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On 25/04/13 23:28, Grant Phillips-Sewell wrote: > A lot of this discussion about storing your data 'in the cloud' vs backups strikes > me as an either/or argument. Personally I use cloud storage as one of my backups. > > I use Dropbox (7GB somehow), Ubuntu One (5GB I think) and Box.net (50GB). I > currently only have about 1.5GB of data that warrants a backup (my business data - > personal files that I wouldn't want to risk losing are duplicated a number of > times at home on various media). I use my Dropbox as my primary backup, daily this > is archived to my Ubuntu One, and every week this is then archived to Box.net with > a new directory name. > > Yes, if one of them decided to drop the business for some new shiny then I would > have to re-assess the situation, but I think it is unlikely that all 3 would drop > the ball at the same time. If they did, I would still have my local versions. > > And if all three dropped the ball AND my local versions went up the spout, all on > the same day... then I would buy a lottery ticket because clearly fate is playing > silly beggars with me. > > Grant > This pretty much bangs it right on the head, and is exactly what I do (plus crypto of course). These free services are just a convenience and I use multiple completely free accounts just because they're there, and I can, basically. They certainly don't take the place of local storage or proper backups though. As Grant says, if any of them fall over or disappear I'll just switch to others, there are enough of them. If they all disappear at once or cloud storage is made somehow illegal, well, fair enough, it'll be just like 2006 or whenever all over again before these things existed and I'll carry on as usual. I think this is a sensible balance of pragmatism (free and useful services, hooray) and caution (as Brad says, you can't really trust them). The original question wasn't just limited to Dropbox-style file synchronization though if I remember correctly: collaborative calendering, shared diaries across mobile devices and computers and other 'cloudy' type services can be very useful - a lot of my friends absolutely love them and couldn't do without them - but the convenience/privacy balance there is much different and harder to call. Personally, I don't want Google or any other huge corporation data-mining my life to that extent, and unlike mere storage, it's not possible to simply encrypt the lot and be done with it (I may be wrong about this, but I don't believe there is a way to hide your calendars, etc, from the providing company's prying algorithms as they'll have all the SSL certs). So to really return to the original question, I think the only option for those who love the convenience of cloud services but would like to maintain control and privacy then the only answer is indeed to roll your own, and that's a setup, maintenance and ongoing technical challenge that is decidedly non-trivial. Owncloud and Sparkleshare look like the best options currently I'd say. If I was to be completely honest I'd have to posit that for me - although admittedly, maybe not for the missus or for the kids, non-technical friends, etc - hosting my own cloud services seems a bit of a pain in the arse. For years and years I've had my own email server + VPN and SSH access to my home network: it's difficult to see what, apart from maybe a nice web based GUI interface, I'm missing anyway. And that, I think, is that. This topic can be well and truly put to bed now I believe - it's been an interesting discussion and I'm particularly pleased to see that for once, I wasn't the one with the most negative opinion on something modern and shiny (full honours to Brad there)! Regards -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq