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Google Drive Will Soon Back Up Your Entire Computer (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the aggressive-expansion dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google is turning Drive into a much more robust backup tool. Soon, instead of files having to live inside of the Drive folder, Google will be able to monitor and backup files inside of any folder you point it to. That can include your desktop, your entire documents folder, or other more specific locations. The backup feature will come out later this month, on June 28th, in the form of a new app called Backup and Sync. In some other news, Box announced on Wednesday desktop apps for its storage service.

188 comments

  1. I could use this! by GameboyRMH · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is something I could use every day...when pointed to reverse encFS mounts, that is ;-)

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:I could use this! by stooo · · Score: 1

      >> Google Drive Will Soon Back Up Your Entire Computer
      No. Thanks.
      I got back up already.
      Without publishing everything.

      --
      aaaaaaa
    2. Re:I could use this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I already do this with Google Drive a sparse-file and a local mount. Drive then syncs my timemachine history.

  2. Useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How long does it take to push 2-3 Terabytes (the size of my PC) to Google at 5Mbits/second? FFS. Can I mail it to them? Snail Mail is much faster. Updates will be a bitch though. LOL.

    1. Re:Useless by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      OK, so it's not useful to you. Not all services need to be just for you. I have 150Mbps up, so that changes things a bit, doesn't it? I currently use CrashPlan, but they significantly raised their fees.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Useless by enjar · · Score: 1

      Initial load can take a while to push (a week?), but then you only need to push the diffs which are much smaller. I've done this with multiple backup services as I've moved from one to another, and both services handled this just fine. I just kept the old service paid up till I moved to the new one and my stuff uploaded. Were I to move to this from Crashplan it would be the same story. It's all automated so it's not like it requires active participation.

    3. Re:Useless by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "I have 150Mbps up"

      60 hours to back up my 4TB drive at that speed. I could overnight the drive itself and have it there and fully replicated multiple times over in under 24 hours.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    4. Re:Useless by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Um, OK. Not sure what your point is unless you find yourself continuously uploading your entire drive. I have a few gigs change per day, so not an issue for me. Been doing this for years - even on DSL it took about 30 days for the initial backup, but the connection was more than capable of keeping up with daily changes.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    5. Re:Useless by supremebob · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that they only give you 15 GB of storage for free. If you want to back up your entire 2 TB hard drive, that's going to cost you $20 a month.

      For that kind of money, I think that I'll just buy a 2 TB portable drive for around $100 put an encrypted backup on that, and leave it in my cubicle at work.

    6. Re:Useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OK, so it's not useful to you. Not all services need to be just for you. I have 150Mbps up, so that changes things a bit, doesn't it? I currently use CrashPlan, but they significantly raised their fees.

      What's your true upload speed to internet sites? I'm betting it's a lot less than 150 Mbps.
      No, what speedtest.net shows doesn't count.

    7. Re:Useless by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      I've only checked it with speedtest sites. I'm not sure how else to check it. Upstream speed is rarely my bottleneck. I've seen torrents get about that high, but honestly it's not something I think about much. If there is a specific test you'd like to see let me know and I'll run it.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    8. Re:Useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I could "overday" mine, if you care to spell...

    9. Re:Useless by Khyber · · Score: 1

      I guess you've never heard of "Overnight Shipping" which has been a thing for like 30 years or so.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    10. Re:Useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then your boss sees it on your desk and since it is on your desk it must be company property and now they can do what ever they want to it. And before you say no I have worked places where if it crosses the threshold of the door it is now there property as they allow nothing to leave the premises.

    11. Re: Useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Finders keepers" is not how property law works.

    12. Re: Useless by jbrizz · · Score: 1

      I have 1000d500u fibre and I upload to crashplan Australia at about 250mbps (from NZ). Sometimes a bit faster, sometimes slower. Seems good to me.

    13. Re:Useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And before you say no I have worked places where if it crosses the threshold of the door it is now there property as they allow nothing to leave the premises.

      Must have been painful when they applied that policy to your cock.

