on line backup?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Todd
  • Start date Start date
Skydrive is highly recommended by Microsoft and you might be lucky to
get free 25GB disk space for your backups.

FREE UPGRADE:
1. Log into Hotmail using browser
2. Click on SkyDrive (along the top),
3. Find the link for "Claim your free 25 GB",
4. Click on button titled "Free Upgrade".

Good luck.

Can anyone recommend an on line back services they like?
Click to expand...

--
Good Guy
Website: http://mytaxsite.co.uk
Website: http://html-css.co.uk
Forums: http://mytaxsite.boardhost.com
Email: http://mytaxsite.co.uk/contact-us
 
Good Guy said:
Skydrive is highly recommended by Microsoft and you might be lucky to
get free 25GB disk space for your backups.

FREE UPGRADE:
1. Log into Hotmail using browser
2. Click on SkyDrive (along the top),
3. Find the link for "Claim your free 25 GB",
4. Click on button titled "Free Upgrade".

Good luck.
Click to expand...

In order to get the extra free 25GB storage, you have to have had a
Windows Live account, (Live, Hotmail) from before April 22, 2012.

Neither SkyDrive nor Dropbox are online backup apps, they are cloud
file-sharing services... although they might suit the original poster,
depending on what his actual needs are.
 
Paul said:
Dropbox is free for the first 4 gb.
Click to expand...

That would be 2.25GB (2GB initial, another 250MB by taking their tour),
not 4GB. See:

https://www.dropbox.com/pricing

To get 4GB means you added another 2GB by volunteering to be act as
their *SPAM AFFLIATE* by suckering more users (500MB quota increase per
referral, 16GB total bonus space) to their service. If you spam their
service and sucker up to 32 "friends" to their service, you can add
another 16GB to your account for 18.25GB total.

Tell Your Friends (i.e., spam for them to earn a quota commission)
https://www.dropbox.com/help/15

Dropbox doesn't have an anti-spamming policy since it obviously would
conflict with their promotion to garner volunteer spamming affiliates.
You cannot use their service to spam (for them or your stuff) but they
don't have a policy against spamming their service.

My friends don't spam me. Spamming this service isn't offering it to
friends! It's stinging pigeons. I use Dropbox. I don't nuisance my
friends trying to up my Dropbox quota.
 
Todd said:
Can anyone recommend an on line back services they like?
Click to expand...

How big are your backup files?
How fast is your upload speed?
How long are you willing to wait for you backup file to upload?

For example, if you have a partition whose consumption results in a 50GB
backup file, it'll take 57 hours, or more, to upload it with 2 Mbps
upload speed (assuming no node in the route is throttled for bandwidth
load and there are no interruptions and reductions in network bandwidth
due to busy traffic from other use of the same route as yours). If you
have broadband Internet access, you'll probably find the site won't
accept bytes as fast as you could push them.

(50GB x 8 bits/byte x 2^30 bytes/GB) / (2 Mbps x 2^20 bits/Mb) / 3600
seconds/hour = 56.9 hours

If you were able to maintain a constant 4 Mbps for upload speed, it
would still take over a day to upload that 50GB backup file. If the
backup client gradually uploads its backup file while reducing its
process priority, CPU usage, and data bus and network traffic so your
host and Internet access remain responsive (i.e., little impact to the
use of your computer and network while backing up) then backup
completion would take even longer. You give no indication as to the
size of the files you intend to upload. You give no indication as to
what type of Internet access you have or its upload bandwidth.
 
Todd said:
Can anyone recommend an on line back services they like?
Click to expand...


Check out Clickfree.
http://www.clickfree.com/

It's not "online", but depending on the version you use, it can be just as
good if not better and it's only a one time purchase. There are many
options, and if you find one you like, look for the same model at other
locations like eBay and Amazon. About two years ago I got an $89.00
version for $54.00 on eBay.
 
VanguardLH said:
That would be 2.25GB (2GB initial, another 250MB by taking their tour),
not 4GB. See:

https://www.dropbox.com/pricing

To get 4GB means you added another 2GB by volunteering to be act as
their *SPAM AFFLIATE* by suckering more users (500MB quota increase per
referral, 16GB total bonus space) to their service. If you spam their
service and sucker up to 32 "friends" to their service, you can add
another 16GB to your account for 18.25GB total.

Tell Your Friends (i.e., spam for them to earn a quota commission)
https://www.dropbox.com/help/15

Dropbox doesn't have an anti-spamming policy since it obviously would
conflict with their promotion to garner volunteer spamming affiliates.
You cannot use their service to spam (for them or your stuff) but they
don't have a policy against spamming their service.

My friends don't spam me. Spamming this service isn't offering it to
friends! It's stinging pigeons. I use Dropbox. I don't nuisance my
friends trying to up my Dropbox quota.
Click to expand...

How interesting! Thanks.
My company uses them and I was assigned a 4 gb account but I
never researched it.
I see now how IT may have come up with the 4 gb amount.
 
Smirnoff said:
I've had a Hotmail/Windows Live ID for a number of years now. Thought
I'd check out the above.

