Nowadays, most of peoples already have installed antivirus, malware protection, firewall, and many other system protection software.

Actually, what is the most important assets in your PC or mobile devices? The answer is data, agree?

Dont get me wrong, I dont deny that anti-virus or any system protection software are important. But it is not perfect, that is why when powerful ransomware like wannacry can break through these deference lines, it is a huge disaster. And many of peoples spends thousand to get back their files but only spend 2 digits to do format.

As system restore is not a very fun task to do, system protection software still very important and recommended to install on every devices.

But we must prepare for the worst and invest more on protection of valuable data. So, what are the thing we can do to protect these files?

File Versioning

From definition on wikipedia, a versioning file system is any computer file system which allows a computer file to exist in several versions at the same time. Thus, whenever your PC attacked by ransomware, you can just format your PC find back previous file version easily from cloud.

Recently, almost all famous file hosting services also provide files versioning. There are too many file storage option on the internet, which one is suitable for you? From my current short survey I found out some info that might useful for you:

1. unlimited storage option
- if you search on online trading platform, there are too many unlimited storage that selling at incredible cheap price and only need to pay one time fee. Possible? well, I leave the answer back to you. But you might need to treat your data seriously if you thing it is more costly than the one time cost.
- so, what is the most reliable and legal way to get cloud storage provider that offering unlimited storage? Well, the best answer I can find is google drive. The cost is USD10 per month complete with the email.
- as per google drive official website statement on unlimited storage, it must be more than 5 person to enjoy the unlimited storage. But may redditor share their experience that one account already can get unlimited storage. Clearly, google didnot enforce on the minimum 5 users rule.
- Any other solution? Yes, it is sharefile. It also provide unlimited storage with USD100 per month but comes with unlimited clients. So, you can create one account and as many as clients you need to do file sharing and management. You can share the account among your friends and split the cost. Sharefile more focus on business environment that have advanced function such as workflow control to ease out the document flow procedure.
- On the other hand, google also have client account but limited to 5TB. I am not sure the 5TB is maximum storage for one client or for combination of all clients. If you know, please comment it below.

2. Best value for money cloud option.
- I roughly check through popular and branded online storage supplier such as dropbox, sugarsync, onedrive, idrive, ....
- Basically the best for money option for me is onedrive with office365 home personal. It is around RM150 per year and you can always update to latest office 365. So the price is only about USD 3++ per month and you already can get 1TB cloud drive together with office 365.
- If you check dropbox, it cost you around USD 10 per month for you to get 1TB cloud storage for the time being. and without microsoft office.
- If you already using apple product and using icloud backup service, you can get 50GB at RM3.90 per month. This is for person that dont need a lot of space, that only want to store important data on cloud.

3. Tech enthusiast that want to control everything.
- There are few reliable open source cloud storage system such as seafile and owncloud available. If you have knowledge to play with linux system, then you can set it up yourself on vps provider such as digital ocean, linode, ...
- Pro is the system is maintain by you and you dont have to pay for any per user basis charges. You only need to pay vps fee together with cloud storage required and very flexible. The best part is vps itself, you can add many other services on the same server to serve you for various purposes.
- Cons is it can be very complicated if you dont have enough technical knowledge to secure and setup the system. HTTPS and firewall rules are 2 basic security measurement that very important if you have your own server. If you are setting it up for personal use and you need storage more than 500GB, then you should go for option 2 above

4. cloud storage at your home/office.
- need to setup port forwarding and ISP must provide public IP (IPv4) unless the storage support UPNP and go through server provided by hardisk supplier.
- Pro is you can extend the storage as many as you want and normally NAS often equip with user management software for unlimited client.
- Cos is you internet speed and third party website UPNP server must be very stable. user mainly complain this method is very slow compare to well established cloud storage provider.T
Tips: If your ISP cannot provide you public IP or you are not able to setup DDNS at public IP. You can use reverse ssh tunneling method with vps that might cost roughly USD5 per month.

5. file backup software that support file versioning
- not explore yet, but it should exist.

One important thing need to highlight is any service that provide lifetime subscription with one time fees normally have very short life cycle, or provide limited time free service update. It make no sense in business point of view and almost no one can survive unless you are the product who using their product. In another word, it means they pack your info as a product and sell to their actual customer to sustain their business.

Just my 2 cents and hopefully can help someone.

This post has been edited by KKTECHHUB: Apr 5 2018, 01:49 PM

Cudos

With the recent upgrade of our internet speeds either by TM, Maxis or Time..... now everyone enjoys faster internet speed.

For those out there that wanted a more cheaper solutions, there are many ways to do this :-

1) Get yourself a Synology NAS.

- The model depending on your budget, the more drive bays the more expensive it gets. But I would highly recommend at least a 4 drive bays, Why ? Because with 4 drive bays it doesn't means you need to buy 4 HDDs at once, you can always get the minimum of 2 HDDs first and add more later.

- The trick is to configured the Synology NAS to "SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID)", what so great about this RAID technology is that it allows you to add more HDDs later even though not the same capacity (eg. Existing is 4TB, new HDD is 8TB) and it can be from different manufacturer (as Synology claims) but I would recommend sticking to the same manufacturer.

- Synology comes built-in with DSM (Disk Station Manager), somewhat like an OS itself which came bundled with tons of free applications like File Station, Photo Station and even Plex Server. All this for FREE !


Now you can have a backup of your own without worrying to pay a monthly subscriptions since the internet speed is now fast thus having your very own Cloud storage is a reality.

Thanks for add in these points.

Own NAS need fix/public ip for that. The WD cloud drive seems no need public ip, but speed is not good.

Not necessary to have Fixed IP, you can always use Dynamic IP (aka Public IP).

If you have public IP then you might want to use the Synology's built-in DDNS features, its free and all you need to do is register an account, create your own URL & voila !!!

With DDNS, its more easier to remember & easier to access from anywhere.