Anybody use an online backup service for

[Fluid Power]

OFFICE or WORK files? If so, pros/cons or any other advice?

Looking to back up my companies financial data offsite.

Thanks,

Darren

[Rhino]

I have used both carbonite and backblaze. Both services are extremely similar and offer competitive packages. One thing of note is that they all differ on what file types they allow. (Some don't allow music, iso images, executables, etc...) so insure all of your file types are supported before signing up.
They're both highly secure in transport and storage. For a small shop, or someone without a ton time/experience for checking regular backups I think this is a great solution. The only reason I decided to move off of a hosted service is that, even though I have nothing to hide, having my data "out there" somewhere, but not under my control eventually got to me. A few friends and I got together and ended up building a similar service to use ourselves.

Since this is company related; How critical is data secrecy to your company? Are you publicly traded or under any data related regulatory compliance?

[Fluid Power]

Thanks for the reply. No we are a small privately held company. Just changing around some servers and it was thrown out as an idea vs tape back up or remote hard drive. I tend to agree with you, not sure I want my stuff "out there"

Darren

[Rhino]

If it makes you feel any better, I've been told that extremely few people at either of the services have access to the files.

Personally, I can see using it for DR purposes, however I would avoid using it as a sole backup method. When a file is inadvertently modified, then the file systems synchronized, your only good copy just got updated inadvertently as well.

[Fluid Power]

Rhino, thanks for the advice. Do you 'do' computers for a living?

Darren

[Rhino]

You're welcome. Yea, I work IT in the banking industry.

[Fluid Power]

Thanks guys. We back up one server nightly to tape, change the tape everyday, and only have a week on hand at a time. This system is Unix based and not connected to the internet so there has not been any drama. The new accounting system is Windows based (dear God!) and is running on its own server. I was going to back this up to a tape drive or an external hard drive and follow the same practice as the tape. Back up nightly, over write weekly. We are not storing drawings or engineering data or something that might need to be recovered for a customer at a much later date. I just thought an online option might work. I guess the traditional route looks pretty good at this point.

Darren