How to protect online data
By seriousnuts
@seriousnuts (508)
Philippines
November 15, 2011 11:23pm CST
Recently, after accidentally deleting our favorite vacation photos from a disc, we decided to upload our remaining photos on Skydrive for backup. I find the utility very nice and user-friendly. However, I am wondering about the security of the data being stored there. Do any of you mylotters use cloud storage? If yes, what do you use? Do you think hotmail's Skydrive utility is safe to use? I've heard about some storage sites with encryption but they don't offer as much free space as Skydrive, which is 15GB.
3 people like this
10 responses
@enelym001 (8322)
• Philippines
16 Nov 11
I think Picasaweb and Photobucket are good photo storage. I've been using Picasaweb for some months now to store some photos I used for my blog. But lately there are some features that was removed there so I just now started again with a new one which is Photobucket. It has the same features that picasaweb has before, and you can even set it to private so that no one can see it if you choose it to be private. Picasaweb has features to track those who used your photos I haven't tried it yet.
2 people like this
@jjzone44 (917)
• United States
16 Nov 11
I use SkyDrive, and I never had a problem with it. It's Microsoft's site so it should be around for the long haul.
I only use it for transferring files though, as far as critical files, I back them up at home. I have one machine with 4 hard drives in it. All of my photos are backed up to that machine, as well as the two main desktops I use. I also have them on an external hard drive, and once a folder reaches 4.5GB I burn them onto a DVD. I take a lot of pictures. My documents and other critical data are backed up the same way, on 4 different computers. If I did them on one of my laptops, then at least 5 places.
@seriousnuts (508)
• Philippines
17 Nov 11
You are indeed very careful with your files. I am also considering buying external hard drives. I have two at home already, but I only use them to store videos. I could however become careless when it comes to moving around files and tend to accidentally delete some files along the process. But external hdds are indeed very handy. I had some bad experiences with DVDs so I don't trust them anymore.
@jjzone44 (917)
• United States
17 Nov 11
I use a program called Beyond Sync to keep all the files in order. I have the program set to look at specific directories on my computers, and compare them to another, and so on. So if I add a file to one machine, it is duplicated to another machine in real time. Once the file appears on the target machine, it in turn has another target machine (or drive) to sync with. That way I don't have to remember to copy them over manually. There are other sync programs that do real time, so you can choose one that suits your needs.
@youless (112496)
• Guangzhou, China
16 Nov 11
I upload my photos to another online photo store website. Of course I also bakeup my photos to my DVD and hard disk in case of any accidents. I also use Skydrive, but I use it to store my software so that I can get it whenever I need it. I think it is safe. I have used it for a few years.
I love China
@seriousnuts (508)
• Philippines
17 Nov 11
It was only until recently that I discovered about Skydrive. I like the interface, it's so easy to upload files, you just need to drag and drop them. I tried some backups with DVDs as well, but still had some accidents. Also, I tend to misplace the DVDS LOL. Which online photo store are you using now?
@Lucyalicia92 (670)
• United States
17 Nov 11
I would recommend a USB drive and or/ a computer hardrive. my family has at least 4 hardrives just for the computer and about 2 USB drives that are about 10 GB or so. Those are not too expensive unlike the one's that are 100 gig or so which are a few hundred. I've gotten a lot of use out of every single hardrive that we have lol I have a lot of music and stuff like that, that I get a lot of use out of it with transferring it and stuff.
@Lucyalicia92 (670)
• United States
17 Nov 11
yes I know a crazy amount lol a lot of Movies and TV shows. It's one of my biggest passions in life. I also have a lot of Music Videos and Live Videos/Concerts exc. of my favorite bands and that takes up a lot of space, especially when their in HD. Or when I download movies on Blu Ray on my computer. All the hardrives are always easily used up by me lol. My dads always saying, I think I should buy another one cause now these 4 are all used up lol but I try to get rid of some stuff I watch that I didn't care for to make room. Yeah I think external hardrives are the best and I don't think I've ever tried online storage.
@seriousnuts (508)
• Philippines
17 Nov 11
Wow, you have lots of storage. You must have a lot of files to keep. Anyway, I think its more worthwhile to buy external hdds rather than pay for online storage fees. That is why I just keep my options open for the free online storage sites. Otherwise, I would just stick with the external hdds/usb.
@bagarad (14283)
• Paso Robles, California
16 Nov 11
I use the paid service Carbonite for all my data backup. I'm hoping it's safe, since all my data -- not just photos are there. Besides photos, do you back up what you have written on other sites, like HubPages, on your own computer or elsewhere, just in case? How about blogs? It's easy to assume those things will be there forever.
@seriousnuts (508)
• Philippines
17 Nov 11
Hello bagarad. So you are using a paid service. I only back up photos for now, because there are quite many and my laptop's hard drive capacity is getting full. I should find some time organizing my document files in the near future. It's a nice idea to back up those documents too.
@sopigs (107)
• Indonesia
17 Nov 11
There are no security can protect your data 100% secure. While you store your data on internet, it means other people can look it, or even delete it. I think you should try the paid service to store your data online. Because the free one, there are no guarantee to make your data safe.
@seriousnuts (508)
• Philippines
17 Nov 11
Hi sopigs. I think free services are pretty much the same with those paid services. The only difference lies with the storage capacity. Most services I see offer a small amount of storage for free and if you wish to upgrade your capacity, you pay.
@WakeUpKitty (8694)
• Netherlands
16 Nov 11
I would save it on an usb stick. If pics are not that private to you, you can save them everyhwere even at the server of a company that will print your pictures for you (or where you can order foto-calenders etc)
@seriousnuts (508)
• Philippines
17 Nov 11
I use USB stick too, but only to move these photos. I do save them sometimes there, but they need to be transferred somewhere with larger capacity storage as I also keep some of my document files in my USB stick.
@rmendoza123 (637)
• Philippines
17 Nov 11
I haven't use this feature of hotmail's skydrive, but knowing the site that handles
it I think it is secured if not 100% secured.
There's a lot of hackers here in this world, and nothing will be secured unless they exist. So you better send only the files that you know will not affect when the times come.
@Kev_cr (3)
• Argentina
16 Nov 11
Think it should be pretty safe to store your stuff in there but anyway the safest places are pen drives, HDD or SD memories... Why? because averything that is stored in a computer, and that computer is connected to the internet, can be stolen by a hacker, and online storage is running that same issue
@seriousnuts (508)
• Philippines
17 Nov 11
It's really pretty scary to have my photos stolen. There's nothing controversial about the pictures but I'd hate it if a complete stranger would have access to my files. That's what I need to find out, if Skydrive is save enough.
