One-time upload of 300GB

The Belgain

The Belgain

The Belgain

Associate
Joined
24 Jan 2003
Posts
637
Location
London
Hi folks. I'm in the process of backing up all of my data to an online provider (Livedrive) to make sure it's safely backed up. That includes around 300GB of captured family video files over the years.

My current home internet connection (with Virgin) has 1Mbps upload, which means that leaving the computer uploading overnight it will take about 3-4 months to complete.

I'd ideally prefer not to have to upgrade my home internet connection, and was wondering whether there are any places in London that provide temporary high-speed internet access for people who need to do one-off uploads of large amounts of data? Ideally I'd just be able to leave the laptop overnight somewhere with 100Mbps upload and I'd be done.

Anyone know of any?
 
why backup online? why not purchase say two 1tb hard drives and internally fit it to a system in raid 1 or even just buy two separate external desktop hard drives? far quicker and from the sounds of it this data isn't going to be accessed again for ages.
 
sja360 said:
why backup online? why not purchase say two 1tb hard drives and internally fit it to a system in raid 1 or even just buy two separate external desktop hard drives? far quicker and from the sounds of it this data isn't going to be accessed again for ages.
Click to expand...

I already have the data backed up on a RAID 5 array. That doesn't guard against theft, or accidentally deleting the date, or unfortunate motherboard failure / power spike.

I guess I could put it on an external hard drive which I leave at a different address, but that's a pain to do incremental backups when the data changes (which I do expect it will - at least in terms of adding to it).
 
Can you get BT Infinity? 20meg up.

Also, I agree backing up to the cloud is the best route for anyone who wants a serious solution to data protection.
 
I was in the same position. I've got just over 1TB of data I can not lose, plus about 9TB of my CD/DVD collection. I can't duplicate that much data, and I can re-rip the CDs/DVDs so I backup the just over 1TB of data to 2x 2TB USB disks, pop them into padded alu cases and store them in my deteched garage.

I was going to sign up to Backblaze but I too wondered how I was going to up so much data. When I get fibre I might think about it again as I could easily up just under 400GB a week if I ran it overnight.
 
PistolPete said:
I was going to sign up to Backblaze but I too wondered how I was going to up so much data. When I get fibre I might think about it again as I could easily up just under 400GB a week if I ran it overnight.
Click to expand...

I'm lucky if I get 60KB/s up to Backblaze from the UK. My upstream speed is 10Mb/s.
 
The Belgain said:
I guess I could put it on an external hard drive which I leave at a different address, but that's a pain to do incremental backups when the data changes (which I do expect it will - at least in terms of adding to it).
Click to expand...

My advice to you is to do what you have suggested and back up to the off-site hard drive once or twice a year. Back up to the on-site hard drive more often (e.g. every couple of hours).
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll see what price Virgin will do me for a broadband upgrade, and have a ponder I think.

I'm fairly tempted by backing up manually to PC at a friend's house, then doing incremental rsync backups over the internet afterwards. A bit tedious to set everything up in a reasonably secure way though.
 
I've got about 200GB uploaded to Crashplan, all uploaded on my FTTC connection (10Mbps upload).

Rotating external HDs off-site could work but IMHO it would soon be a pain / pricey (postage) to exchange the drives. It also means human intervention to connect up, backup and disconnect. Sods Law says the time you are too busy to update the offsite backup is the time you will need it.

Once you've got round the initial seed, an online service is taking care of things without any need for prodding and poking.
 
Got any university student children/cousins/nieces/nephews/friends children? Uni halls usually have pretty quick internet, my upload is nearly 100Mbps - reasonably quick even for 300GB.
 
I use Backblaze, it's fast as anything, and just sits there working properly. Well worth the $5 a month.

Seconding the suggestion above, find a friend with a fast upload speed and borrow their connection for a few hours.
 
Caged said:
I use Backblaze, it's fast as anything, and just sits there working properly. Well worth the $5 a month.

Seconding the suggestion above, find a friend with a fast upload speed and borrow their connection for a few hours.
Click to expand...

From the UK? Do you have a pic of the upload speed?
 
The Belgain said:
I already have the data backed up on a RAID 5 array.
Click to expand...

Remember kids, RAID is not a backup solution. I assume your raid5 device isn't the same device you're using at runtime, right?

The Belgain said:
That doesn't guard against theft, or accidentally deleting the date, or unfortunate motherboard failure / power spike.
Click to expand...

Neither does having a copy of your data, which is the entire point of having a backup procedure. If you delete all your data and don't notice, it'll be sync'd to your backup. If you have massive data corruption will be sync'd, as will a virus, or any other maladies which can affect your data.

You personally seem to know what you're doing, but for the wider audience, if your data is important it should remain so even after your house burns down. If your data is really important, backing up to an external drive, or NAS, that you keep near your computer is doing it wrong.

It's called disaster recovery for a reason. :P

The Belgain said:
I'm fairly tempted by backing up manually to PC at a friend's house, then doing incremental rsync backups over the internet afterwards. A bit tedious to set everything up in a reasonably secure way though.
Click to expand...

Eeek! Rsync is fallible to your screw ups, and is exactly not the way to do it unless you're talking about doing something quite a bit more complicated than just a standard rsync. Something like Bacula might be the treat, but of course how much effort you're willing to put into backing up correlates to the value of your data. Personally I don't backup at all, but thats because I don't value my locally stored data.

rexehuk said:
1TB drive? Download... Disconnect... Fire proof box ... Secure storage?
Click to expand...

Fireproof boxes stop fire, not heat. Paper is surprisingly resiliant to heat which is why a firepoof safe is a good deal, but chances are a hard disk stored in a fireproof box will no longer work after being in a fire.
 
Last edited:
Have you contacted LiveDrive to see if they can offer a service to let you mail in a mass storage device, have them upload manually, and then send the drive back again? I have absolutley no idea if they would offer this, but its worth an ask.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom