Talk:Comparison of online backup services

Stand-alone list issue

On this page is a comparison grid. For this comparison grid to be useful to readers, I propose that it be allowed to be comprehensive. That means it might list "less notable" backup providers. First, it is a matter of opinion who the most notable providers are. And besides, less notable providers often offer unique distinguishing features in order to try and compete with the big guys. Not all of these second tier providers really need (or even merit) a specific Wikipedia page. Which means linking directly to their website as the source of information. For a comparison grid, the vendor website is in fact the authoritative reference or source for information. BryceN (talk) 21:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Plus, providers will as a mater of practice come to this page and add their own services. I think it impractical to police that, and harmful to do so. While there have been many removals of providers from this list in the past, I propose removals stop. Your thoughts? BryceN (talk) 21:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Please do not add unsourced or original content. Doing so violates Wikipedia's verifiability policy. If you continue to do so, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. --Hm2k (talk) 22:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I feel the material I have added is properly sourced, as noted above. I will open a dispute, as this discussion is going in loops. BryceN (talk) 00:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Note as a test, I created both a grid entry and a Wikipedia page for a minor vendor. This grid entry was not deleted. My source was the same for the disputed entries and this entry: the vendor website. I invite additional voices to this debate. BryceN (talk) 01:26, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose the addition of entries that do not have Wikipedia articles. For a precedent, look at List of search engines, which includes only search engines that have their own articles. On its Talk page it has the banner {{stand-alone list}}, which has the message Please only add subjects that have a Wikipedia article or evidence of notability. EdJohnston (talk) 01:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose as well. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and we have no duty to report on every single service in existence without regard for its notability (in the broad sense and also the Wikipedia meaning. In addition, independant sources are most preferred, and are required for having a standalone article. I think having a bluelink-only list will give a strict criteria for what belongs here and won't give any wiggle room for the development of listcruft. ThemFromSpace 01:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
• I only Oppose entries that do not have a Wikipedia article. However, I would commend you for creating Wikipedia articles for any entities you want to put on this list, and then putting them on the list. I checked the articles for many of these providers and they were scant but sufficient for me, and I also agree that in time users of the providers will contribute to even small articles. I would hope that the list looks exactly as you want it someday, but the articles should come first. Bluerasberry (talk) 20:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose on the same terms as Bluerasberry. --Joaopaulo1511 (talk) 20:13, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose via WP:NOTABILITY && WP:NOT Bobwrits (talk) 03:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
• Agree the additional amount of work required to create a vendor/product/service page and research all the required articles to support it is non-trivial, whereas the purpose of this page is to provide a service to the reader of a [Comparison of online backup services]. The only items that should be removed from the list, but included for historical purposes at the end of the article, are services that are no longer actively providing services. Jonathan cauthorn (talk) 01:43, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Add www.rsync.net?

There service seems to have a couple neat features --91.47.184.13 (talk) 00:03, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). --Hm2k (talk) 22:00, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

How about LiveDrive? I heard about it, but would like to see how it compares to these others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.30.144.246 (talk) 04:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Off topic, but for the sake of completion, LiveDrive is in the table now. xlynx (talk) 13:25, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

tarsnap

Would someone mind including tarsnap service, [1]? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.228.68.232 (talk) 03:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Sure, just create the article first.

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).

--Hm2k (talk) 10:05, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Convenience/archiving note: Tarsnap is in the table now. xlynx (talk) 13:23, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Differentiation between real "Backup Software" and "File Synchronization" Tools

e.g. Dropbox is more or less a Tool for "File Synchronization", on the other hand, SpiderOak has a different approach to give a tool that automatically back up files anywhere in the System!

Perhaps this informations / differentiation between these products might be helpful in this table too

~Marcel --87.193.185.222 (talk) 08:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree . Incidentally, SpiderOak now supports a feature called "Hive" which behaves like Dropbox, which only strengthens the case to keep them in the same table but add another column. xlynx (talk) 13:20, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I've been giving this more thought, and the large number of columns are already problematic. Moreover, even though SpiderOak crosses the boundary between both applications, their use cases remain distinct. SpiderOak itself makes the distinction between synchronization and backup. Therefore, I propose splitting the table in two, with the permission for the small minority of hybrid services like SpiderOak to go in both. xlynx (talk) 20:10, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Amazon Cloud Drive (5GB) not listed

There is this service: Amazon Cloud Drive (5GB) that is not listed in this comparison article.

512upload (talk) 10:44, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Bump?.. Can Amazon be included? It isn't all that recent.. 68.106.241.164 (talk) 09:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Sure, just create the article first.

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). 178.129.141.120 (talk) 15:48, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Article Amazon Cloud Drive has existed since 2011. Feel free to add this service to the table. xlynx (talk) 18:11, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Free or proprietary? Missing

I suggest the inclusion of a new column, indicating whether the service uses proprietary of free and open source software. Maybe with a separation the service itself vs. the software used to develop the service (some developed their proprietary service with the help of free software, and that may be somewhat better than all proprietary). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.91.170.137 (talk) 04:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

^ This! Please!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.5.115.169 (talk) 01:07, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

logmein backup is not listed

logmein backup is an other famous solution — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.50.96.129 (talk) 06:13, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, just create the article first.