      Anyhow, places that secure would typically have lockers or something outside the 'secure zone' where you can leave personal electronics etc.

    14. Re:Useless by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      How long does it take to push 2-3 Terabytes (the size of my PC) to Google at 5Mbits/second?

      Approximately 100 months with my 20GB/month connection, and it would cost me about 20 times what my laptop and hard drive cost put together.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  3. No. by mrdogi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, no it won't.

    1. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You took the words right out of my mouth! Backing up or storing ANY data on cloud servers is ALWAYS a HUGE mistake, as you lose all control as to who can see/use/sell that data! My data will continue to only be backed up to local backup media, with one set of media stored at a trusted off-site location.

    2. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure it will!

      Hint: As far as Google needs to know, your "PC" looks a lot like a NAS and only seems to contain a bunch of encrypted volumes.
      (Let Google mirror your local backups.)

    3. Re:No. by rrohbeck · · Score: 1

      I have a feeling they wouldn't appreciate terabytes from everybody. Since this would only be acceptable with encryption on the client side they couldn't even deduplicate.

      --
      thegodmovie.com - watch it
    4. Re:No. by scdeimos · · Score: 1

      Since this would only be acceptable with encryption on the client side they couldn't even deduplicate.

      Why not? An encrypted blob of data looks pretty much like an unencrypted blob of data, the deduplication service shouldn't need to know one from the other.

    5. Re:No. by itamihn · · Score: 1

      If you are not salting and/or using different keys, you are encrypting it wrong.

  4. No thanks... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    I got a FreeNAS file server to store my data and backup all my systems.

    1. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you store all your data on the device, AND backup all your systems with it?

      What happens when your device goes bad? Sounds like you lose all your data, AND all your backups simultaneously?

    2. Re:No thanks... by enjar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What happens when your house floods, catches fire, electrical storm fries the machine, RAID controller fails and writes gibberish, OS update goes sideways, you fat finger an rm command, etc? Offsite backups can be very useful. Maybe you don't push everything offsite but there's probably a class of data you'd like to know will survive when something happens to your freenas.

    3. Re:No thanks... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      What happens when your device goes bad? Sounds like you lose all your data, AND all your backups simultaneously?

      File server has a RAIDZ2 (RAID6) configuration, so I would have to lose three hard drives at the same time to lose data. A nightly cron job rsync the data to a spare hard on my Red Hat Linux box. Critical data is burned to DVD for offsite storage.

    4. Re: No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... Or one raid controller goes bad

    5. Re:No thanks... by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Speaking for myself, that data easily fits on an external drive that I ask them to bring with them once every couple months so I can sync it. I used to have a remote rsync to their house set up but it's easier just to have them bring the drive here.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    6. Re: No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He uses ZFS, the RAIDZ2 is implemented in software, so any mainboard/controller with enough SATA ports will do if you want to read the data. It doesn't even matter to plug the drives in in the right squence, ZFS figures that out automatically when it imports the storage pool.

    7. Re: No thanks... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Or one raid controller goes bad

      FreeNAS doesn't use RAID controllers. Depending on the controller card, you will need to turn off the RAID functionality or flash a different firmware image. I'm using the SATA ports off of my motherboard. Someday I might get a SAS card since my case can hold an additional eight hard drives.

    8. Re: No thanks... by ewhac · · Score: 1

      FreeNAS doesn't use RAID controllers.

      More precisely, FreeNAS can use RAID controllers, but the docs expressly and strenuously discourage their use. ZFS wants direct access to the bare drives so that it can manage block allocation and error recovery itself.

      --
      Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
    9. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      File server has a RAIDZ2 (RAID6) configuration, so I would have to lose three hard drives at the same time to lose data.

      Or, your house burns down. Or someone breaks in and steals equipment. Or your home floods. Or you drop a tub of cottage cheese on your file server. Other things besides "bad disk" can happen to trash your data.

      A nightly cron job rsync the data to a spare hard on my Red Hat Linux box.

      Which is also in the same location as your file server? So best case, you just wreck your NAS... you've lost up to a day of data.

