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What's the point of a storage VPS?
I don't get it. Even with a very fast home connection, it's still going to be faster to use a local hard drive than download/upload from/to a VPS somewhere. Also, hard drives are a one-time cost rather than perpetually paying for your VPS. And if the sVPS provider dies, then what? You'll have to download all your data (see point #1, above - slow) and find another one and upload it all again (or, best-case scenario, you find another provider before provider #1 deadpools and use wget to transfer everything, still a pain). With a 1TB hard drive sitting next to you, it's not going to deadpool.
Possible advantages:
Offsite backup - Okay, maybe, but I would only keep a few of my most critical files backed up offsite, which wouldn't take a huge sVPS. Or, get another HDD and keep it at your friend's house. Or have just one and keep it in a firebox. Offsite is overrated for personal data IMHO.
Cheaper in the short run - I guess it is cheaper to pay for a storage VPS for say, $5 monthly than to get a big hard drive. But let's face it - aside from it being more expensive in the long run, you're also getting less storage, and you could probably dig some HDD out from some old machine somewhere to back up things. Heck, I have a stack of them sitting around.
But that's just my opinion. Maybe someone else can help me figure out what the draw is who uses one.
Comments
If you use a solution similar to amazon, dropbox or backblaze it should be alright as you can be almost certain that your data is not going anywhere. Hosting it on a cheap VPS is bound to get you into trouble.
TL;DR use common sense.
@blergh_ My point exactly.
From my view it is for backing up other servers offsite or in another location in case of problems. Benefits being the fast connection and therefore faster restore server to server
I backup everything on my servers on my local computer. Don't see the point of paying for another server to backup your first server; as I said, local is faster.
@DStrout
That said, i keep about 4TB of personal stuff at backblaze.
I'm pretty sure all my data together doesn't hit a terabyte. But, to each his own.
Problem is if you need to restore a backup, the upload speed of most home dsl/cable connections is limited to 1mbit or less, unless you have fiber..
The number 1 rule of backups for me is NEVER keep it within 120 miles of the original data. Why?
Your local computer can and will fail - it's not designed for this. Also how long will it take to transfer? There are lots of users that don't even have 10mbit connection here. What happens when you want to restore from backup? Imagine copying from 10mbit to another location and you want 20GB.
Does this mean my computer has to be turned on 24/7 to create extra noise, use more power and also reduce the life of my components? This is what a server hosted at a data center is for.
@Rallias But I would assume that you would tend to be near the original data, in which case that ^ would leave you more to worry about than whether your data is backed up more than 120 miles away.
Even if you are nowhere near the original data, you'll be focusing more to combat training than anything else.
On-topic: Not everyone has a super-speed and cheap connection.
A nuclear blast has a radius of approximately 60 miles (You wonder why amazon is where it's at in Virginia?). If they strike within 60 miles but not within about 5, I'm alive (but in need of radiation attention depending on my exact distance), but the data's compromised.
I'll still use storage vps
You could use an external HD to store your back up and only turn it on when you need it!
most of them also come with green drives so it uses less power and does not run so hot.. they 're also pretty quite, I can't really hear any noise coming from my external but mine is fan less.
Yup! not all countries offer affordable high speed internet!
This means you can't have automated backups and will have to plug it in every time? What happens when you forget? This will be a major hassle.
They still make quite a bit of noise. SSD don't make noise. Might be a good idea
I can still hear it. Where I live, it's whisper quiet. No car sounds, etc... it is in the city, but away from the main road. At night, when windows and doors are closed, it can get noisy, especially if I try to sleep.
Primary reason, speed. S3 is great and all, but if you plan on putting backups to offline rotation, it doesn't make sense to pay for the outbound traffic. For me, my servers hit the storage backup, and a local computer lazily syncs to it.
That's the most delusional stuff I've read in a while.
I can still hear it. Where I live, it's whisper quiet. No car sounds, etc... it is in the city, but away from the main road. At night, when windows and doors are closed, it can get
noisy, especially if I try to sleep.
Wow really?? mine makes absolutely no noise, I had mine turned on for over a year thinking it was unplugged while in fact it was plugged in!
The only time I hear something is when I'm accessing the disk, but even that is not really noticeable..
Yeah. From a personal usage perspective. A friend had a PS3 at his place. He said it makes no noise. I said it was as loud as a washing machine. He came over to play one day and said, hey, you're right, it's loud here.
This is why I had to setup some crazy near fanless solution with modded graphics card coolers for my home PC.
I doubt I have a unique environment either. A lot of places here in Australia are probably similar. I'm already in or close to the city. Imagine the country side.
Birds and dogs wake us up in the morning here.
Actually, the bigger problem is, what happens if your house is on fire? I know someone whose office burnt to crisp, and so did the NAS that stored all the backups for the office.
Friends are subjected to the same deadpool problem. What if you stop buying him beer and he threatens to pull the plug on your backup? Look for new friends or buy the guy more beer? You do realise that he's paying for the power for the backup drive as well right?
Storage VPSes are probably the cheapest way to offload backups to a 24/7 available server. There are more expensive and secure options like dedicated servers with reliable providers and all, but some of the providers in LET are doing storage VPSes for LEB prices. Running a server in your home or your friend's home probably costs more than the storage VPS costs.
I keep all my data at Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and Sugar Sync. All free. When they all go broke and cut off access to my data simultaneously, you can call me reckless. Until then, my data is bulletproof, at no cost.
If I could I would back everything up to my local home server, but my upload speeds are just way too slow. If something ever happens to one of my VPS's and I need to restore any of the files it would take me days to upload everything to the server at 1Mbps. A few dollars a month for a backup server saves me a lot of time which I would say costs more than just a few dollars a month.
I use inexpensive storage servers to off-site my clients local backups. It might take a while to get that data back, but it would only need to be accessed in a worst-case scenario. If the local NAS and the server shit at the same time, if they both get stolen, or the office burns down.
I see the distinction between storage and backup servers - I won't buy a backup LEB, only a high storage one. I use mine for some backups, but also to stream my media from anywhere.
This
I don't like the idea of being restricted to "backup services" =/
One reason is speed.
Another is that there is no way you can transfer the files from you local hd storage to another via the internet, not unless you upload it on the internet . Say you are out of country and you need the copy of the file for whatever reason you may say, by that time you'd realize oh fuck the file is in my local hd back home and im pretty much fvcked up.
OK. I like to think my opinions are subject to change when good reasons are provided. I've seen some good ones here, so I'd have to agree that in some cases a backup server can be useful. Not for me perhaps, but for others. So good for y'all. Enjoy your backup/high storage VPSes.
The external I use is fanless I'm sure they sell this in Australia it's pretty cheap to purchase probably less than $100..
I use my fliphost storage server to backup all of my servers. It's a lot faster than transferring to my home computer and much better I/O.
Servers -> Fliphost Storage Server -> S3 -> Glacier, for redundancy and it is cheap. I'll pay around $10/month for this solution but the price will go up slightly over time due to s3/glacier, but can be deleted after 3 months of being in glacier.
Hmm wonder if there is an internet cafe that has high upload speed? then you can bring your external to the cafe should you need to restore a backup?