
LiveDrive terminates Backify contract, users don't have access to their backup - sathyabhat
https://plus.google.com/112313173544747389010/posts/3D1jTWWSrKt
======
marcf
I think this looks horrible on LiveDrive. LiveDrive should have initiated a
plan to get the data from the users of Backifys back to them even if Backify
was being discontinued.

LiveDrive could have gotten massive goodwill if they did this, even if they
offered to transition the data to another service.

This complete loss of information is brutal and I would stay away from
LiveDrive as they don't know how to properly handle important relationships.

The situation should be explained in detail and an open letter by LiveDrive
stating what is going wrong with Backify. This would have informed users of
the situation and of Backify's actions. I believe that the data loss could
have been avoided even if Backify's owners were acting fraudulently.

~~~
cawhitworth
On the other hand, everyone crucified DropBox when it turned out they had the
ability to arbitrarily access user data. Turns out people don't want companies
to have access to their private data, right up until they do.

~~~
SriniK
My shameless plug: <http://safebox.fabulasolutions.com/> released few days ago
to take care of end-to-end encryption.

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51Cards
This is another reason I will always advocate local backups as well. Clouds
may be soft and fluffy but sometimes they bite. We always think of a cloud
data failure being extremely unlikely but so many other things can cause you
not to be able to access your data as well.. among them corporate issues. I
keep files in the cloud as an off-site backup but I also keep a couple copies
of everything here locally. Not only is it quicker to access but I am always
able to access it. Should a falling satellite hit my house then I still have
that off-site copy. Never leave your backups in only one place or on one
medium.

To echo everyone else here as well, LiveDrive really missed a chance to 'step
up' here.

~~~
mcary
Use one of those plug computers like TonidoPlug to perform a local backup of
your computers

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uptown
Kind of ironic that Backify's slogan is 'Data loss can happen to anyone. Even
you!'

If anyone is looking for an alternative, I highly recommend Crashplan. It's
been my offsite solution for a while now, and I couldn't be happier.

~~~
fernandose
I recently switched to spideroak, because i didn't want to have another app
perform my sync duties seperately. So not only does spideroak back-up my files
to the cloud and to my NAS drive, but takes also takes care of syncing all my
folders between my computers and laptop (no extra charge for additional
devices, unlike other services).

~~~
gwillen
Unlike SpiderOak, CrashPlan lets me backup data between my own machines
without charging me for the storage. I wish it would do sync too...

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samarudge
Email sent out by Backify last night

"First of all we would like to thank you for using Backify. We hope you really
liked our service and enjoyed using it. We regret to inform you that we can
not provide free backup services anymore. All free Backify accounts will be
closed on November 22, 2011.

In order to prevent your account from deletion, please login into [sic] your
account and update your Billing Details.

[HUGE GREEN "UPDATE BILLING DETAILS" BUTTON]

Once again, we thank you for using Backify. Please update your billing details
before November 22, 2011 to continue using the service."

~~~
citricsquid
This is a VERY different message. LiveDrive are saying they have terminated
EVERYTHING, Backify are saying that _free_ accounts are being terminated next
week if they don't start to pay.

Which is right?

~~~
samarudge
I'm inclined to trust LiveDrive, Two reasons;

1) LiveDrive are a well respected, well known company with a good history of
service and customer support. I use them as my main backup service (I never
actually used Backify, just wanted to see what it was like) and trust them as
such.

2) I just tried to log into my account and can't =)

If LiveDrives concerns about cards have some substance last nights message
might have been a last ditch attempt at getting as much information as
possible

~~~
mattmanser
Also livedrive just exposed themselves to a colossal litigation risk there if
they're not telling the truth, they didn't have to send that email.

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dspillett
This is why I manage my backups myself. The data I really care about (mail,
documents, source code, ...) is small enough to fit a couple of full copies on
an inexpensive VPS, so inexpensive that I run two so if one dies I can replace
it and rebuild from the other backup (which would be much faster than pushing
the data back up my ADSL line). For me to lose my important data my main
machines, my local offline backup device, and two VPS providers _all_ have to
die at the same time.

It isn't something I'd recommend to a non-techie though (backups are something
you have to get right, and not everyone has cocked up enough to call
themselves "experienced"!), it isn't free, and I don't get room to have
hundreds of Gb of stuff backed up (though if I needed that, I could just rent
larger VMs or even an inexpensive dedicated server), but I'm not beholden to a
single company for my data's persistence.

~~~
gabriele
how much storage do you get with an inexpensive VPS? Is that enough to backup
all the data you care the most?

