Computer backups, offsite backup, remote backup

I got to thinking the other day, and I thought about how much money record labels, game companies, and software producers would save by selling via online download...  Sure, they would pay for hosting, but that would be nothing compared to burning a million CDs and shipping them worldwide.  What sparked my thought process on this matter was iTunes; the band makes one copy, uploads to iTunes, and then sells them digitally.  Granted, not all people can get things from the Internet, but overall, it seems like in the future we'll be seeing more and more of this style of development. Direct2Drive is one example of the possibilities. Well, I doubt that online purchasing will ever completely dominate the market, but for me, it's a great alternative than begging for a ride to Target.

Ugh... Someone brought in another computer to Journalism today. Problem is, we have a ton of information stored randomly on our 7 computers, without any sense of organization as to which files are on which computers and such. Big problem, considering only certain computers have Photoshop, only one is connected to the printer, and one (the best one) isn't even connected to the network, for reasons unknown to me. We have to transfer data using floppies... Would be so much easier if we could keep it all on one giant storage device which all computers could access. Perhaps DiskSave? Sadly, this would not help the Ivory Giant, as the network-lacking computer is fondly called, but it would be a tremendous aid for everything else...

I was talking to my friend Josh, who isn't the most tech-savvy person in the world, today at lunch. He started talking about how he got a virus and is gonna have to wipe his computer. I asked him if there were any important files that would be lost, and his dad runs a background painting business for photographers, and would lose all his backgrounds if he couldn't get the computer running w/o wiping it. He also mentioned that he keeps his files backed-up on his USB Flash Drive, which is a mere 256mb of data! That would never cut it for an adult's home business or even a teenager's music library. Things like this really do happen. I always think it would never happen to me, but in the past I've had to wipe my computer before, but that was before the iTunes Library moved to my compy upstairs, so nothing big was lost. Would suck if it happened now though.

I was talking to my friends at school today, and a few of them have Zens, a type of mp3 player. One thing about a Zen is that you can delete songs from it on the go, and that you don't have to keep the music on your computer once it is on the Zen. That's all fine and dandy for Zen users, but the more commonly used iPod doesn't have that feature. The music must be on your computer, otherwise it will also be erased from the iPod upon connecting (unless you feel like manually updating your iPod forever). I got to thinking, and wondered what would happen if my entire music library was lost. I have a relatively small library compared to many people out there, but even I have nearly 800 songs and videos that would be unable to be obtained again freely, whether it be because they were ripped from a borrowed CD or were purchased online. Now I keep a backup set of the songs on the iPod's HDD in case of an emergency, but that's still not a very reliable form of backing them up, not to mention takes up twice the space that songs normally would. My entire library isn't quite 5gb, and could be stored online with relatively low cost - $35 a month with DiskSave as compared to the near $900 bill of buying back all my music. Plus, the DiskSave option would guarantee future safety, while buying back the music offers no form of protection against future incidents. Needless to say which bill I'd rather pay.

bandwidth is going up and harddrive space is going down. It'd be nice if drives would go down though as I cant seem to get this going with all the bandwidth costs so high.

anyone have any stories about how they had a computer crash on valenties day. I'm sure it happened today. hope you were not the one it did but if so , get a remote backup.

    I talked to my Dad this a.m. and he mentioned a mortgage company that uses a remote backup solution but it does not work most of the time they said and in addition it is like 50 bucks for 5GB..kind of expensive.
Oh well. thought I'd run over and see what they are using.

A system state backup is nice as you can actually restore your settings in the event of a crash. These ar ethings like your desktop and other stuff. A full system backup is useless unless you can recover it though. The
question is normally XP does not like it even if you try and restore as some of the settings are based on the hardware you have so if you get another computer it may not work anyway. Its not a bunch of data so its
worth updating if you can.

Thought it kind of interesting that I found out insurance companies do not offer backup services and do not insure your data. That is kind of funny. YOu hav eyour desk replaced and your computers but no data. No payroll, no customer service records etc. So backing up your actual data could be more important that insurance on your stuff. You can at least get a loan and buy some new stuff vs your data which is irrecoverable.


Remote Backup

   Well, I just wanted to start some discussions on backing up data online. My uncle started a business and just asked my opinion regarding it as I dont have much money at this time but am on the computer all the time and actually have a bunch of files and games I have and if I lost them all that would bite but I also dont have much money to do it. Its a killer idea but just curious about this as a possible solution to our house burning down or someone stealing everything.

Oh well, might be a lame topic but nevertheless he asked my opinion so thought i could get some feedback.

thanks
Tyler