ralphchadkirk
Established Member
Perhaps I am. I'm naturally pessimistic. I don't trust people with my own data. Hence why I have paid webhosting that I have a cron job programmed for which backs everything up so I can log in and download it. For critical data, I use my own data server which is in my house, which I can log into securely from anywhere (as long as I can remember the address...). That is also backed up onto an external harddrive.Well firstly you're acting as if the chances of a reliable and trustworthy hosting company going down forever is likely. It isn't. Fotopic was a largely free service with additional features which you pay for. Pick a hosting company and you are much better protected against someone running off with your money (and data). You're probably more likely to lose your data in a server stored at home than one which you pay a hosting company for (especially one which does constant automatic backups).
Secondly, I'd imagine you're much more likely to carry out your own backups on a website than Fotopic because:
1. The backup tool isn't hidden away at the rear end of some website somewhere
2. The backup tool doesn't produce the backup in an Dickensian structure which won't ever be of any use ever again unless you're willing to spend hours (or days) re-inputting everything it's saved
Fotopic may be free - and all the more reason to back it up yourself - but people shouldn't be lulled into the false sense of security that it won't happen to me.
Just have a look at this: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77014
That was considered a very rare event, yet it happened, and the person lost all their work because they didn't back up.
Regarding your points:
1) Depends which (if any) control panel software you use. cPanel is good - Plesk less so.
2) True, but it's still a time-consuming process if you've got a lot of stuff. And time is the thing that puts people off backing up.