Posted on February 25th, 2010It should go without saying that one of the biggest data protection “faux-pas” is keeping your critical data backups on-site after they’ve been copied. In the event of theft, flooding, fire or some other disaster, you face the risk of losing your master copy AND your backups at the same time.
Unfortunately, the daily task of taking the backup media (Tapes, External HDs, DVDs, Etc…) to an external storage site can also be a time-consuming chore. This burden is one of the key reasons that “cloud-based” backup solutions have become so popular in recent years. Instead of physically copying your data and taking it to another location, it’s all done for you automatically without having to get out of your chair.
However, as with anything else in life, there is a RIGHT way and a WRONG way to back up your data to the Internet. And many people have been burned by going about this in the WRONG way. Web hosting accounts are now so inexpensive, that it’s not uncommon to find unlimited disk space or bandwidth for as little as $4/ month. Since these services are so inexpensive, many have been tempted to just FTP all of their data to their hosting account… effectively using it as a backup device.
But before you make this common mistake, you need to take a few things into consideration:
• Read your hosting contract very carefully. Most web hosting companies will set aside explicit clauses that prohibit customers from using the hosting space as a backup device.
• In the event that you upload someone else’s copyrighted intellectual property, you may end up having your service terminated without notice. This can have serious consequences if you also have
web sites hosted on this account.
• When you upload your data to a web server as a means of backing up, you lose the benefit of having several “grandfather” versions like you would with backup software. In the event that you mistakenly upload a corrupted file that overwrites the “good version”, you will have lost both: the master file and the backup.
• Since web servers are primarily designed for open access and distribution of information, you must consider that anything you upload to this system may potentially be accessed and read by nosy people on the Internet. This could lead to embarrassing privacy problems, and even expensive identity theft.
• Your backups will take a long time to upload since FTP is an unsophisticated file transfer system. It lacks the compression, encryption and block-level incremental upload features that a dedicated online backup application would have. Worst of all, this could considerably slow down your Internet connection and lead to potential problems with your Internet service provider.
Within the past few years, we’ve seen a number of new online backup services being released. At this point, there is such a vast range of options and price points that – no matter what you’re looking for – there will certainly be an online backup provider that caters especially to you and your requirements. And none of this is news to your hosting provider. Web hosts have known about these problems for a long time.
That’s why so many of them now offer their own branded online backup services as part of their portfolio. 2 of the biggest advantages of getting online backup through your web host are that:
• You can get everything from a one-stop-shop
• You can usually get better pricing by bundling the backup service with your existing hosting plan
Take a moment right now and talk to your web host about the benefits of online backup. It’s safer, faster and easier than simply using an FTP client to upload your files.
About The Author:
Storagepipe is a Backup Software provider that also offers a partner program which lets web hosts start their own Online Backup services.
Lots of free alternatives for online backup are starting to pop up. For example, Dropbox gives you a couple gigs for free. Otherwise, it might make more financial sense in the long run to simlpy get an extra backup hard drive.