I have not noticed this. Backups appear to me to proceed at a reasonable pace, including photographs. I have 48.5GB stored.

If you just want to move files to S3, there's S3Fox plugin available for firefox. It lets you drag and drop files into S3 buckets.

I knew I would get some great suggestions from the FT community! I am going to take a look at BackBlaze.com and Crashplan. Thanks for the tips.

I logged into Mozy this evening and they have provided me with a new plan to start when my existing plan is up (end of March). Current storage usage across 2 computers is 254gb and I pay $108.90 while the new plan would cost me $263.89 for 3 computers. I'm not sure why they suggest a plan with 3 computers, but I am definitely dumping Mozy.

You're not over the 200GB threshold, which cuts upload speed by over 80%. Backups will take over 5x longer.

Someone just told me that SafeSync (from long-established Trend Micro) is half-price right now -- $30 per year for UNLIMITED storage.

http://www.crashplan.com/mozyonover
4 years unlimited for 1 PC at $119 looks pretty good to me. Any reason not to take it?

Get a Terabyte or so external storage, and back up your data there. Much cheaper and faster than the remote back up options.

I think that's a stupid idea. Single source backup rarely makes sense.

It makes a lot of sense, especially when most folks don't even have a single back up.

I have terabytes of data to back up. I'm not about to do it a few kilobytes a second upstream on a broadband line.

In my case I have several external USB drives. My data is triple backed up to those USB drives and other computers as well (as well as NAS with software that propagates my back ups). I also carry USB back ups with me so not all my data is in a single location.

Much easier, no monthly fee to worry about, no bandwidth issues to worry about. Risk of data loss / hdd failure of all the drives including the PC is beyond remote.

Back up and recovery speeds are as fast as USB 3.0 and my local LAN. Way faster than broadband for either purpose.

Best of all I control the data. Hackers can't hack into Mozy or another online storage server and get to my data.

It's simply the most economical and effective solution.

What's stupid is calling someone else's idea stupid without giving any consideration to the advantages of that idea.

But we aren't discussing whether or not it makes sense to backup. We're discussing how one should backup given that they want to.

I would imagine you're in the vast minority on this. Terabytes? What in the hell are you backing up? I would imagine most people have < 20GB, probably significantly less so. And in that case the slow upload speeds are perfectly adequate.

Several USB drives are expensive. Carrying around your USB back ups with sounds like a pain in the butt at best and absurdly paranoid at worst.

Sure you don't have a monthly fee but your startup costs with all those drives is high. You also need software to do the backing up (or spend time writing your own). And the risk of any drive failing and therefore needing replacement (more $$$$) is also high.

I would imagine I can get 3-4 years of online storage for your startup costs.

But how often does one need to backup or restore in total? Very rarely.

Sure, but they could break into your home network, break into your house, etc. Your storage isn't necessarily any safer.

One efficiency I enjoy from Mozy is the ability to access a given file anywhere on the internet. I can be in Moscow and access a backed up file. Very helpful.

A one terabyte drive costs under $100 these days. You can get some for cheap as $50. Buy two and you're still under $100. Even an ultra portable drive that is as small as a wallet.

Best of all, I can access and back up my data while I'm in flight or out of internet coverage, anywhere I need my data or to back up data.

So for under $100, a person can easily have two back ups, one at home, one with them in their backpack, car, etc.

With regards to data, I have videos, music, software, lots of documents, easily get over 20gb. I suspect most people have easily more than 20gb. I helped a friend buy a 750gb portable drive as he had never backed up any data before. His first back up was about 75GB of data. This was a month ago. Since then he's gone over 100gb of data.

If most people have less than 20gb of data, then it's even easier to carry a back up. Use a 32GB thumb sized flash drive to back up your data. Get a 32GB microSD card and pop it into your phone and you'll always have your data. It makes even less sense to have online backup when your back up is small.

Online backups may be good for some, but in most cases it's far cheaper and faster and more reliable to have your own back ups.

The main disadvantages of online back up for me are: price, speed, privacy of data, and offline access. The cheap portable drives and thumb drives negate all of these disadvantages.

You seriously carry around a terabyte usb drive with you wherever you go?

Yes, it's the size of my wallet, and it's in my travel back pack. What's so freaking hard to believe?

For added security, I have a 16GB microSD card with my essential data on the card, embedded in my Android phone.

And just for giggles, I have a 32GB thumb drive with my essential data backed up on my keychain.

Amazingly simple, redundant, and cheap and easy. Hard to believe, I know. Common sense ain't so common, is it?

All my sensitive data are encrypted in TrueCrypt file containers with super strong passwords. My hard drives also have hardware encryption as well. Good luck to a thief who would care to take the time to steal my relatively mundane and useless data (useless to them, invaluable to me).

This marks another disadvantage of online backups. Since I keep my data in secure TrueCrypt containers, I can't just do "delta" back ups. I would have to re-upload the entire TrueCrypt container, because the container file attributes do not change even when I change its contents. Mozy or other online auto-back up services couldn't pick up this "difference" and back up my large containers. I'd have to risk backing up raw data unsecured to Mozy or other online services. No thanks.

Frankly this all sounds like a big PITA. You might think it is more efficient, but it strikes me as exceedingly less so.

There is no doubt that certain individuals will get a kick out of having setups like this, but for most of us who aren't programmers or IT guys, this is just insane. (If I'm being honest).

I was thinking more along the lines of fire, flood, etc. Fire has an interesting way of getting past encryption.