Remote Backup

In many industries, "CLOUD" is a 4 letter word. Regardless of policies and encryption, it's too easy for your data to fall into the wrong hands. There are just WAY too many unknowns when using a cloud service. Unlike physical records, it's extremely FAST and EASY to duplicate bits.

Even in the most secure circumstances, it's not very difficult for a single person to steal anything. Look at huge embarrassment the US CIA is suffering lately... When you move to storing data on a "cloud" service, the number of people and circuits (which may or may not be secure) increases dramatically.

Consider me old-fashioned, but the only "secure remote backup" is a physical (local) backup that's hand-carried to a remote location (and locked in a physically secure location.) (That wasn't given as a choice for remote backups in your list.)

I supposed your way to be a second NAS (though this would be an USB disk in a bank safe for you I guess). I meant this solution to be a place where you have full control about physical and logical environment.

I also dislike the word cloud. I just feel like it means nothing. My definition being anything that can be accessed at more than 2 locations (that you don't need to know to access the resource) via internet... This would mean that any website out there is part of a cloud... I may have a wrong definition though.

I actually know what information security is, how to manage and improve it. So I can assure you that you are not old fashioned (and if you are everyone should be). There are many enterprises out there that store archive tapes in bank safes. If you want to work on something very critical, the computer shouldn't be physically connected to the network if you ask me. You seem to know a bit about security, so this quote won't surprise you (if you don't already know it) :

The only system which is truly secure is one which is switched off and unplugged locked in a titanium lined safe, buried in a concrete bunker, and is surrounded by nerve gas and very highly paid armed guards. Even then, I wouldn't stake my life on it. -- Gene Spafford, Director, Computer Operations, Audit, and Security Technology (COAST) Project, Purdue University

For day to day backup you need something more flexible I think. Driving 200km a day is not very practical for daily backups (100km being the minimum distance recommended for remote backup, because of natural disasters). That's why enterprises tend to invest in specific network configurations (MPLS, dedicated fiber...). My question was more aimed to consumers and small business owners though, as big enterprises have budget and skill to go with complicated and costly setups.

I use a combination of local backups and CrashPlan. My approach overall is to have 3 local copies of everything (including the primary copy). One of these copies is saved on other (older) NAS using rsync. A second is copied back to dedicated internal drives in local desktop PCs using robocopy.

CrashPlan adds disaster protection, and it is much simpler than arranging to store USB drives somewhere else. It is also quite affordable at ~$60 per year.

I thought about hosted servers, but decided not to. The ones I found that had unlimited storage excluded backup in their terms. General cloud services (amazon for instance) turned out to be too expensive when I priced them out. Also, saving the files in an encrypted form would have required time/effort from me to craft the solution. Crashplan was less expensive, and was turnkey.

Dropbox, google drive, etc didn't have the capacity I needed for backup (at least not at the price point I had in mind).

Placing another NAS at a remote location was a possibility, my family generally has lower speed internet service than I have, and it would stress their downlinks. Plus they don't live nearby. Asking friends to host one was possible I guess, but I decided not to ask.

xeltros wrote:
So the main question is why you chose this kind of service over another, which features do you prefer ?

I think I answered most of this. The price point was correct, the functionality was what I was looking for. De-duplication is a nice feature, and it does improve the upload speed of my PC image backups, as well as handling file reorganization (renaming, etc).

xeltros wrote:
Did you look at the confidentiality policy ?

Yes. I also researched their encryption (though most people probably don't have the knowledge to assess that, since it is specialized).

xeltros wrote:
Do you trust the provider with your data or did you make sure that this was encrypted before storing it there ? Have you taken steps to ensure a better confidentiality ?

Crashplan encypts at the client, and claims they cannot recover data without obtaining the user's key. I chose to trust this claim, and I am not adding additional layered encryption of my own.

xeltros wrote:
Are you using multiple providers ?

Local NAS/PC storage under my control, and Crashplan.

xeltros wrote:
Did you encounter any problem (wrong sync, files deleted accidentally...) ?

Not so far (after about two years)

xeltros wrote:
Did you find some limits in the service they offer ?

No.

xeltros wrote:
How do you access the data (frequent remote access, only for backup, sharing with others...) ?

Backup only (which is all CrashPlan does).

xeltros wrote:
Do you value the ability to remotely access your data anywhere ?

Yes, but I use other tools for that.

xeltros wrote:
Do you trust your backup or do you have several others (in addition to your main copy) ?

I answered that above. I don't trust CrashPlan with the only copy, I have multiple copies on multiple devices (including the CrashPlan Central server). In the specific case of cloud, I think this is a business still forming - and that there will be shakeouts coming in the future. So that does create some risk, on top of the normal technical possibilities,

xeltros wrote:
What do you think of the pricing ?

I like the pricing. Overall it is less expensive than setting up and running your own backup NAS.

xeltros wrote:
Are you planning to change ?

No.