I’ve been using Amazon S3 storage backup. Basic pricing structure is 12.5 cents per month per GB with the first 5 GB free. I think I’m using about 20GB so with the 5 GB free, that works out to about $1.87 a month which is about what my last bill was.
Amazon does the encryption but my client app (duplicity for linux in my case) *also* does encryption so even if Amazon wanted to they couldn’t access my data.
It all runs in the background and I’ve tested it to retrieve the odd file and it works just fine.
Unlike carbonite you have to provide your own client software, but for linux that is dirt simple and I presume such software is readily available for other platforms.
Cheaper, more secure, and a way to tell carbonite to piss up a rope.
The external drive or thumb drive solution is fine as far as it goes but it’s not offsite and it requires manual effort (in most cases). My solution is effortless, secure, cheap, and works entirely in the background.
Thanks for the tip about Amazon. I am weak on my linux applications but there are so many and I don’t play with linux nowhere near like I used to years ago.
When I did, it drove some of my techno-illiterate co irkers insane just having a live disc in my personal laptop and doing routine things since they would not try to understand anything other than windoze.