Signed in to Hotmail via browser, clicked Skydrive and it tells me I
have 7GB of space - no option/link to get free upgrade to 25GB.
Click to expand...

Sign into your SkyDrive account. On the left, you will see the "tree"
with Files, Docs, Shared, Computers.... below that, click the link for
"Manage Storage". That takes you to the page for upgrading your storage
plans. If there is a button there to "Upgrade My Storage" to the free
25GB, click it.

If it is not shown anywhere on that page, either you never previously
used your SkyDrive account through Live and so are not eligible, or the
offer has already expired.

http://securitygarden.blogspot.com/2012/04/skydrive-changes-25-gb-storage-for.html
 
Paul said:
How interesting! Thanks.
My company uses them and I was assigned a 4 gb account but I
never researched it.
I see now how IT may have come up with the 4 gb amount.
Click to expand...

Everyone at your company is using the same account? If true then I can
see how everyone there got a 4GB quota after the company somehow accrued
another 4 referrals. Were these referrals OUTSIDE the company (i.e.,
sent to a different entity)? Dropbox doesn't define restrictions on
"friends" that you can refer but I suspect they might cancel an account
if all the referrals are within the same entity (company, family). They
are vague as to who and who cannot be a "friend" to qualify for a
referral.

Or does each employee have their own account (and they can elect to
share or not with other employees)? If each employee has their own
account, that would mean your company somehow accrued 4 referrals for
EACH of their employees on each free account so EACH employee would have
a 4GB quota. For 50 employees, that means gathering 200 referrals but
doing so for separately for each Dropbox account (4 referrals per
Dropbox account). That's not just unlikely but smacks of abuse of
Dropbox's TOS regarding referrals.

I don't see a pricing plan that gives 4GB for an initial quota. The
lowest paid plan starts with 50GB. That's *per* Dropbox account. The
only way I can figure you have a legitimate 4GB quota with a free
Dropbox account is that you share the same Dropbox account with all the
other company's employees AND there were 4 referrals to "friends" (which
Dropbox leaves undefined) against that same shared account.
 
Todd said:
I did go with Carbonite, as the customer has zero computer skill and
Carbonite is very easy to use.
Click to expand...

Be aware of their limitations, like:

http://www.carbonite.com/en/home/online-backup-faqs
Any file over 4 GB, including Outlook .PST files, must be manually
added to your backup.

So if your customer has some large files or they want their Outlook
message store included in the backup, they will have to edit the
program's config. Hopefully their client works with Volume Shadow Copy
service so they can grab a copy of the .pst file that will be inuse when
Outlook is running (and the customer may leave Outlook running all the
time).

Read:
http://carbonite.custhelp.com/app/a...sion/L3RpbWUvMTMzODQxNzgzOC9zaWQvakpDSXpyWms=
(short URL: http://tinyurl.com/7aqbov9)
Then review my other post in this thread about upload speed. If your
customers has lots of files that accumulate to many gigabytes in total
size, it could be many days before they get all those files backed up.
Cloud backups sound great until you realize how much slower is your
upload speed. That they mention 3-4GB as the typical upper limit on
data transfer but 25GB/day should be possible means they are throttling
down process priority, CPU usage, and bandwidth consumption so your host
and network remain somewhat responsive and usable. Because the initial
backup (or any backup of huge files) can take many days, be sure your
customer does NOT enable any low-power or power-saving modes on their
computer (i.e., standby or hibernate MUST be disabled and the computer
MUST remain in full-power mode).
 
VanguardLH said:
Everyone at your company is using the same account? If true then I can
see how everyone there got a 4GB quota after the company somehow accrued
another 4 referrals. Were these referrals OUTSIDE the company (i.e.,
sent to a different entity)? Dropbox doesn't define restrictions on
"friends" that you can refer but I suspect they might cancel an account
if all the referrals are within the same entity (company, family). They
are vague as to who and who cannot be a "friend" to qualify for a
referral.

Or does each employee have their own account (and they can elect to
share or not with other employees)? If each employee has their own
account, that would mean your company somehow accrued 4 referrals for
EACH of their employees on each free account so EACH employee would have
a 4GB quota. For 50 employees, that means gathering 200 referrals but
doing so for separately for each Dropbox account (4 referrals per
Dropbox account). That's not just unlikely but smacks of abuse of
Dropbox's TOS regarding referrals.

I don't see a pricing plan that gives 4GB for an initial quota. The
lowest paid plan starts with 50GB. That's *per* Dropbox account. The
only way I can figure you have a legitimate 4GB quota with a free
Dropbox account is that you share the same Dropbox account with all the
other company's employees AND there were 4 referrals to "friends" (which
Dropbox leaves undefined) against that same shared account.
Click to expand...

afaik, only 4 of use that Dropbox. We can share
the files among ourselves. How it came about, idk.
I was chewed out royally for not backing my data up to it.
 
Smirnoff said:
Could be that the offer has expired or the fact that I never used my Hotmail
address as my Live ID.

