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bcarn
Starting Member
USA
9 Posts |
 Posted - November 01 2014 : 22:42:30
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A few days ago Microsoft announced that a subscription to Office365 included unlimited storage space on OneDrive. We will have to wait and see just how that works out. But the question now arises,"What about my installed backup utilities?"
As I read the information released, should I purchase a copy of Office365 with permission to install on up to 5 devices (with the same login windows account?) I can backup each of the devices to OneDrive without regard for space limitation.
Let's not get too involved with the upload and download speeds just yet and even thought it is reported that these are one step from lousy in the USA, the future of personal backup would appear to be poised for a big change.
Would you at Macrium and others like to comment on this storage change proffered by Microsoft and Office365?
Thanks
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Seekforever
Advanced Member
Canada
640 Posts |
Posted - November 01 2014 : 23:31:02
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While the inclusion of free unlimited space may be something new, the use of cloud backups is certainly not new. My ISP provides me with free 25GB of OneDrive space and of course, I can buy more. There are various backup programs that have been working with cloud services for years now.
Even though I have the program that backups to the cloud, I don't do it except for a few important files as off-premisis storage. I also encrypt the files myself before storing. Why don't I use it more? Because of what you don't want to "get too involved with..."; namely, the upload speed. I don't live in an area that has great upload speed and as far as I'm concerned, the speed is indeed the issue.
Using the cloud for document storage is fine because individual files tend to be relatively small so up/download speeds are less of a factor and the benefit of the cloud for anywhere access and sharing is undeniable. When it comes to storing multi-gigabytes at one time then I would rather store it locally.
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bcarn
Starting Member
USA
9 Posts |
Posted - November 01 2014 : 23:59:06
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You are correct Seekforever. I agree if it is not needed then don't use it is fine. Most of the online options to date are constrained by storage space cost and or up/down speed. But within the present access speeds the change offered by OneDrive would appear to offer real changes among the backup options for users, which may well broaden if and when Internet speeds are increased.
My interest is for those who need longtime storage and safety from corrupted external HDD's, plus the ease for the non technical having a reliable backup capability.
I really wanted to hear from those who have thoughts on how this might change backup in the future.
Though I have 1.0GB cloud space this is not even close to the local space used on my networked backup capability.
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Arvy
Advanced Member
Canada
494 Posts |
Posted - November 02 2014 : 01:24:51
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Somebody's going to have to come up with some pretty fantastic bandwidth ... something like my own personal backbone pipeline ... to persuade me that "the cloud" can replace my multi-terabyte backup capabilities in hot-swap drive bays. 
Hard drives may not be "free" (nothing really is), but they're damned cheap insurance in my own private possession and subject only to my own disposition at will. As for "secure" encryption, ... Well, I'll let someone else argue the merits of that supposition.
Regards, Richard
Edit: Sp |
Edited by - Arvy on November 02 2014 01:39:36 |
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Ranger
Regular Poster
Australia
73 Posts |
Posted - November 02 2014 : 04:32:34
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At present I feel that the Cloud security is certainly a question that should be considered, especially as there have been some breaches recently. Of course as more & more people use the cloud the hackers will mount ever increasing assaults of it.
If you have a major crash, such as complete HDD failure, motherboard failure or whatever, you are still going to need to get your computer up & running to the stage of being able to connect to the internet, so you can download your stored backup.
Just to reiterate the upload & download question, I only have half a mb up load & 3 mb download speed on wireless broadband, so definitely not an option here, also my monthly download is limited & once exceeded it drops back to dial up speed. |
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Future of Backup applications?
