Stop Backing Up!
This is a post I've been wanting to write for a while, but the Mozy deal just brought it back to my attention. I'm surprised that all the talk of "the web as the platform" hasn't led to this already.
Mozy, Carbonite, and others are all great for backing up your hard disk. Ultimately, though, backing up is dead. It's no secret by now that we're moving our lives online. In a few short years we'll be producing all our documents, spreadsheets, etc on the web. We'll be happily collaborating and sharing on the web.
Knowing this, I can't understand why all these online storage companies are so focused on providing consumers backup opportunities. There's no point. If all our documents are online and stored by online file systems, they'll be backed up automatically. And available. All over the world, from any net-connected computer.
There's a level of trust which needs to be obtained of course. But, I generally trust Flickr, Yahoo, Google, Openomy, etc. I know that once my files are stored, they're safe. They'll be replicated across many hard drives. Many machines. Many data centers throughout the world.
Once we've killed backing up in favor for keeping our files in the cloud, the next step will be keeping those files out of silos. But that's for another post...
Mozy, Carbonite, and others are all great for backing up your hard disk. Ultimately, though, backing up is dead. It's no secret by now that we're moving our lives online. In a few short years we'll be producing all our documents, spreadsheets, etc on the web. We'll be happily collaborating and sharing on the web.
Knowing this, I can't understand why all these online storage companies are so focused on providing consumers backup opportunities. There's no point. If all our documents are online and stored by online file systems, they'll be backed up automatically. And available. All over the world, from any net-connected computer.
There's a level of trust which needs to be obtained of course. But, I generally trust Flickr, Yahoo, Google, Openomy, etc. I know that once my files are stored, they're safe. They'll be replicated across many hard drives. Many machines. Many data centers throughout the world.
Once we've killed backing up in favor for keeping our files in the cloud, the next step will be keeping those files out of silos. But that's for another post...
