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ace214
September 7th, 2008, 02:59 AM
So I'm looking at webhosts and would like to use it as a backup for music and picture files as well as any websites I may wish to put up.

I contacted a support person at hostgator.com (http://www.hostgator.com/) and they said that their space is only for "websites."

I asked if it would be ok to host the files if I put up links for all the files and they said, yes as long as I had the rights to distribute the files.

So I have three questions for anyone who might know a little something about it.

1) Are they really gonna check and see if I have links to the files and suspend my account if I don't?

2) If I didn't have rights to the music files I wanted to upload, how likely is it that the DRM police would come after me?

3) Does the DRM thing also apply to sites that tout online backup, like Mozy.com (http://www.mozy.com)?

aysiu
September 7th, 2008, 03:05 AM
My host is ICDSoft, and I love them. Their pricing isn't as competitive as some other hosts (I've heard good things about Site5, but I've never used them). Nevertheless, I've had really good service from them for multiple websites for years.

They don't insist all your files be part of a website, and they even have a special folder just for private files:
https://www2.suresupport.com/faq.php/17/135:
What is the Private directory for?
The /private directory is a directory with a special purpose. You can use this directory to store files or create directories which cannot be accessed via the web. (e.g these are files and directories outside of your webroot).

Any files and folders under the /private directory cannot be accessed via the web, however you can access them using FTP or using scripts on your web site. You can use the /private directory to store files which contain sensitive information such as mysql connection details for example.

ace214
September 7th, 2008, 03:14 AM
ICDSoft
Thanks for the recommend. I really need something with unlimited storage if I'm gonna back up everything, though... My music mostly flac, so I have almost 100GB of just music.

aysiu
September 7th, 2008, 03:17 AM
Well, as I said before, I've heard good things about Site5 (http://www.site5.com/) (one of our forum admins uses it and highly recommends it), and it has an unlimited plan available.

ace214
September 7th, 2008, 03:27 AM
Backups
Site5's servers should not be used as a storage system for local computer backups.
From their policy page (http://www.site5.com/support/rup.php).

So, if I were to rack up 120GB of space, they would probably notice, although they do say they are "'soft' limits."

Seems like this is gonna be the case for any shared host.

Biochem
September 7th, 2008, 05:24 AM
thanks ace214, I was thinking to eventually migrate my backup to one of these hosting sites. I guess I will have to rethink my plan :(

aysiu
September 7th, 2008, 05:29 AM
You can try this:
http://www.ibackup.com/online-backup-linux/

It seems as if they charge you about $3000 a year for 300 GB of storage, though. A bit pricey.

firefly2442
September 7th, 2008, 06:18 AM
Amazon E3 has a service that lets you do backups.

http://aws.amazon.com/s3

I've never used it but there's probably plenty of reviews online. I don't know if it works with linux or not.

v8YKxgHe
September 7th, 2008, 08:10 AM
Grab your own VPS from somewhere like Linode or CheapVPS.co.uk.

ace214
September 8th, 2008, 02:08 AM
Amazon seems to be the cheapest for the amount of space, but they charge for transfers...

The VPS sites are too expensive.

It's probably cheapest to buy an external hard drive and hire a ninja.

FlintyVamp
September 14th, 2008, 03:34 PM
Today Dreamhost posted in their monthly newsletter that customers get a 50GB Off-site SFTP backup account :)

Now, I'm looking for a good SFTP Backup app :D

x0as
September 14th, 2008, 08:26 PM
Lots of shared hosting providers offering unlimited storage will terminate your account before you get near 100gb.

jwooton
June 30th, 2009, 07:50 PM
Here is a simple service i've started experimenting with. Pretty plain and simple...nothing fancy. I only have about 9 people using it so far. If you want to give it a try, just email me at the address on the site. It's cheap and offers the protocols you're looking for.

http://www.datastorageunit.com

magmon
June 30th, 2009, 08:37 PM
You should use adrive.com, it gives you 50 gig of free online backup/storage. I use it because it downloads incredibly fast, and whenever I may need to reformat, I can without losing anything.