[thechat] Online Backup

[Luther, Ron]

Mohan Arun L noted:

>>On the merits of external storage vs online backup:

*Versus*?  Seriously?  Is this a troll?


Hi Mohan,

Perhaps you missed the part where this isn't an "either/or" situation?  Both product families are useful.  There are situations where may be some functional overlap between the two, but on the whole, I think these products serve slightly different needs. 

I have multiple machines in my home office and, today, I don't do a lot of traveling.  So for my current situation, my external storage drive works just fine meeting my modest home needs.  (Even so, I still back up my external drive to CD/DVD physical media which, even though onsite, still hedges against hardware failure / voltage line spike kinds of issues.)


On the other hand, however, I could _easily_ see situations where online storage would be immeasurably more productive should my needs change ever so slightly:

* Travel.  I think anyone doing a significant amount of travel, particularly international travel, would prefer to minimize the amount of hardware they need to haul around and hustle through security and customs.

* Collaboration.  While not impossible, I think it's a lot easier to collaborate with your team on updating a single set of documents if you are working with ... a single set of documents.  Online storage should do a MUCH better at facilitating this than an external drive.

* Device Restrictions.  Plan on consulting at Dell?  You may not be allowed on premise with your HP laptop or Hitachi ext-drive.  That could make it a tad difficult to access your files.  Maybe you could pull your files off a necklace full of thumb drives ... if those are allowed.  But they are not always allowed.  There are situations, such as consulting at government/military/lab/nuke plant facilities, where they may not allow people to walk on carrying a fistful of thumb drives.  On the other hand, if I can remember an online link where I stored my javascript library and notes ... then I can access that information from anywhere and any machine that has net access.  I could even access them from the hotel or a public library if I was traveling without any computer equipment.

* Ad Hoc.  Ever attend a conference/meeting/symposium and get asked to step up and make some off the cuff remarks?  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to reference your personal library of prior speeches you have given?  I'm pretty sure you could reach those off any smartphone ... unless, of course, the only place they existed was on that external drive sitting back at home connected to your LAN.

Sorry.  It's not a competition.

Cheers,
RonL.