Computer Repair.

[Bsuds]

Are you talking about setting up a NAS?

I have considered doing that too.

[Urban Cowboy]

I run one of these with a couple of 3TB Western Digital Reds. http://global.shuttle.com/main/products ... uctId=1710

You can set up multiple accounts on it so family members can access what you wish them to be able to see.

Install the Omninas app on your phone and you can access your stuff from anywhere.

I keep mine in my workshop separated from the house so should something happen to the home and the networked PC's therein, there will be a backup of my important items on my cloud.

Different configuration options are available, but I set mine up so that the installed drives are mirrors, thus if one fails all I need do is pull the bad one, install a replacement, and it will automatically have the data from the good one installed on it.

With this setup, if I were to still lose all my stuff, I'd have to presume I have far greater things to worry about than lost data.

[Ub2]

Nice setup, Looks like your running raid 1. I'm looking to do something similar.
I would never trust a cloud server with my personal information. It's bad enough all our medical records are sitting on Telus servers.
Old Techie, what are you using for firewalls, and did you set up a VPN?

[forum]

If you actually read the white papers on how Google and Microsoft backup your data, you'd realize keeping a NAS in a workshop is not even close to being more secure, economical and redundant.

[Urban Cowboy]

Some people just don't like the concept of having to trust some faceless entity with their personal belongings forum.

If you do more power to you, but not everyone is in the same boat, and I certainly am not alone, or the manufacturers wouldn't have a market for personal clouds.

What I do know from observation is that many aspects of internet usage are still experiencing growing pains, and many legal aspects in gray areas.

My choice makes those issues just one less headache.

As far as redundancy goes I'm inclined to think that five PC's and a personal cloud, in three different locations gives me enough redundancy.

My important data is incrementally updated every hour, with less important stuff done daily. I'm willing to bet there are a lot of small businesses out there that don't even come close to my setup.

[forum]

I'm sorry break this to you but you don't own the operating system on your computer or any of the software. The NAS company is just as faceless as Google, Microsoft, Apple.

Fact of the matter is, it's much more likely someone will jump into your NAS or PC before they jump into Google's encrypted servers. And besides you can do a mirror sync of all your data from Google to the NAS.

[Urban Cowboy]

Like I said forum to each his own. Actually most of my stuff is Linux and Android.

Clearly you are a Google shill and I don't care, whatever floats your boat.

I'm surprised you didn't take the opportunity to suggest I purchase a Chromebook.

[DANSPEED]

If you actually read the white papers on how Google and Microsoft backup your data, you'd realize keeping a NAS in a workshop is not even close to being more secure, economical and redundant.

I'm running a QNAP NAS 6 TB RAID 5 with daily scheduled backups to external drives. For security I connect via HTTPS only with a 2-step verification and all my drives are encrypted. It cost me around $900. I think my NAS is secure, economical and redundant enough for my needs.

[forum]

If you actually read the white papers on how Google and Microsoft backup your data, you'd realize keeping a NAS in a workshop is not even close to being more secure, economical and redundant.

I'm running a QNAP NAS 6 TB RAID 5 with daily scheduled backups to external drives. For security I connect via HTTPS only with a 2-step verification and all my drives are encrypted. It cost me around $900. I think my NAS is secure, economical and redundant enough for my needs.

A flood, fire, theft, 2 drives dying at the same time. Very vulnerable.

[forum]

Like I said forum to each his own. Actually most of my stuff is Linux and Android.

Clearly you are a Google shill and I don't care, whatever floats your boat.

I'm surprised you didn't take the opportunity to suggest I purchase a Chromebook.

I'm not a Google shill, they just happen to be one of the best platforms, so I use them as an example.

I have my own Linux servers, an unRAID, Synology, and Ubuntu servers running.

I still cloud everything. You never know when you could lose the machines to hardware failure, fire, flood, theft, virus, software corruption etc.

[TylerM4]

I've got to agree with Forum. You're more likely to have your data compromised on a personal NAS or personal PC than with the big cloud data providers like amazon, google, and Microsoft.

People focus on encryption and OS but most attacks on the consumer market don't involve this type of attack vector anyway. Consumer attacks are rarely targeted. To be frank - your personal pictures and documents aren't worth the effort. It's far more likely you'll be compromised via visiting a compromised website, or through phishing, or downloading data/emails you shouldn't have.

Long story short - Google, Microsoft, and amazon have better data security than 95% of home users.

But there's more to this. As forum pointed out, there's more to backup than just security.
To be frank - backup to a NAS or second HDD is a poor solution. But certainly better than nothing.
A "good" backup solution involves data that's kept offline and offsite. Offline protects against things like cryptolocker - no point having a backup of your data if your backup is also compromised. Offsite protects against fire, theft, flood, etc.
A "great" backup solution also involves revision history. It's common to backup a corrupted file overwriting the last backup with the good file. Having revision history lets you "go back" further than just the last backup.

All of the cloud service providers provide "good" quality backup right at the basic service level and "great" quality backup when subscribed to a premium service. Whereas most homeowners have poor or no backup.

Again - for 95% of home users, basic cloud service is superior to what they're using now.

People should think of data like they do money. Best to keep it in a bank rather than under the mattress.

[forum]

People should think of data like they do money. Best to keep it in a bank rather than under the mattress.

Exactly.

[DANSPEED]

A flood, fire, theft, 2 drives dying at the same time. Very vulnerable.

That's why the daily scheduled external backups! Flood, fire or theft, well you got me there. You forgot to add a gun to my head. I'm sure a cloud storage would be better but my upload speed is crap so I make do with what I can afford. Yes it's vulnerable but it's better than nothing.

[Urban Cowboy]

I think a couple of you are stuck in business mode and overlook that business and private have different needs/priorities.

I also see a lot of faith put into the security of google, and that's perfectly fine if you wish to believe that, but I'd wager that the people who had their Yahoo accounts compromised felt exactly the same way.

[Ub2]

I agree. Also Dyn had a DDos server attack not so long ago.

Anyone can be exploited, even banks . . . costs them billions every year, they just don't make it very public.

As to a home storage, If someone wants redundancy with fire and flood protection, they could use something like an IO safe product.