Five things to consider before backing up your data to the cloud

In many ways, the cloud solves the problem of offsite storage data backup. However, despite the recent marketing hype about cloud services, it may not be the ideal solution when it comes to backing up data on the network. Here are a few factors to consider before you take a cloud backup solution.

First, determine how fast your Internet connection is going.

At a time when high-speed Internet connections are common, you can't help but want to buy a cloud backup service without having to think too much about the speed of your business's Internet connection. However, it is necessary to contact your Internet service provider (ISP) to find out how fast your connection is.

I say this because it is a common practice for ISPs to provide download speeds that are much higher than upload speeds. For example, I bought the service as an example, I get the download speed is 7 megabits per second, but only at the speed of up to 512,000 bits per second upload data.

Even if your Internet connection is fast enough, it is still a good idea to check the connection speed and figure out how good the connection performance is. Keep in mind that the speed that your ISP gives you is the maximum throughput you can get in an ideal situation. The actual speed of your connection may vary greatly, especially if the connection is shared with other users in your area.

Second, to find out whether the provider limit upload.

Before deciding to choose a cloud data backup solution, be aware of whether the cloud service provider is restricting your uploads. Just around Thanksgiving, I bought a cloud data backup program. Given the low speed of my Internet connection, I know it's time-consuming to upload data, but I'd like to try to store my data copies offsite.

When the upload speed was finally slower than expected, I read the specific terms of the agreement carefully. Obviously, this cloud service provider only allows you to upload the first 20GB data unrestricted, but once the amount of data, the upload speed is strictly limited.

Third, ensure that the provider does not prevent you need to back up the file type.

I'm in that cloud service provider Another problem is that even though it claims to allow unlimited amounts of data to be backed up, it blocks certain types of files from being uploaded. These file types include system files, zip files, and video files. This is a big problem for me because I eat by creating Web content, many of which are video.

After browsing through the provider's help file, I found that the service could be configured to back up the video files. But you have to explicitly specify which video files need to be backed up, specifying a folder at a time. Although I try to do so, but the process is too cumbersome, so I simply changed a service provider. My advice is to make sure that the provider you are considering is restricting the backup of certain types of files before deciding to buy the service.

Iv. make full use of the free trial service.

Take full advantage of the free trial service provided by many backup service providers. Almost all cloud-based backup service providers allow you to try out their services for a few weeks free of charge. I strongly recommend that you take advantage of this opportunity before buying a service. Using a free trial service can help you figure out whether the service provider restricts connection speeds, limits the types of files that can be backed up, or other rules that prevent you from backing up your data. For example, many cloud-based backup service providers do not allow backup of network drives.

Don't use cloud backup providers to replace traditional backups.

Finally, one of the smartest suggestions I've given is that you shouldn't swap your existing backup infrastructure for a cloud-based backup solution. For now, most cloud backup providers simply cannot provide any backup services other than file-level backups. Therefore, it is not possible to use such services to create a system image file for bare metal recovery. Similarly, most cloud backup providers do not support application backups for systems such as Exchange Server or SQL Server.

Even if you only need file-level backups, cloud-based backups are still not enough to replace the backup you're creating right now. After all, if you have to perform a massive recovery, you must download all the data from the Internet. This recovery can take days or even weeks to complete, depending on how much data you have and how fast the Internet connects. My advice is to use cloud-based Backup as a supplemental backup to offsite storage, but continue to rely on the existing backup infrastructure as the primary means of backing up your data.