I used my ISP's (BT Mail) as my Live ID, either way the option is not there.
Click to expand...

The offer to upgrade for free has elapsed. If you didn't upgrade before
the non-disclosed expiration date then you cannot increase from 7GB
(which they lowered from 25GB) to 25GB. They robbed you of your old
quota and then pretended they were making a new offer to increase it
(back to its original size).

I have 2 Live/Hotmail accounts. I upgraded 1 account to get [back to]
the 25GB quota but forgot to do the same for the other account. There
is no option for my 2nd account to upgrade [back to] the quota from 7GB
to 25GB, so I'm stuck in my 2nd account with just 7GB.

Microsoft did not announce when their "limited-time offer" (to revert
back to the original 25GB quota) would expire. It just disappeared when
they decided to no longer let users get back the quota that Microsoft
took away.

It's gone. They took it away before you found out about it. They were
hoping it wouldn't get much press so that many existing users would lose
out. It's not like they sent you an e-mail through your Hotmail account
to alert you to their "limited-time loyalty-user offer to retain your
old 25GB quota". They didn't want most of their users knowing their
quota was getting chopped.
 
Under the guise of help, Jay Tanna (aka Good Guy) decided to spam here
and elsewhere his sites via his signature. He started advertising in
late March, a month after he registered his mytaxsite domain. Before
that he didn't spam in his signature. So, for about 17 months he was
Good Guy. Now he's Spam Guy.
 
Can anyone recommend an on line back services they like?
Click to expand...

Todd,

If you just need to backup files to the cloud then something like
DropBox is a good solution.

But if you want to backup systems (servers, databases, email systems)
to the cloud and then be able to recover the systems within a
reasonable amount of time, you'll need something more sophisticated
like Asigra:

- http://www.asigra.com

Asigra only sell through managed service providers like these guys:

- http://www.backupmadeeasy.tv

There are a number of other cloud backup vendors catering to business
users but I believe Asiga has been around the longest.

Hope that helps.

Robert
 
Can anyone recommend an on line back services they like?
Click to expand...

Todd,

If you just need to backup files to the cloud then something like
DropBox is a good solution.

But if you want to backup systems (servers, databases, email systems) to
the cloud and then be able to recover the systems within a reasonable
amount of time, you'll need something more sophisticated like Asigra:

- http://www.asigra.com

[snip]
Click to expand...

I like Carbonite; http://www.carbonite.com $60 US per year minimum for
Home and Home Office users. Very easy to use; set it and forget it.

Stef
 
Be aware of their limitations, like:

http://www.carbonite.com/en/home/online-backup-faqs
Any file over 4 GB, including Outlook .PST files, must be manually
added to your backup.

So if your customer has some large files or they want their Outlook
message store included in the backup, they will have to edit the
program's config. Hopefully their client works with Volume Shadow Copy
service so they can grab a copy of the .pst file that will be inuse when
Outlook is running (and the customer may leave Outlook running all the
time).

Read:
http://carbonite.custhelp.com/app/a...sion/L3RpbWUvMTMzODQxNzgzOC9zaWQvakpDSXpyWms=
(short URL: http://tinyurl.com/7aqbov9)
Then review my other post in this thread about upload speed. If your
customers has lots of files that accumulate to many gigabytes in total
size, it could be many days before they get all those files backed up.
Cloud backups sound great until you realize how much slower is your
upload speed. That they mention 3-4GB as the typical upper limit on
data transfer but 25GB/day should be possible means they are throttling
down process priority, CPU usage, and bandwidth consumption so your host
and network remain somewhat responsive and usable. Because the initial
backup (or any backup of huge files) can take many days, be sure your
customer does NOT enable any low-power or power-saving modes on their
computer (i.e., standby or hibernate MUST be disabled and the computer
MUST remain in full-power mode).
Click to expand...

Hi VanguardLH,

Thank you for the heads up!

She uses AOL through Firefox (my doing) for her
eMail.

In this instance, the customer *WILL NOT* backup
her computer -- it is a personality thing. So, it is
On Line backup or nothing at all. And, since I just
recovered her from a bad partition on her hard drive ...
(I am handy with Linux, or she would have lost everything.
She got very, very lucky.)

Just as an aside, our term for On Line backup is
"the creepy backup". But, this time, I had to compromise.

-T

Her Windows partition was so mangled that the W7 installer
could not read it to delete it and reinstall it. I used
gparted on my Linux Xfce Live CD to remove it. My W7 PE disk
chocked on it too. She does not know just how lucky
she was that I was able to copy off her data with
the Live CD.
 
Todd said:
Just as an aside, our term for On Line backup is
"the creepy backup". But, this time, I had to compromise.
Click to expand...

Not an issue, with the right encryption.

BTW - isn't there a danger this person is going to be
upset by the amount of time the backup is going to take
to run over a network ? How many Gigabytes will be
transferred regularly ? My upload speed on ADSL is
so pathetic, I could never contemplate network (cloud)
backup as a viable solution. I don't even have enough
"upload" to run a webcam in low-res.

Paul
 
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