      Critical data is burned to DVD for offsite storage.

      Which is to say, rarely off-sited, which means you lose days, weeks, or months of data in case of a fire.

      Setting up auto-pilot offsite backups is important, if you care about your data. Guess you don't really have anything valuable to lose.

    10. Re:No thanks... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

      Setting up auto-pilot offsite backups is important, if you care about your data.

      What I care about doesn't need to live 24/7 on the Internet.

    11. Re:No thanks... by aix+tom · · Score: 1

      Which is to say, rarely off-sited, which means you lose days, weeks, or months of data in case of a fire. Setting up auto-pilot offsite backups is important, if you care about your data. Guess you don't really have anything valuable to lose.

      Depends of course how fast the data changes. In my case, I rotate three hardisks from home to my office. (The data itself is stored on a NAS with RAID, with daily sync to another NAS in another room (versioned to one year back, so that I can recover from accidental deletes and/or file level corruptions), so I can at least lose one room to a fire without losing data)

      I do that "rotate next drive to off-site" about once a month, when I scanned the new "important" documents, OR if I come back from a trip and just added a few GB of pictures and videos, OR if I have written some new software, which only happens once or twice a year.

    12. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're aware of encryption and security, yes? It's not THAT hard to set up a remote backup solution that encrypts everything that leaves your physical machine, and uses encryption keys that are only available to you on your own local machine.

      Given the options available to you, suggesting that you're okay not backing things up automatically because "I'm scared of the internet" simply says that you don't consider your time to be all that valuable, and you're okay with losing days, weeks, or months worth of data because of your fears.

      Making a "principled stand" to eschew backups over the networks means you are implictly stating that you don't really care all that much about your data, and instead are going to just rely on bad luck not happening to you, and that you don't place all that much value on the time and effort you spend creating the data in the first place.

    13. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly you've never had pretty much every piece of electronics in your house destroyed by lightning. UPSes and lightning arrestors all destroyed too.

      RAID(z) is not a substitute for backups.

    14. Re:No thanks... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Given the options available to you, suggesting that you're okay not backing things up automatically because "I'm scared of the internet" simply says that you don't consider your time to be all that valuable, and you're okay with losing days, weeks, or months worth of data because of your fears.

      I made a decision to remove my data from the Internet because hackers can't steal what isn't easily available to them. The last time I lost data to two hard drives failing at the same time was over 15 years ago. My home has never been broken into, burned or flooded. If something catastrophic did happen to my home, my data would be the least of my problems.

    15. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fires are so predictable as to only destroy one room, and not the entire house. also, as pointed out several time already, fire is not the only problem you could face. but you seem to be the type to wing it and do less than the bare minimum so carry on. i expect a story submission by you, probably posted as an AC, asking how one would go about attempting to recover the data you lost to stupidity and/or ignorance.

    16. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I made a decision to remove my data from the Internet because hackers can't steal what isn't easily available to them.

      If it's encrypted with a solid encryption algorithm and you practice good key management, then you could host it on a wide-open web server for anybody to download the encrypted files, and they wouldn't be able to do a fucking thing with it, either. Nobody's suggesting that you shouldn't take sensible precautions with your backed up data. But "not taking offsite backups" because you're scared of the internet is just foolish.

      The last time I lost data to two hard drives failing at the same time was over 15 years ago.

      And that's not the only failure mode for a single copy of the data. Literally anything that frags that file server will cause you to lose data.

      If something catastrophic did happen to my home, my data would be the least of my problems.

      The least of your problems? Funny you look at it that way. For me, my things to save in a disaster doesn't even include "my data," because my data is securely backed up to an offsite location. So if I wake up one night and find the house on fire, I simply make sure my wife, my children, and my pets are out, and if I have time, I grab some of the irreplaceable physical items that have sentimental value. Computers? Data? Fuck it, it's all replaceable. Give me a new Mac and a network, and I'll be back up and running within a couple hours as if nothing ever happened. Losing my data would certainly be "the least of my problems," compared to saving my family, but it doesn't mean that it's not a big problem to lose weeks or months of work and artistic productivity. The things that aren't replaceable are secured. The things that ARE replaceable are insured against loss so that I can replace them.