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). 178.129.141.120 (talk) 15:51, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I think this is now listed as "Cubby", but needs a corresponding article to remain. xlynx (talk) 12:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Article Split

Hey all, I want to propose we split the article, as when looking through everything we seem to have 2 or 3 dissent different types of products

1. Online backups where instead of local backup you back up to the cloud

2. Online storage drives which is backed up for you so you don't have too

3. Hydrid of the two above

the reason for the split is because they are completely different type of products and I say that we are getting too many columns making it hard to read, if we split we could remove some column from each article that is no longer relevant so saving space I would also suggest maybe making a template for windows/mac/linux so it can be one column but split into 3 cells that says yes/yes/yes depending on the configuration of the service--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 20:24, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree sorry I missed this before, please see topic 'Table / Columns / Article cleanup'. xlynx (talk) 13:10, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

External hard drive support for Dropbox

I've setup Dropbox to use an External hard drive with symbolic links in Linux. I would argue that the fact that Dropbox supports symbolic links means that is supports external hard drives. Would other agree? --Gregology.net 12:15, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

No. It's not a feature, it's an unsupported hack/workaround. xlynx (talk) 12:21, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

File hosting service vs. Backup service

I've briefly tried out Google Drive, Microsoft Sky Drive, Wuala, and SugarSync.

It seems to me that Google Drive and Microsoft Sky Drive are different from the other two in that they aren't necessarily designed or intended for backing up an entire PC.

(see e.g. http://productforums.google.com/d/msg/drive/6DL9JD_5hmA/CCUHB9sewEoJ)

SkyDrive and Google Drive are more intended for cloud storage, and syncing across different devices.

For example, as far as I know, in Google Drive only those files in a particular folder are synced, so therefore, one needs to move all the files that one wants to backup to a particular location.

Although in SkyDrive one can sync other folders the default is to only sync with one particular folder.

In the marketing materials for Google Drive or Microsoft Sky Drive that I've seen I haven't found "backup" mentioned prominently.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 02:39, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I also don't think, by examining how these two services are provided, that they can be listed as backup services. Altough all backups are a kind of one-way syncing (from source to backup storage), syncing by itself is not a backup solution, because if a file is erased from one place, is erased everywhere later on the next syncing, and in a backup storage one can define the file retention. --Joaopaulo1511 (talk) 15:41, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the first 3. Wuala supports both "backup" and "sync" folders, which behave differently. The "sync" feature is essentially the same as Google Drive / SkyDrive (now OneDrive) functionality, so the only good way to differentiate them would be (gasp) another column. xlynx (talk) 13:17, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I've given this more thought. Please see my topic below Table / Columns / Article cleanup. xlynx (talk) 20:14, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Usenet Backup

Seriously? Backup which can't be trusted for file retention, data integrity and data privacy (user encrypted content only is not enough, the data needs to be out of reach of as many people as possible, as decryption attacks become stronger as time goes by) should not be listed as a backup service. Even if those were not issues, there is no provider of such a service.

On the other hand, email backup could be listed as a choice, as already exists software to turn, ie, Gmail into a backup storage media. See GMail Drive for this.

Who else thinks Usenet Backup should be unlisted? Or email backup could take its place? Joaopaulo1511 (talk) 16:04, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Agree . This is clearly a hack. Usenet is intended for collaboration, not as a "backup service". The fact that once uploaded, the data can't be revoked or modified demonstrates its unsuitability under a reasonable definition of "backup service". xlynx (talk) 12:58, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed it, with summary: "Removed 'usenet backup'. This is not a backup service, but a loose idea.". We allow this, and we should fairly allow "upload to your friends house over remote desktop". xlynx (talk) 01:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Copy

Copy (copy.com) is mentioned in the Comments, but does not appear in the table. Was it removed for some reason?
Also, I noticed that Storage Made Easy (which also offers storage) is using a file hosting/sharing service called Dump Truck which does not appear here or on the File Sharing comparison page. — ★Parsa ☞ talk 15:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Looks like it has been added back. xlynx (talk) 13:13, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Need throttle/speed/time

It would also be useful information to tell whether or not the program throttles down the transfer speed after some point (some do). Also, it is good to indicate the transfer speed and give an estimate of how long the backup is going to take (some do; some don't). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:18, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

• Agree - for instance, Carbonite throttles both upload and download speeds after a certain point which can affect how long (months even) it can take to backup your data. Jonathan cauthorn (talk) 02:25, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

OwnCloud

Hello. Why is OwnCloud Missing from this list? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owncloud Cheers Pietro — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.183.201 (talk) 19:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it's there under the name OwnDrive. I've re-linked the article to prevent it being deleted (it recently redirected back to here before I unlinked it, but now I've fixed the redirect instead). However, this needs further clarification. What I do know is both owncloud.org and owndrive.com provide the same software, both branded as "ownCloud" with the ownCloud logo and signed by ownCloud, Inc., but the versions are different and the sites themselves have different branding. Help! xlynx (talk) 13:04, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Net drive

