"Cloud" storage vs external drive(s) - RV-Dreams Community Forum

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

"Cloud" storage vs external drive(s)

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

We use external drives for computers but my phone does save its photos and contact list to the cloud. The phone has its own 6GB plan. If I had to backup the laptop I am writing this it would take weeks to make the initial backup, my estimate is 150GB compressed. My weekly backups run about 10GB each, so over 40GB per month usage. I would have to be selective about what I backed up to the cloud, and would still need to use an external drive for a full backup. I have Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft Skydrive accounts to share and archive files to the cloud, but no cloud backup account.

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well, I get the external drives part, the rest of it is where I get foggy. That is partly why I asked my other question on the other thread about the unlimited data plans. My lack of understanding about my computing and connectivity needs is something I'm trying to correct before we have another disasterous crash on one of our laptops. Sounds like I don't need the cloud backup. I don't understand what Dropbox, Google Drive or MS Skydrive are or do let alone why I might need them.

waltben · RV-Dreams Family Member

Cloud storage (or any other remote kind) means your data is on someone else's hard drive and guaranteed, they won't tell you who has access to it besides you. If you don't care about that and don't put stuff like your bank account info there, it's fine as long as you've connectivity. Since I'm not into terrorism, I don't care about most of my info and would use it if I needed to. Thus far, I've had no need to. My phone has a memory card, but I download most photos to my laptop. It's hard drive is only 40% full and I've an external one for backups that's 60% (weekly Windows and a full C drive straight copy I do twice a year). Disk and stick memory is incredibly cheap these days and my preference is to have personal control over my 'stuff'.

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

When you put it that way, it makes sense. I'm sure the data would be safe, but control over your stuff as you put it is best for keeping prying eyes off it.

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

We employ both in our back-up strategy. Any active files we're working on get synced up to our Cloud storage (we use Dropbox) so that if anything happens to our computers, we don't lose our current stuff. The data usage is worth it, and we do manage it - as our active files are directly related to our income sources.

We then have an external NAS system for backing up regularly for on board back-ups. And we leave external hard drive back-ups with friends and family as we travel, so that if we have a catastrophic loss - they can send us the hard drive. Between restoring an older back-up, and re-syncing Dropbox - that would let us get back up and running with any computer we might pick up to replace what was damaged.

- Cherie

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

We do what Cherie describes - important files that I am working on are on external Cloud storage - in my case Google Drive or Dropbox...mostly Drive these days. In fact I have transitioned away from creating files locally for at least half of what I do....I use the Google software that replaces Word, Excel, etc. I do still use Powerpoint locally, since it is so data intensive. But for simple Word documents, in particular, I just tend to use the Google tools....then the stuff is in Drive to start with. This also makes it trivial to share via a link.

For backup locally I use a NAS - a 2x2 Mirrored drive system that is 4 terrabytes. On the NAS goes a total system image once a week, as well as daily "incremental" backups of just data. Currently the NAS is in my Communications closet, but I'm intending to move it to the truck - thus it is separated physically from my RV. All of this is automated. I also use an external hard drive to backup my current "working" project.

For system integrity, besides the drive image once a week, once a month (or sometimes it is 5 weeks), I image a physical drive from my current working laptop. That way if I lose the hardware I can simply pop in a physical drive and do a restore of the data for the intervening weeks. I also have a physical drive with the original system image/application on it, and my data at that time....So if I have to go "back" to the original state of the laptop, I can do it easily by simply popping in a drive. Why do this? Speed and dependability mainly....it would typically only be used if a bad virus or Trojan got into my system.

Most people think what I do is overkill. Perhaps. But I have worked in the computer industry all my life. Need I say more...... :)

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

That's a good tip about the external drives. We are and will be putting our entire music and movie libraries onto our computers before we FT and don't want to lose it or all the work we put into doing it. So the only things that I should store to the cloud, if that is the way to go, is just files and such that we're currently working on? Walt suggested putting it(current stuff if I understood his meaning) on flash drives which seems to be a reasonable alternative. We have a couple of 4GB drives but are not in the habit of using them regularly. For a layperson such as myself there should be a straightforward list out there of best practices/habits to get into to remove the threat of something bad happening to one's data through neglect or unwise decisions.

I had to go read up NAS is. Now I have to learn about "syncing". My brain hurts, my brain hurts.

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

Jack, amazingly technical description of your set-up, at least to this reader, and all I say at the moment is "boy, do I need to learn a lot of stuff to get to a new level of technical comfort. My wife who is somewhat more technically aware than I but still miles behind you guys(a safe bet anyway) tells me I know just enough to be dangerous.

I hope some of this wizardry rubs off on me.

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Simplistically there are two kinds of cloud storage providers, those that do computer and device backups, and those that store files and folders that are shared between computers and devices.

Companies like www.carbonite.com and mozy.com/ do full and incremental backups of your computer to their internet servers. A full backup is everything on your computer or the folders you specify, while an incremental backup saves only the changes. Most backup systems, including network and external drives, do a full backup and then a series of incremental backups, and many do a full backup every once in a while when the number of incremental backups gets large. These services really use a lot of internet bandwidth.

Other services like https://www.dropbox.com/‎ and https://drive.google.com/‎, allow you to store files and folders on their internet servers (cloud) so you can share them between computers and devices. You can also have them store all files of a certain type on your device, photos, videos, word processor files, etc. When you make a change on one computer, they update the cloud and when you hook up another computer or device the service updates the file to match, called synchronization. You can control what files or folders are synchronized on each device. For example, you might set your phone to not synchronize word processor files. Less overall internet bandwidth used, but it can add up.

On phones and tablets these services also assume a wifi source has unlimited bandwidth. A family member put some software on her iPhone for business that blew out her 5GB per month Verizon Jetpack that she was using at home for internet. She had set it to hook up to her wifi when home to save her 2GB per month data plan on the phone. Being a 1000 miles away, I have no idea what apps she was using, but she is not the only one that has had unexpected multiple GB of monthly data usage from a phone on wifi.

-- Edited by bjoyce on Friday 27th of December 2013 12:26:14 PM

BiggarView · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill, thanks for putting that in language us "little brains"(from the movie DefendingYour Life) can understand :)

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

One thing about music. We have a fairly large collection - about 20 gig. Which I know is not that large to some - but I would hate to rip it all again. Some of it is in iTunes - but a lot of it was ripped from CD's and was not purchased from the iTunes store. So it would be impossible to replicate.

I use Google Music to store the stuff in the Cloud. I uploaded it when I had free wifi or a landline available to me. It took "somr time" to do it. But at least it is backed up in the cloud. I also have most of it on our ipod, and I have ALL of it on two replicated thumb drives devoted exclusively to music, and one external hard drive. Although I admit I rarely update the drives - probably once a month. The Cloud and the iPod are kept updated, though. And of course, since it is all on my hard drrive on my laptop it is updated on the NAS.

-- Edited by Jack Mayer on Saturday 28th of December 2013 02:39:01 PM