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Question

Any suggestions for cloud backup solution?

Jul 27, 2015 5:40AM PDT

I am going to Vancouver for a business tour. But I need to access my personal and official data there. My laptop's hard disk is filled with other stuffs. I have two options, one is to make a backup of my data to an external drive and second one is to upload to cloud storage. I prefer the second method so that I can access them at any point of time. But I don't have account in any backup service. I am looking for a cheap service that can offer 10-15 GB of storage with great security. One of my friend suggested Stage2Data cloud backup (http://www.stage2data.com/cloud-backup ). But I have few doubts regarding their service. Is anyone here have experience on using their service? Or please suggest any other backup service.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
The cloud is not that secure.
Jul 27, 2015 6:51AM PDT

You'll see folk spamming this over and over but it breaks the first tenant of security and that's access. If you want security, do not give them access to your files.

10-15 GB of backup is under 10 bucks for a memory stick. And you can get a few for better security of the backup.

-> Why not a memory stick?

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Unable to use memory stick. need more storage
Jul 27, 2015 11:02PM PDT

Thanks for the quick reply. Actually I mean 100 -150 GB. Sorry for the mistake.

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get a hosted account with FTP capability
Jul 27, 2015 11:25PM PDT

then it's private. Most registrars will sell you a domain name for about $10 per year and a hosting plan runs about $5 a month and not only offers plenty of storage, but also ability to do webpages in your new domain name. You can use windows file explorer as FTP client too, so moving files to and from it is just like it's a folder on your computer, so long as you have internet access available.

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I picked up a 2TB smallish USB 3.0 HDD for under 99 bucks.
Jul 28, 2015 8:35AM PDT

The 1TB Toshiba Canvio Basic is around the 50 buck mark and beats the cloud on price.

However if you want to do this, why pay? Just take up CNET's Pogoplug free deal for now. But first a comment. TO move 150GB to online is going to take quite a while. And some ISPs block that or worse have data caps that you won't get this uploaded inside a month.

It's 39.99 at Staples today.
http://www.staples.com/TOSHIBA-CANVIO-1TB-BASICS-PORTABLE-HARD-DRIVE/product_1337688

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You can buy 128 GB sticks for $36 and pocket sized 1TB HD
Jul 28, 2015 8:46AM PDT

The pocket sized 1TB hard drives are under $60 and the 128 GB sticks are $36. Either is far preferable for me over the cloud. Uploading to the cloud is extremely slow, and others have pointed out that the cloud is not secure. Also there have been a number of cloud services to go out of business.

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If you go with a memory stick
Jul 28, 2015 8:56AM PDT

do what I set up for my wife's work stick. Put the Truecrypt executable on it, create an encrypted volume and always put your saved files into that. Probably should format it NTFS so you can use larger than 4 GB size files. Or can create multiple encrypted volumes on it, each for something different saved files. That way if you lose it, nobody has access to your files since they are all crammed into a large file or "volume" together and encypted.