~~~
dspillett
Only 50Gb each at the moment though that is currently enough for the stuff
that I _really_ care about (but I need to think about upgrading soon): the
mail and web servers that I run for me and family+friends (two weekly
snapshots and two daily, managed using rsync and cp -al so it doesn't take
nearly the space of four full copies), source controlled source, general
documents (again using snapshots to keep multiple instances, though I'm
considering moving my docs into source control for keeping a history instead),
configuration files for all my servers and such, and so forth.

There is a chunk of stuff that I don't backup off-site in this way but do
backup offline at home (photos and MP3s for instance) and a large chunk of
stuff that I don't backup at all (large media files that I could re-obtain
from elsewhere as easily as I could draw back down from an offsite backup,
should the RAID array fail in a way it can't survive or I cock up and
accidentally delete stuff).

------
wladimir
_Please note that any data you backed up using BACKIFY.COM cannot be retrieved
and we recommend you establish an alternative backup service immediately._

What the hell? Why not give people some time to get their data out? I know one
thing for sure, I'll never store my backups with either Backify or LiveDrive.

~~~
wheels
Backups are naturally incredibly sensitive data. It's entirely possible that
even if LiveDrive can decrypt the data, that they don't have the full set of
authorization tokens that Backify was using. I for one would not want all of
my backups to be available just based on an email match.

~~~
samarudge
Before they canceled, you could go to livedrive.com, and log in with your
Backify username/password, it would give you the full list of files, account
settings and an option to download the software and restore files. So they did
have access to the data.

The software is "white-lable" by account settings, I.E. if you log into
LiveDrive application with a Backify account, the branding will be Backify.

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digitalclubb
The following line from the email is a little but more worrying:

"We would like to advise you not to provide any credit card information to
BACKIFY.COM. If you have provided credit card information to BACKIFY.COM then
we would suggest contacting your card provider and informing them that your
card may be used fraudulently."

So Backify are asking you to join a payment plan with that huge green button
and LiveDrive are saying not to give your details to them.

Mixed messages are never good.

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jgrahamc
This is why you use tarsnap. It's efficient and any trouble you can talk to
Colin.

~~~
wheels
While we use tarsnap for our server backups, it's not something I'd use for
frequent desktop backups.

The main reason is that it doesn't have a daemon that watches file changes to
keep a dirty list so it'd basically DDoS your desktop every time the cronjob
ran to run the backup. Also for a desktop it's nice to have an interface where
you can see the differences between backups.

The I/O thing is actually a problem on servers too. See if you can spot the
point in this graph where cron.daily runs:

<https://skitch.com/scotchi/gjbyc/generate-graph>

~~~
cperciva
Have you tried using the --disk-pause option? That should allow you to slow
Tarsnap down so that it doesn't eat all your I/Os. (For desktop systems with
limited internet bandwidth, the --maxbw-rate option is probably worth
investigating too, unless you want your web browsing to slow down
significantly.)

------
tudorw
You would have thought LiveDrive could have used this as a big opportunity,
Backify let you down, but we are here to save the day!

------
jonpaul
Wow. This email lacks empathy and understanding of the situation that Backify
users are now in. I'd be surprised if they converted any users over to
LiveDrive.

People want a company with a personal touch. Why don't most companies
understand this? Also, why didn't they mention one of the most popular backup
services, Dropbox?

"We apologize for any inconvenience..." please rub salt in the wounds.
[[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-
outage-l...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-outage-
language)]

------
bradleyland
For what it's worth, an off-site backup should not be your only backup. I
maintain a three stage backup strategy:

* Local full backup using TimeMachine

* Remote full backup using Backblaze

* Working documents are in a Dropbox folder with my regular Documents folder serving as an archive

As an added benefit, I share a Dropbox account with another computer on my
LAN, so Dropbox syncs to it extremely quickly, even when I save large files.

