Good reasons NOT to backup your data online
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While online backups maybe an indispensable godsend to some people, use of - not to mention the reliance on - online services should be considered very, very carefully. Your data is valuable, and entrusting it to the hands of a faceless company could well prove costly should anything happen. Below are 10 reasons you should think carefully before using online backup services. Click an item in the list to read more about that point.
- Slow transfer times
- No love for dial-up users
- Privacy of your data
- Continuity of service
- Reliability of service
- Limited capacity
- Security of transferred data
- Security of stored data
- Time for data restoration
- You need the internet!
Online backups are not A Bad Thing. What the do give is an excellent second line of defence, providing off-site protection for your data; perhaps in some limited circumstances they also provide an idea first line defence. The idea is not without its flaws, though, and unless you have very good reasons for doing so, relying on an online service as your first line of defence could be a very risky way of protecting your valuable data.
Above all, the decision to backup data online needs to be considered carefully, along with your unique requirements, before deciding on any one path.
Wait!
Naturally there are also advantages to using online services to store your backup data. In the interests of a balanced argument, we recommend that you read the article Top 10 Advantages to Online Backups. It’s great. We wrote it.
Reason 1: Slow transfer times - Transferring the contents of your hard drive over the internet will take A Very Long Time. Even if you carefully select the data you want to save and limit it to only the very essentials, the initial transfer time is likely to be monumental. While this shouldn’t really be an issue for people with a little bit of patience, it is listed at number one because it is a practical bar that will likely put most off. Even if the slow data rates don’t deter you before you start, once you’re in the middle of your cherished photo collection and you realise it’s a year after you started, you may be thinking twice. Some estimations time the initial transfer of 100 Gigabytes of data at 120 days. That’s if you’ve got your computer on for 24 hours every day and you’re willing and able to devote all your upload capacity to the job.
Reason 2: No love for dial-up users - Are you on a dial-up connection? You need to find another way to backup. As a corollary to point 1, above, consider the implications of transferring all that data across a line that is at least 5 times slower for uploads than your average broadband connection. 120 x 5 = 600 = just under two years. Ouch. When you come to restore data your downloads will be at least around 20 times slower than a broadband connection. Good luck!Reason 3: Privacy of your data - While we will not suggest that companies offering online backup services are anything other than legitimate (there’s certainly no reason to doubt their integrity), you must be comfortable with having all your data on their servers. You can of course encrypt it first, but many users do not have the knowledge or resources to do this; encryption also adds another step to what is supposedly a ’set and forget’ system. You may be happy for employees to look through your photo collection, but if you are putting private financial data on there it may be another matter altogether.
Reason 4: Continuity of service - Again, there’s no reason to think that this should effect anything, but you need to consider the possibility that the service you choose will not be around in 5 years. Further, what if the service disappeared overnight? What if it was sold to another owner who wanted to do things differently to how they were previously done? These might not present significant problems - you may be prepared to swap to another provider at short notice, for example - but then again it might. The pertinence of this reason depends on your situation.
Reason 5: Reliability of service - what if the service isn’t quite what it sells itself to be? There is the possibility that at a critical moment the service will lose your data, it may not provide you with the access you require to your data, or it might corrupt every file you send for backup. Reading reviews from other users can prevent you making the wrong choice to start with, but this cannot protect you from any changes that may occur to or within the service.
Reason 6: Limited Capacity - Most of the free services available at the time of writing will limit the amount of data you can store. If you want more - sometimes unlimited - capacity then you’re going to have to pay. Check the amount of data that you’re likely to be uploading, and check your service provider’s capacity. If the amount of data you want to store increases (this is very likely), then you may have to upgrade or move. Neither moving or upgrading should necessarily cause problems, but as always it is worth considering in relation to your requirements.
Reason 7: Security of transferred data - is your data secure as you transfer it to the service’s servers? You don’t know? Then check! Many services offer encrypted transfer; check yours is one of them. Unencrypted data can be intercepted and read by people with nefarious goals. With identity theft on the increase, this should be a something you consider whenever you transfer something across the internet, not least the contents of your hard drive.
Reason 8: Security of stored data - once your data is backed up on the service’s servers, is it safe? Can hackers or crackers gain access and view the data? Online services will most likely have safeguards in place, but they will vary in potency. If you’re worried, then you need to check.
Reason 9: Time for data restoration - How can you restore your data if you ever need to? You may need to download all your data across a relatively slow connection, and this may be a few days’ work. If you’ve got a lot of data then it may simply not be feasible. Services sometimes offer alternatives like mailing a DVD to you; while this may ease the problem you will still have to wait!
Reason 10: You need the internet! - What if you can’t connect to the internet for whatever reason? Perhaps you’re somewhere without reliable connections, or perhaps you need a code or file that was on your computer’s hard drive before it crashed? If you can’t get online then you may not be able to retrieve your data. If you’re not online then you will not be able to backup your data, either, so you could be a few weeks’ worth of backups behind schedule at the time of a data disaster. If you haven’t got regular, reliable access to the internet with your computer, then online backups may worse than useless.
Once again, there are good sides too. We recommend that you read the article Top 10 Advantages to Online Backups before you make any decisions.
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