Roxio or other online backups

[v.wells]

I recently downloaded the new Ad-aware 2007 software. Good as always but don't know whether it is worth getting the paid version. Any thoughts?

Also, I received a e-newsletter from Roxio outlining online backup storage. There is a fee of course, but I was wondering if this is a good alternative to buying an external hard drive for backup storage. I realize that some companies may not be a wise choice since how long they stay in business is a consideration. Has anyone tried this online storage?

[Alan Welsford]

If I'm going to back a machine up, I want to do all my data.

Personally I feel uncomfortable about putting my personal information on somebody else's storage.

External hard drives are VERY cheap these days.

We didn't bother to shop around, and a 320 gigabyte offering from a high street store cost about £60. (I'm sure you can find them much cheaper).

Best of all it was completely 'plug and play' into 3 different computers, with two different operating systems, (one of the boxes is about 8 years old, and still in daily use). No software to install at all - plug it in, and it just looks like another drive.

And backing up all data of 3 machines, (no clean ups first, no selectivity) was only about 13Gb, leaving plenty of margin with well over 300Gb still available.

I don't think I'll be bothering with much else.

[Neil Wilson]

I am using a few different online storage. One for pictures another for documents and another for whatever. The norm is 1GB but the best is from my ISP at 5GB.
If you see the size comparision between external drives and online storage you can make your own decission.

[v.wells]

Many thanks for the food for thought:D

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

Hi Vanessa :)

I back up all my photos, family tree files, documents etc. to a second hard drive on my desktop computer, plus to my laptop.

I have the same ISP as Neil, so 5GB with their Digital Vault, plus the freebie Auto Back-up of chosen folders and files from my computer, (which backs up automatically when changes are made to a file) ....... plus I still upload to My Briefcase with them ....... so I'm covered three times, but all with the same ISP.

This is all free, according to them, but it costs me £24.99 per month for total broadband, so I'm just taking what I can get! :D

[Neil Wilson]

This is all free, according to them, but it costs me £24.99 per month for total broadband, so I'm just taking what I can get! :DBut you do get free evening & weekend calls. No wonder they are able to do 5GB for free, I never thought of it that way.