      You are not immune to "something bad" happening to you simply because nothing bad has happened to you yet.

    17. Re:No thanks... by flargleblarg · · Score: 1

      If something catastrophic did happen to my home, my data would be the least of my problems.

      That's rather naive. If something catastrophic happened to your home, then once you were all recovered from that (maybe a year or two), you're going to be in a world of hurt about your data. You'll care at some point. Best to maintain offsite backups as well as onsite backups.

    18. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Either you care about your data, and you back it up in a safe way, or you don't care about your data, and don't bother spending much time and money securing it.

      There's never a good reason to back something up in an inherently insecure method. Especially when encrypting something is is so easy. In fact, given the nature of the data (private pictures, unpublished stories), why not stick it in a Google Drive? Hackers aren't going to care enough to try to get at it.

    19. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're taking down your ebooks! Thank god!

    20. Re:No thanks... by scdeimos · · Score: 1

      RAID is not a backup.

    21. Re:No thanks... by Deth_Master · · Score: 1

      You use borg backup and upload it to the cloud. Offsite backups are super important, but probably not ones that allow google to dig through and market for free. Although, I suppose you could accept that, and that's the "payment" for the offsite storage. Fortunately it's super cheap to not have anyone dig through your stuff, and just back it up encryptedly.

      --
      find ~your -name '*base* | xargs chown :us
    22. Re:No thanks... by gravewax · · Score: 1

      for me the amount of data I have that is actually critical on my NAS should any of those things happen fits easily on a small thumbdrive of which I have several I keep with me and one offsite as well as an occasional encrypted copy I put in a cloud drive.

    23. Re:No thanks... by aix+tom · · Score: 1

      When three backups in different physical locations, one of them being miles away, is "doing the bare minimum", then having a backup "in the cloud" where you can expect a "whoops, sorry, we lost your data, because we don't care shit about it" mail sooner or later wouldn't even register on the scale.

    24. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have an odd definition of "steal". You work with computers, yes? You know that "copying" leaves the original intact, right? Nothing has been "stolen".

      And your data is not valuable. No one else cares.

      "If something catastrophic did happen to my home"

      You mean the one room studio you rent.

    25. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. you don't have a home retard.
      2. you don't have video of your 1st date w your wife
      3. no photos of your son's first steps
      4. no recording of anything you've done that's accomplished or important
      5. nothing really interesting you've ever seen

      a person like you, with a complete waste of an existence. that's why you responded the way you did. normal people who don't have your brain disease have a shitload of things recorder in their life that are very valuable.

    26. Re: No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read somewhere those RAID controllers are pretty heavy

    27. Re:No thanks... by houghi · · Score: 1

      Your data is not as important as you think. (Talking about personal, not business here)
      All from the bank and what not will still be at the bank. The access to the bank will be restored. The data I have given the IRS will still be somewhere available.

      Look seriously at your data and see if they are 'must have' and 'nice to have'. Hint: pictures of your kids, your music and your movie collection is 'nice to have'. Except for perhaps 100 emails (if that much) keeping emails is nice to have when older than 7 days.

      There might be some things that you need to have, but that would easily fit on a USB key. Automate it that when you get home, you put in the USB key on your key chain (now you also always know where your keys are) and let that do the backup.
      A solution would even be to put something like this one at the door and make it even easier.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    28. Re:No thanks... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      a person like you, with a complete waste of an existence. that's why you responded the way you did. normal people who don't have your brain disease have a shitload of things recorder in their life that are very valuable.

      This may be hard to fathom... Some of us are old enough to have pre-digital lives recorded by analog technology like film cameras and printed pictures on dead trees from film negatives. Fireproof boxes work well for storing pictures and negatives. And, being older, we don't have every little detail of our lives scattered all over the Internet for the entire world to see. Some of us still value what little privacy we still have.

      Keep on speculating about my private life. You obviously have nothing better to do with your digital life.