I feel pretty well protected with this setup, but I'm always open to scrutiny.
If you see holes in my strategy, do point them out.

~~~
marquis
How is Backblaze affording unlimited backups? It seems too good to be true.

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forcer
I tried signing up as a reseller of LiveDrive but there is no reseller
agreement on the sign up page. There is only general Terms & Conditions which
apply to the end user that is signing up for backup plan from Livedrive. From
their sign-up page it seems there is no contract between LiveDrive and their
resellers, which would explain why LiveDrive has no obligation.

Can anyone confirm the existance of reseller contract?

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jwblackwell
I'm using Carbonite - $59 a year for unlimited backup. Runs automatically in
the background and this takes care of all my photos, videos and old documents.

Then I use dropbox for my working folder, this takes care of backups a little
quicker and is highly convenient.

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aespinoza
"No contract exists between yourself and Livedrive and we are not able to
assist further in any dispute you may have with BACKIFY.COM."

This is extremely unprofessional. Just because there is no legal relationship,
that doesn't mean you should just cut everybody off.

------
mike-cardwell
My laptop runs duplicity once every two hours from cron which does gpg
encrypted incremental backups to a network share.

My HTPC does the same, but to an external hard drive plugged in via USB.

Easy and quick to set up, and I don't have to rely on a third party run
service.

------
gravitronic
This is one reason I use dropbox. My data is sync'd between 4 computers in
different locations, as well as a copy on the dropbox servers.

Even if dropbox disappeared overnight I would have my data.

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crdoconnor
If anybody's looking for an alternative to backupify, i run a comparison
website for other services: <http://skeptu.com>

(feedback very welcome)

~~~
smussman
The prices you show go out to tiny fractions of a cent (>6 decimal places). I
don't think that's going to make a difference in someone's decision, and
trimming to just showing the cents will make the prices look more consistent.

EDIT: I should mention that this site was useful -- I learned about backup
providers that might fit me well that I otherwise wouldn't have known about.

~~~
crdoconnor
Fixed that, thanks.

Glad it was helpful.

------
unkoman
I guess it's Backblaze or Mozy for me then.

~~~
grimoire
I would avoid Mozy. I was using them with their unlimited plan. Less than a
year ago, they dropped their unlimited plan and the new plan would have
quadrupled my costs.

I switched to CrashPlan and have been happy so far.

With my current usage (just over 125 GB), it would cost me $11.99 per month
for Mozy. I payed CrashPlan $118.99 for 4 years of unlimited usage, or less
than $2.50 per month.

Mozy essentially "fired" me as a customer. They stated that some customers
were using too much data on their unlimited plan and introduced the new tiered
price structure with the intention of pushing out the heavy users. Seems odd
to me, since I only backup my music, photos, and important documents. I don't
even backup my videos.

It just didn't make sense for me to stay with them. The idea of charging
$2/month for each 20GB above 125 seems pretty steep. And since the amount I
back up will grow over time, so will my month cost.

~~~
zargon
CrashPlan looks awesome, and they support linux. Thanks for the pointer.

------
bugheart
full text of e-mail Livedrive sent:

ADVISORY NOTCE FROM LIVEDRIVE REGARDING BACKIFY.COM

Dear Firstname lastname

We are writing to you regarding BACKIFY.COM who you recently created an online
backup account with.

BACKIFY.COM was a reseller of Livedrive (<http://www.livedrive.com>) .
Livedrive provided the technology and service behind the product offered to
you by BACKIFY.COM.

We are writing to inform you that BACKIFY.COM is no longer a Livedrive
reseller and the services that they purchased from our company on your behalf
have been terminated. If you are using a service provided by BACKIFY.COM and
powered by Livedrive then this service will now have stopped working.

We would also like to advise you that we have received a number of complaints
about BACKIFY.COM from their customers and from industry organizations. We
would like to advise you not to provide any credit card information to
BACKIFY.COM. If you have provided credit card information to BACKIFY.COM then
we would suggest contacting your card provider and informing them that your
card may be used fraudulently. If BACKIFY.COM have charged your card for
services not provided you should contact your card provider and ask them to
initiate a chargeback procedure.

Please note that this advisory is being sent to you in good faith because we
feel you should be informed that BACKIFY.COM is no longer a Livedrive reseller
and of the complaints we have become aware of. No contract exists between
yourself and Livedrive and we are not able to assist further in any dispute
you may have with BACKIFY.COM.

If you have installed the online backup software provided by BACKIFY.COM we
highly recommend you uninstall it from your computer by following the steps
below:

On Windows

Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel and select Add/Remove Programs (or
‘Programs and settings’), select Livedrive and select uninstall.

On Mac

Go to Finder > Applications and delete the Livedrive application.

Please note that any data you backed up using BACKIFY.COM cannot be retrieved
and we recommend you establish an alternative backup service immediately.

Livedrive does provide a very similar online backup service to the one
provided by BACKIFY.COM and you can read more details and, if you wish, signup
for a trial on our website at <http://www.livedrive.com>. Please note however
that we do not provide a free service as BACKIFY.COM did.

Other online backup vendors you may wish to consider include:

Carbonite.com

iDrive.com

Mozy.com

We are sorry for the inconvenience this situation may have caused you.

Kind Regard

Livedrive Limited

