VIEW FROM THE LABS
DARIEN HAS DISCOVERED THAT NOT ALL BACKUP SUITES ARE CREATED EQUAL AND THAT THERE’S STILL PLENTY OF STORAGE SUNSHINE BEYOND THE CLOUD
This month’s Labs is our biggest ever roundup of backup solutions – but at the outset, I was dubious as to how much I’d find to say about the 22 different packages on test. After all, they do the same basic job, right?
It turns out, that’s true in the same way that my little Renault Clio does the same job as a Lamborghini. Either will get you where you’re going, but the ride is (I assume) quite different.
To extend the analogy, you might argue that different backup suites deliver you to different destinations. The best solutions build up a timeline of file activity for easy review, along with a complete image of your system for disaster recovery. Lesser options just clog up your hard disk with redundant duplicates, and le ave you to hunt down the specific item you’re looking for. Having tested them all, I can firmly state that backup packages are not all alike.
Another thing that’s become apparent is that the cloud isn’t the be-all and end-all of backup. When the likes of Carbonite first appeared more than a decade ago, promising unlimited off-site backup for an affordable monthly fee, it was hard to see a downside. Our hard disks were filling up with music files and digital photos, and maintaining local backups had become a challenge. The cloud rescued us with its simplicity and endless capacity.
Since then, however, we’ve only accrued more content – and the files themselves have grown too, as webfriendly smartphone snaps have given way to 4K videos. Somehow, my own family archive, spread across numerous desktop PCs and laptops, now comprises more than 380,000 files, weighing in at just over 4TB.
Now, I’m not saying that all this data can’t still be backed up to the cloud: unlimited storage means unlimited. The catch is that transfer speeds haven’t kept pace with the rate of data acquisition, in my household at least. If I start from scratch then, based on the transfer rates we’ve seen this month, I’m looking at a minimum of 41 days of continuous uploading – or possibly as much as four months with some of the slower services. And I don’t fancy downloading it all again should disaster strike.
True, some services will mail you a copy of your archive on physical media for a sky-high fee. For my part, though, I’ve centralised my backups locally on a NAS appliance under the TV. It’s not a cheap option, but when it comes to speed and browsability, I couldn’t be happier.
I still need an off-site component, of course. But with my NAS in place, perhaps I can be more selective about what gets uploaded. Invoices and contracts get the full 3-2-1 treatment, while those photos from our skiing trip to Bulgaria in 2012 can afford to stay on my home network.
What I’m saying is this: there’s a reason why most of the backup systems in this month’s Labs lack any sort of native cloud component. There’s no substitute for the security of an off-site backup, but if you want protection that’s convenient as well as reliable then local and hybrid backup strategies remain as relevant as they ever were.
“What I’m saying is this: there’s a reason why most of the backup systems in this Labs lack any sort of native cloud component”