Online cloud backup... need help

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I've been researching services for backing up my data online. The problem is the standard ones like Carbonite and Mozy have caveats I don't like.

Here's the thing. I have an external hard drive I use to store all my important files. The problem is the data on the external hard drive is not just a duplicate of files already on my PC. I actually have more data on the external hard drive than on my laptop because I have a lot of old files that I didn't bother to copy over to my new laptop.

It seems services like Carbonite and Mozy are all about backing up files strictly on your main computer. With Mozy, if you don't have your external drive attached at all times the files are considered "deleted" and marked to be wiped from the server. Carbonite is even worse in that you have to pay a whole bunch extra to backup an external hard drive and forces you to go through all kinds of annoying hoops to backup certain file types ( video files, exe files, etc...).

What I'm really looking for is a service where I can just dump the contents of my external hard drive online when I feel like it. The drive is 1 tb and just under half full. If this drive ever fails I will lose a lot of data. I don't have enough room to copy it all onto my laptop hard drive.

Any help appreciated.

Step 1 - Buy a VPS with 50gig or so in storage, linux ones work great for this.

Step 2 - Session your data (unless you want BMR) to the VPS and store it there. SSH, FTP, SFTP, there are even some nice web-based PHP front ends that you can use if your using a unix based VPS.

Step 3 - Repeat step 2 every couple of weeks.



lowendbox.com is a great resource for this.

Probably a lot more secure and cheaper to purchase a second external drive specifically for this purpose - it also gives you total flexibility on what you store.

Do you have an alternative address (family member or friend?) who you visit regularly where you can leave a second external drive? You could use TrueCrypt drive encryption to ensure only you have access to the contents.

Meh. For some reason it seems what I want to do will be expensive for 400 GB or more (I have lots of video I've made). Maybe I should just buy a second external hard drive.

^ Its the strategy I adopted and keep the 2nd external drive out of the way in case of fire. In the good old days when data storage requirements were much less I used to leave encrypted DVD disks with family.

Yea. I have a ton of data on my external hard drive because I share it with my parents. They got a lot of great photos and video footage from their travels to different parts of the world that isn't on my computer. I also have a ton files from my old PC (went kaput 2 years ago) that aren't stored anywhere else.

I could buy a new external drive and let my parents keep the old one. It's just that if I ever move to a different city we won't both be able to back up regularly.