Why Cloud Storage Is Lousy For Enterprises (and Individuals) 183
storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."
GET HIGH IN THE CLOUD !! (Score:0, Interesting)
Get high and enjoy the cloud !!
sigh... (Score:3, Interesting)
Surely the 100$ the author "saved" by doing that could not have been worth the three months it took? That's about 140 kbps... You could buy yourself a 100$ TB drive and have a local system set to back up and restore your data whenever you need and it won't take 3 months for the data to get there and back. *And* you have control over your data and its security. *And* it would probably be cheaper anyway in the end.
The data center (cloud) is more reliable (Score:1, Interesting)
Professionally managed redundant storage in a secure facility is more reliable than the typical home setup.
It is NOT a good idea to keep your backups with your original data. The chance of the disaster (fire, theft, water damage, etc.) that takes your data also taking your backups is greatly mitigated with offsite storage.
Hard drives fail if you are only using one drive for backup there is a not insignificant chance that some part of your backup will be damaged or have bit rot. The only way to know for sure is to restore. The only safe way to do that is with an identical machine. Otherwise you will discover your backup is bad when you test, by restoring and destroying your original.
The other problem is upload bandwidth. Surprise it takes a long time to upload a terabyte! Some simple math could have saved a lot of time. No sane person wants to have their internet connection used 100% for weeks to get that first backup.
Most current online backup companies (Carbonite, Mozy, etc.) only backup a small subset of "Important" files. This isn't a REAL backup. It is a copy of some files or as they call it a backup of important files.
What we need is the ability to do full backups quickly. We need a way to backup data without sending the data.
I think this company solved the problem and could be the Google of online backup. www.hybir.com
My argument against cloud storage: Bell is my ISP (Score:2, Interesting)
Cloud storage, the Solution begging for a problem. (Score:2, Interesting)
Every time I do the numbers I just can't figure this one out.
It would roughly cost me 20 times to store archive material in the cloud than it would to implement a robust local solution. I haven't bothered to redo the numbers for about 6 months.
There are so many more costs with the cloud.
+ bandwidth
+ monthly space fees
+ registration
And if you don't pay the bill your data usually vanishes.
At the moment SATA drives are extremely cheap. Making backup to physical and then putting the drives in secure storage is very cheap and fast. And I don't loose the data if I forget/can't to pay the bill.
Cloud storage is just a form of data extortion from what I can see. It's like crack, almost free for the first hit and so easy to use. Then you can't get away from it. You want to but it won't let you go. You will fall apart with out if you leave it.