    29. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Keep on speculating about my private life."

      We don't need to; you vomit forth every detail at the slightest provocation.

    30. Re:No thanks... by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      I don't even bother with RAID on my backup server. I backup to one drive, then it mirrors periodically to a 2nd drive. That gives me time to prevent fat finger errors from propagating. I also keep rolling archives on offline media (HD).

      RAID is overkill and over complicates recoveries.

      --
      Cheap storage VM.
    31. Re:No thanks... by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      crashplan lets you replicate to another user's computer, into an encrypted space. Even if you don't use their service.

      --
      Cheap storage VM.
    32. Re:No thanks... by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      Offsite backups can be very useful. Maybe you don't push everything offsite but there's probably a class of data you'd like to know will survive when something happens to your freenas.

      True, but you don't need the cloud to do that.

  5. Ummm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How about no?

    1. Re:Ummm by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      /Dr.Evil

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  6. Linux Support Still Coming Soon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Really, any year now.

  7. Then... by sycodon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...they will examine it all for clues to provide targeted advertising.

    Next will be looking for hate speech and porn and reporting it to the authorities.

    No thanks.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Then... by sinij · · Score: 3, Funny

      For some unknown reason, after backing up my "personal data" drive to Google, I started to get a lot of equestrian advertising.

    2. Re:Then... by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      That's why he's pointing it at encrypted data (reverse encFS mounts).

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    3. Re:Then... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

      ...they will examine it all for clues to provide targeted advertising.

      Next will be looking for hate speech and porn and reporting it to the authorities.

      That was my first thought: They'll index it & update your advertising on searches. Of course, you could always point it to an encrypted backup file and have it back that up for you...

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    4. Re:Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That will teach you to save horse porn on your computer. Watch it online, as everybody does!

    5. Re:Then... by HumanWiki · · Score: 2

      For some unknown reason, after backing up my "personal data" drive to Google, I started to get a lot of equestrian advertising.

      Well, it probably found the MedFet stash and misinterpreted the usage of the Stirrups.

    6. Re:Then... by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 1

      You can disable targeted advertising in your Google account settings. This does not, however, change the fact that Google parses and categorizes your content. So to have Google backup all my computer data? No thanks. You're gonna pry my laptop from my cold, dead hands.

    7. Re: Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Encryption. Problem solved.

    8. Re:Then... by mr_mischief · · Score: 2

      Meh. Encrypt stuff, put it in the directory.

    9. Re:Then... by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

      Their algorithm is flawed though. I got the same thing and mine was donkey porn, not horses.

    10. Re:Then... by torkus · · Score: 1

      Which is not especially convenient when you want to use those files.

      When google drive supports encryption seamlessly WITHOUT keeping the keys themselves then I'll gladly give them hard drive images. Granted that makes using their storage tool much less useful to THEM. (which is kind of the point)

      We're actually going through something very similar at work right now. We want to use cloud based storage and distribution of files, but need to be able to (more or less seamlessly) encrypt ourselves and not give the hosting provider our keys. That's the sticking point and has been rather difficult to properly implement.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    11. Re:Then... by CaptnCrud · · Score: 1

      they were just anticipating your next evolutionary phase from med size doney cock to full on horse cock.

    12. Re:Then... by eheldreth · · Score: 1

      truecrypt, tinfoil hats may be needed.

      --
      The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
    13. Re:Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they were just anticipating your next evolutionary phase from med size doney cock to full on horse cock.

      On average, donkeys have bigger schlongs than horses. Oh wait, you wrote "doney". Nevermind.

    14. Re:Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      File corruption detected, attempting repair...

    15. Re:Then... by Minupla · · Score: 1

      We're actually going through something very similar at work right now.

      If you've not found https://www.crashplan.com/ yet, you might wanna check them out. They have BYOK options.

      Not associated with them, just evaluated them a couple years back for a similar project.

      Min

      --
      On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
    16. Re:Then... by cstacy · · Score: 1

      SpiderOak

    17. Re:Then... by flargleblarg · · Score: 2, Informative

      So to have Google backup all my computer data? No thanks.

