Back-Up & Delete

BuilderBob

Hi folks
Think Laptop about to fall over and give up on me but have a lot of photos stored on it that don't want to lose
Thinking of backing up to cloud but paranoid about losing the lot, equally paranoid that laptop will go before can do my homework - hence throwing out the question
Seems lots of options for storage online, Picassa seems nice and easy, just want to be sure that photos are private and equally importantly it's safe storage
Thanks for advice

Allyall

Picasa can be secure, but it isn't by default. So you have to change a few options in settings.

I find Wuala very good, and id doesn't have to adhere to US law so there is no backdoor and less likely of being viewed from any other source. (This is the 2nd time i've recommended them today.. )

Unlike Dropbox or Box.net etc.. If you forget your password, there is no way of accessing your files. So make sure you will remember it.
The fact that staff can reset it on other cloud storage platforms is proof that there is a backdoor in those.

iDrive is also very secure.
iDriveSync if you would like it to work like Dropbox (A virtual folder on your computer).

Wuala referral thread is HERE for more storage space.

Tons of Wuala codes HERE for more storage and in the comments.

Torqay

Nothing in the cloud is safe or private. Back up to DVD or external HDD.

The cloud is a means to access your data from everywhere, but regarding privacy and safety you're throwing yourself at the mercy of the provider. Any private or confidential data you upload to the cloud should be sufficiently encryped.

Allyall

I wouldn't say nothing is safe...

Myth #1: The Cloud Isn't Safe

Security of operations is a cloud user's number one concern -- or, at least, tied for first. It's a concern that will linger as more and more business users take their first, tentative steps with cloud services. And yet, compared to the average data center, cloud security is both more rigorous and more strenuously monitored than a heterogeneous enterprise data center's security can be. While there's a known case of a bot establishing itself in Amazon's Enterprise Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon detected its activity, determined that it violated its rules of customer use and shut it down. Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant operations have been established in the cloud and the most skillfully secured facilities, such as Terremark's Culpepper, Va., data center or massive Network Access Point of the Americas data center in downtown Miami, pictured above. They've passed the Department of Defense's stringent DOD Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process.
It may be that users need to access the public cloud via VPN, as merely using the Internet exposes users to a predatory zone. But the cloud itself will eventually emerge as a more secure environment than the corporate data center.

That said, i wouldn't put any personal information/photographs/files in the cloud, and agree with Torqay. DVD or External Hard Drive, would be my preference for backing up, especially sensitive data.

Torqay

While there's a known case of a bot establishing itself in Amazon's Enterprise Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon detected its activity, determined that it violated its rules of customer use and shut it down.

They can only react to an attack when it is detected, i.e. when the damage is done, thus my statement (nothing is secure in the cloud) is far from being a myth. Also keep in mind, most cloud providers are based in the US of A, a country at war, and thus subject to the Patri0t Act. If some agents of certain three-letter agencies appear at their doorsteps and flash their credentials, your privacy is worth ****. Of course, if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing fear, right?

johnmd01

If you want to do this quickly and easily then you can get yourself an external USB hard drive and a copy of hirens boot cd and use one of the disk backup/image backup tools to save an image of everything on your disk to the HDD,you can then mount the image and copy over everything you need to the new drive/os/laptop etc.

Allyall

johnmd01 wrote: »

If you want to do this quickly and easily then you can get yourself an external USB hard drive and a copy of hirens boot cd and use one of the disk backup/image backup tools to save an image of everything on your disk to the HDD,you can then mount the image and copy over everything you need to the new drive/os/laptop etc.

How come so many people all of a sudden recommending Hiren's for everything?

BuilderBob

Hi all
Really grateful to you all for the advice
Interesting that none of you recommend the "Cloud" as the panacea that it's been portrayed.
I was nervous about using external hard drives as I understand that they too aren't a guaranteed solution but I guess if I back-up my backup then I can't go too far wrong.
Thanks again