Help Wanted: Online Backup Experiences

I’m writing some new content for dpBestflow, and I’m looking for people with real-world experience with online backup services. While online backup is generally not going to be feasible for an entire media archive, it can present a good solution for parts of an archive, or for other digital files such as correspondence or financial records. (To be very clear, by online services, I mean something like Backblaze, CrashPlan, or Carbonite, rather than a local backup solution like Time Machine).

1. I’m interested in talking to people who have  successfully used an online backup service to actually restore lost data. I’d like to know what services were used, what the costs and time frames were, and what the general user experience was.

2. I’m also very interested in finding people who thought they were backed up with an online service, but had the restoration fail for one reason or another.

3. I’d also be interested in speaking to anyone who has performed a real validation of their online backup.

4. Let’s also add anyone who is using a do-it-yourself online backup, such as the Drobo Sync.

5. I’m also interested in talking to anyone who has uploaded large amounts of data to one of the “all you can eat” services such as Backblaze, in order to find out how long it took to upload, and what the test recovery experience is like.  I’m less interested in speaking to people who have uploaded, but who have not yet tested for recoverability.

If any of this describes you, please contact me at peter at peterkrogh.com