View Full Version : A great way to back up your data

June 22nd, 2012, 09:37 PM
The short answer is SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/signup/)
Start backing up your data today!

Here is the reasoning:

We have lots of important data on our hard drive, like documents and photos. The hard drive may fail, or the computer get lost or stolen, or there may be some disaster that makes the data on the hard drive irrecoverable. That is why it is important to back up your data.

If you are going to do something important, do it the right way. In this case the backup should be:


Manually backing up data takes time and it is easy to let things go and not do it.
Offsite is difficult - where can you put the data not in your house or work place? Is there an organization you can trust with your data?
Encrypting something can be complicated and might take time.

That makes backing up a bit of a headache, so it would be really nice if this could all be automated.

There are loads of companies that offer to host your data in the cloud. Here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_backup_services#endnote_5) is a useful list of them, including their functionality. I waded through them to find one that I thought was the best :)

That is where SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/signup/) comes in. You install an ap and it automates the process for you, so it can happen very frequently.

The data you send it is encrypted before it leaves your hard drive, so there are no privacy concerns. In fact, even if SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/signup/) are forced to divulge your data by authorities, they are unable to decrypt it, as they don't have the key.

A couple of other things that I liked about SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/signup/) are that it offers full functionality for free: you get 2 GB of storage without having to pay anything. If you want even more storage, then you can invite friends. (That is what I am doing.) There aren't any adverts, either!

In addition, you can select which folders in your file system can get backed up. You don't have to create a SpiderOak folder and put all of your back up files in there. With some other services, like DropBox (https://www.dropbox.com/), you can't do that.

Another great thing is that SpiderOak works on quite a few distros of GNU/Linux, as well as on Windows machines and Macs too. Also it works on mobile devices, so if you want to back up your files across a number of machines, you can do it.

SpiderOak support the Open Source community and have released some of their code on their website. They plan to release more.

The CEO is meant to spend time handling customer calls each day, so that he gets a feel for what the users care about.

Finally, it syncs the files, it doesn't just back them up.

Some alternatives to SpiderOak are:

Google Drive (https://drive.google.com/):
You already have this if you have a gmail account. This unfortunately doesn't support GNU/Linux yet, though that is coming, they say. In addition, the files on Google Drive aren't encrypted. In fact, Google Goggles is used to analyse your image files, to provide personalised advertising.

DropBox (https://www.dropbox.com/)
Is already popular. You can get extra free storage, too. An advantage is that it uses Amazons secure servers for cloud storage. Unfortunately, they control the encryption, so could be forced to decrypt your files. There was in addition a security breach that exposed all the files, though they repaired it quickly.

Don't forget about Gnome Deja Dup either - that is a helpful tool for backing up.

June 22nd, 2012, 10:01 PM
Thread moved to Recurring Discussions.

not a support request

June 22nd, 2012, 11:27 PM
Edit. I figured out that it was originality posted in absolute beginner talk.

June 23rd, 2012, 04:52 AM

June 23rd, 2012, 09:22 AM
Don't attempt to disguise referral links.