I propose to remove the column "Net drive". Someone, who probably didn't read the definition, just wrote "yes" (without stating any sources) for most of these services, when in fact they don't offer any such service (well, at least officially). When sources were stated, they referred to something else entirely. -79.177.122.137 (talk) 16:43, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The only real difference I can think of is perhaps "Net Drives" have in-band access, thereby guaranteeing the data is consistent at all ends immediately, whereas folder syncs are "lazy". This may be important for some applications. But I agree the column is next to useless with its current contents. xlynx (talk) 13:10, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

It is not sufficiently defined. Under topic 'Crashplan' (above), as well as in the article, you can see multiple users assuming this means "Can backup from network drives", whereas other rows assume it means "Cloud can be mapped as a local drive" (e.g. WebDAV). The later is the "correct" definition. xlynx (talk) 13:36, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

 Disagree. Seeing the value in "true" cloud storage (File streaming and Instant change visibility), I've gone ahead and (1) Redefined Net Drive in the Legend, (2) Renamed Net Drive for clarity (3) Changed unverified Net Drive citations to "no", (4) Required citations on all "yes" cells (please change these to "no" (or blank) if still not cited after 2014-07-15) (5) Added as may citations as I could find. (6) Removed third party WebDAV proxy/frontends for services like Google Drive and Dropbox, as these are "hacks" which do not behave as expected (updates are not immediately reflected on all clients because they are syncing via a third party). I hope this column is now useful, and will continue improve over time. xlynx (talk) 16:36, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Blackberry 10 and Windows Phone

Is "Blackberry" support referring to the discontinued BlackBerry OS or BlackBerry 10? This needs to be defined, as as far as I can tell they're incompatible. As it's discontinued, I suggest we change any which are only BlackBerry OS to "no". Furthermore, I think it's time to add Windows Phone. xlynx (talk) 18:29, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Table / Columns / Article cleanup

I suggest we:

• Add "Versioning" section into a column, as it has become quite long.
• Remove "ITAR", "Green Hosting" columns, putting the content out into paragraphs, as I don't expect they'll get particularly long.
• Remove the underutilised "P2P" and "Unlimited BW" columns, the later of which does not contain a single "no".
• Remove the "Encrypted Storage" column, on the basis it's too easily confused with the far more interesting and relevant "Personal Encryption" column, and does not help readers gauge security, as it depends on the exact implementation, in particular how the keys are stored and protected. Most providers are very vague (or downright misleading) on this, so the column is not very reliable.
• Split the table into separate "Backup" and "Sync" tables. One for traditional backup services and one for synchronization. I consider these very different applications (although some products do fit both, and it would be OK for these to appear in both tables). A preliminary definition for discussion:

Cloud Backup Services:

• Are for backup and disaster recovery; they make a separate, redundant snapshot of your data which is independent of your workflow.
• Allow you to select multiple source folders.
• Are not considered live data sets on the destination / are written to by only one client per destination folder.
• A particular client is considered the authoritative owner of each remote data set.
• Data is only restored by user command.
• Feature roll-back en masse.
• Do not provide unauthenticated access to any data.

Cloud Sync Services (or Cloud Storage Services if preferred):

• Are for storage and remote access; they are treated as your primary, working data set.
• Sync omni-directionally between multiple nodes with conflict resolution.
• All nodes may have read/write filesystem-level access to the same data, as a supported feature.
• Often include sharing / collaboration features.
• May be limited to syncing the contents of one sub-folder per device.
• May offer public file hosting.
• May host Net Drives with concurrent write access to all clients.

Performing such a split would improve readability by (1) providing shorter tables, and (2) providing narrower tables by allowing removal of some columns from each. e.g. the "Hybrid Online Backup" and "Physical media restore" columns would only be required for the Backup table. The existing "Sync" and "Auto-detect changes" columns could be assumed (and hence removed) from the Sync table. The "Net Drive" and "Public file hosting" columns might only be required for the Sync table. Other comments:

• Such a distinction is supported by three previous topics 'Differentation between real "Backup Software" and "FIle Synchronization" Tools', 'File hosting service vs. Backup service', 'Articvle Split'.
• A small number of services (e.g. MEGA, Usenet) may require a third table or removal altogether. I'm strongly inclined to keep the scope of each table narrow, having a third table rather than broad, ambiguous tables. Let's compare Apples to Apples.
• Currently, the article name doesn't correctly represent the syncing/storage services, which are now the bulk of the content. This split may allow for that to be fixed in future (e.g. two articles prominently and mutually interlinked).

Feedback please :) --xlynx (talk) 13:50, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

F-Secure Younited service is NOT "zero knowledge"/personal encryption

Take a look at this page: http://blog.younited.com/2013/11/05/building-security-in/ and this bit: "Encrypting your files in storage: It is by purpose that we do not provide end-to-end encryption for your files." Unfortunately I don't know how to edit the table on the main page to reflect this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.190.27 (talk) 15:21, 11 July 2014 (UTC)