[Archived] Web Accessible Storage

[Paul]

I'm considering investing in a web web enabled hard drive we which would connect all our home devices for storage, iphones, iPad,nexus 7, laptop and my son's desdktop.

Obviously there are various benefits but the main driver behind this is back up. While I do backup from time to time it's not as often as it should be, mainly because the EHD is kept seperatley from the other devices and it's a question of remembering rather than an automatic function.

I thought of getting one of these or similar:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/storage/3472236/wd-my-cloud-review

Ideally I want to link my office PCs as well to send the back up to home. I don't TT think tyhast Weill work. Anyone got thoiughhts or ideas on this.

I'm not keen on cloud storage primarily through cost. We have around 155GB to store from work

[FGS5635]

155GB a night form work to home is going to need a very good broadband connection at both ends to complete in a decent window time. If it doesnt complete nightly then your home/work internet speeds will suffer if the backup is still going while your all trying to use it with your various devices. Much better to backup your work stuff locally at work imo. How often are you looking to backup your work data?

[Paul]

Daily incremental back up. That is we only back up files which have changed. 155GB is the size of the current backup but 95% of that is historical data which never changes. However we have removed it from the local machines and left it only on the back up so we can, very rarely, access the historical stuff immediately

I'm beginning to think Dropbox for current data and the backup only for historical

[FGS5635]

Daily incremental back up. That is we only back up files which have changed. 155GB is the size of the current backup but 95% of that is historical data which never changes. However we have removed it from the local machines and left it only on the back up so we can, very rarely, access the historical stuff immediately

I'm beginning to think Dropbox for current data and the backup only for historical

Is that a weekly full, then daily incrementals though, or just contimuous incrementals?

If the historical data never changes then its prob easiest to dump that to EHD and use some of the free online backup sites for your current data. Comodo backup give you 10gb of free online backup storage. if your 95% figure is accurate that may be enough for what you need.

[thebigguy]

why not look into a NAS device which is basically a network attached storage device, they can be used if a few ways to stream content/backup/etc.

you can start with two hard drives and add more later

[Paul]

I've been meaning to come back to this. Apologies to those who made suggestions, I should have done this sooner.

I've gone for a bit of a halfway house really, slightly driven by my own needs but mainly by those of others whose habits I may not be able to change so easily. I've purchased 100GB of storage with Dropbox - there may be better, cheaper deals but I'm comfortable with Dropbox and it works well for me - and organised regular backup to Dropbox.

Our files split into two handy groups - historical which rarely change but need to be kept, seven years of accounts, VAT etc. to keep HMRC happy and current which clearly relate to 2014. All our current files/folders have been moved into a new folder called 2014 created in Documents and the rest sits in Documents. I've set two backs up to run which cover the whole of Documents or just the 2014 folder, so I get a quick backup on current stuff or a longer one if needed for the full Documents folder. The one issue I have is these are not automatic and I have to remember to run them daily.

Next step is to set my full Windows backup to do the same but that's not so simple as it takes time and again needs to be run daily.

I found a little programme called SyncToy from Microsoft which is easy to set up but is not automated though it does sync the PC with Dropbox very simply. I've tried creating a "task" in the Windows Task Scheduler but it doesn't work - it opens up at 6.00pm every day, a black window appears, but doesn't actually run!!

I'm sure there is a better way and I'll need to look into it when time allows but for the moment I won't loose anything.

One thing which put me off Google Drive, which I need to look at again, was it seems to want everything moved to a new drive on the PC.

One issue, not connected I'm sure, I have found is my PC refuses to recognise any external hard drives. I've got three and none of them show up or can be accessed from the PC but all three can be from two different laptops.