Why an Online Backup?

Why is Box Backup an online backup system? Because tape is not a reliable solution, unless you...

1. Spend lots of money on hardware and tapes (cheap hardware is not reliable).
2. Change the tape daily.
3. Store the tapes off-site.
4. Regularly test archived tapes to ensure they are still readable.

Which is hardly likely to happen in real life.

Backing up to media such as CDROMs is not really a solution either. It needs to be something which just happens without user intervention, and without media which is liable to be corrupted.

So, for the same price as a decent tape backup system, you could buy a server with three big hard discs. And for the money you spend on tapes per year (you do replace them regularly, don't you?), you could host it in a nice data centre somewhere.

We all have internet connections these days, so connectivity isn't really a problem. Although it might be best to archive those static files, like MP3s and images, to CDROM or something unless you have a fast internet connection or only rarely modify the files.

The costs are even less if you pool resources amongst a group of friends. Remember, you don't have to trust the server admin to not look at your files as they're encrypted. You just have to trust them to make the files available when you need them. See the Marketplace page for details of commercial hosting of Box Backup servers for just this purpose.