, basically anything you can tell me.  Any advise would be appreciated.
 
Thanks so much!
John B

For large projects/files, Cloud based backup is tedious.

Personally I use Mega.com.
 
I've got a couple of batch files: copyToMega.bat and copyFromMega.bat, which are pretty self explanitory... but they copy everything to/from my cakewalk projects, audio, picture & templates directories.
 
It takes an hour or so for the first upload, but after that it takes a few seconds - a minute at the most.
 
BTW - The reason I have the batch files, is so that Mega.com isn't monitoring/uploading files from any directories that Cakewalk could be using. This is a sure way to crash Cakewalk.
 
When I'm finished a session, I just double-click on the shortcut to copyToMega.bat
 
If I then move to my laptop, I can run copyFromMega.bat and all my projects get copied over.
 
I've also tried OneDrive, which is okay but can be a pain to setup if you're using more than one machine... it's far too easy for them to start overwriting each others' stuff.
 
Prices change all the time for these services, so you'll need to check for good deals etc.
 
 

Jim is correct.
 
Just so happens I got a pcloud BF email today-
https://www.pcloud.com/bl...ay%202018%20-%20Ribbon
I have a 1TB lifetime account on zoolz, around $150 but I still also use ext. hardrives for os & project backup.

Let me be clear-I DO NOT WANT AUTOMATIC BACKUP!
 
I want to pick and choose what and when I upload anything to or from the cloud.
I have 5 gb free on OneDrive which came with the last PC I bought earlier this year.  I didn't want to upload anything to it and I keep on getting notifications that my OneDrive if full!  So, who cares?  I didn't pick or want anything backed up there and I don't even know what's on it.  I just know it's full.  If I cannot select what I want to upload or download or backup then Jim's right.  It's not for me.  I want it to work for me like my USB Passport drive does. When I'm done with a session for the day, I plug in my Passport, copy/paste the project file I was just working on and eject it and call it a day.  I just bought a 2 TB Passport drive so it's not space I'm lacking.  I'm mainly concerned about losing this data if the house burns down or gets hit by a tornado or something like that.  IOW-I'd like to store my stuff "off site".
It has to be my way or the highway though.  Are you telling me that these cloud storage services are difficult to work with?
 
JB

Another easy off-site solution is to make a copy on a backup drive, and store it at the office, or at a friend or relative's house.
 
I use Dropbox for my offsite files.  I don't back up a lot of stuff online (use local USB drives for most), just drop a few files into my Dropbox folder on my Windows explorer on demand, and only those files get synced with my Dropbox cloud account.
 
I can set up any other devices I have to sync with specified Dropbox folders in my online account, so I can access the desired files I need from other devices that I have signed into Dropbox with.
 
So far I am using the free Dropbox account, which offers 2GB storage.  It is $8.25 month for upgrade to a Plus account with 1TB storage.

I use OneDrive for backups for Office files which gives 1TB of storage per user.  I use an external hard drive for backing up my projects.  I burn them to DVD or Blu-Ray discs when projects are completed.
 
BTW, you can get Office 365 for 5 users plus 1 TB OneDrive storage for each user for $100 per year.  This includes all updates of Office 365.
 
Jim

Upload bandwidth is another consideration, since most people do not have extremely high bandwidth, so getting files to/from a 5TB storage is a lot longer than most think (http://www.speedtest.net/ is a good site to check upload speed). My Comcast has a download of roughly 9MB/s and upload of 1MB/s (that site is in bits/sec, not bytes/sec), so the upload is roughly 1388 hours, and download of 154 hours. Neither convenient nor practical.
 
The reality is that 4+ TB externals are relatively cheap and you can use xcopy to backup quickly (for data files only), and image on them (for software restoration). For most users, this is a far better solution. Xcopy takes less than 10 seconds daily, and images roughly 10 minutes (monthly for me). I use a 128GB flash drive to be-bop xcopies between machines daily.
 
Be very wary of "scare tactic" marketing... the "I'm mainly concerned about losing this data if the house burns down or gets hit by a tornado or something like that." If that would occur and you lost EVERYTHING, I really doubt (and would very much hope) that backup files are going to be incredibly low on your list of priorities. I highly doubt anyone in a tent-farm in CA is wandering around mumbling "Man, I lost all of my cwp files!!" If houses burned down or got hit by tornadoes often, insurance companies wouldn't be rolling in money.

mettelus
 
 
Be very wary of "scare tactic" marketing... the "I'm mainly concerned about losing this data if the house burns down or gets hit by a tornado or something like that." If that would occur and you lost EVERYTHING, I really doubt (and would very much hope) that backup files are going to be incredibly low on your list of priorities. I highly doubt anyone in a tent-farm in CA is wandering around mumbling "Man, I lost all of my cwp files!!" If houses burned down or got hit by tornadoes often, insurance companies wouldn't be rolling in money.

Please don't insult my intelligence.  In a catastrophe of course the data loss would not even be on my list of priorities at the time but hopefully and eventually life goes on and things are rebuilt and repaired and we go with life.  May take a few months or a few years but we try to all get back to where we were before the disaster.  It might even eventually get back to the point where I could resume making music.  It's a possibility.  If I don't back up the data now it would be gone forever in a situation like that.
 
JB