Originally Posted by
Adonis2
Just a thought, Isn't backing up to the cloud just storing your data on someone else's computer?
This is an oft used argument.. Yes it's someone else's computer. But that computer is built to a higher quality than your home computer. And it's kept in nice solid racks in a data centre with air conditioning, clean power, backup generator and security guards on the door. Your data is actually distributed across lots of computers in different data centres, maybe even in different countries, so all that nice physical stuff isn't really necessary. And it's looked after by professionals with proper monitoring and fault prediction. And in some cases a $2bn R&D budget to make it better (or fiddle tax, depending on your cynicism) so you get continuous backup, point in time recovery etc.
All.of that is pretty pointless really because what really matters is....
What if that fails, or the company goes bust.
...that most of the cloud providers will offer you 99.999999999% durability. If I've done the sums right a single file loss is 200 times less likely than a double engine failure on an ETOPS certified flight (I've assumed engine failures are independent events, which they obviously aren't in the real world). A homebrew solution is nowhere near that; you probably won't even remember to do the backup in the first place!
If the company goes bust or raises prices you just go elsewhere, or revert to DIY.
I've no idea if cloud is right for the OP but it is almost certainly more reliable than a pair of external hard drives.