      Google cannot "backup" your data.

      "Backup" is a noun. You do a backup. Do do not backup something.

      "Back up" is the verb you want. You back up something. Google backs up all your computer data.

    18. Re: Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Google backed up my Bible I swear that's all it was.

      Ezekiel 23:20
      There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

    19. Re:Then... by gitano_dbs · · Score: 1

      take a look at https://spideroak.com/ they claim zero knowledge

    20. Re: Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, fuck. That explains it. I have a softcopy of the koran and the bible along with hundreds of others books. Now googlw keeps showing ads alternatively for virgins for hire and "altar cleaning services"!

    21. Re: Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With Chrome no less!

    22. Re:Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My data is all backupped.

    23. Re:Then... by just+another+AC · · Score: 1

      So to have Google backup all my computer data? No thanks.

      Google cannot "backup" your data.

      "Backup" is a noun. You do a backup. Do do not backup something.

      "Back up" is the verb you want. You back up something. Google backs up all your computer data.

      But Google CAN be pedantic. And you can be wrong.

      you can call for backup to back you up (extended from a military sense).

      Technically, the verb should be phrasal verb back up, with a space, and the noun back-up. This is because up is a function word so it can't really be combined.
      If you consider the past tense of such a verb, have you backed up your files?, I think it becomes clear that there must be a phrasal verb at play here - unless people do actually say 'have you "backupped" your files?

      So please dismount from that overly high horse.

    24. Re:Then... by starsky51 · · Score: 1

      That must really get your backup

      --
      There are 2 types of people in this world. Those who understand ternary and those who don't.
    25. Re: Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn...
      So good I can hardly breathe.

      And you have a dirty mind.

    26. Re:Then... by flargleblarg · · Score: 1

      But Google CAN be pedantic. And you can be wrong.

      Except that nothing I said above was wrong.

      you can call for backup to back you up (extended from a military sense).

      Correct. That doesn't contradict anything I said. The noun is backup and the verb is back up.

      So please dismount from that overly high horse.

      Nothing overly high about it.

    27. Re:Then... by JohnFen · · Score: 1

      Or go with the easier solution of just not using it.

    28. Re: Then... by slashdotwannabe · · Score: 1

      No porn like bible porn! A little dry perhaps, but definitely inventive!

      --
      This comment is my opinion and does not represent an official position of Donald Trump or others I do not work for
    29. Re:Then... by just+another+AC · · Score: 1

      except the part about backup is accepted language but not technically correct it should be back-up or we should consider backupped correct (which it isn't therefore backup isn't therefore you are ok with language being bastardised and shouldn't try to be a language nazi)

    30. Re: Then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1 on crashplan. Not that expensive. Easy to set up. It just works.

    31. Re:Then... by flargleblarg · · Score: 1

      Backup as a verb is not accepted language, unless you're an idiot.

  8. Nice try, NSA... by LordHighExecutioner · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...but I prefer my NAS!

    1. Re:Nice try, NSA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And I guess that you connect to your NAS through a SNA architecture, isn't it ?!?

  9. Privacy? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wonder how much of your data will be parsed, stored, collated and available to the IRS, NSA and others at their discretion?

    Wish such thoughts were tin-foil conspiracy type things.

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    1. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh just stop with that nonsense! If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

    2. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. -- Richelieu

    3. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your data might not be but hashes will likely be compared and perhaps presence of certain trigger words

    4. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I installed a CCTV wifi home security system in my rental apartment and tested it by viewing each of the cameras from my workplace computer. Forget that I had left one in the bathroom while cleaning the case. That sure got me into a lot of trouble.

    5. Re:Privacy? by Daetrin · · Score: 1

      Google won't make the data available to the government at their discretion! That really is tin-foil conspiracy!

      Your data will actually be parsed, stored, collated, and be made available to Google's targeted marketing AI to maximize revenue.

      The government won't get ahold of the data until they get a secret warrant from a secret court, and _then_ Google will roll over.

      --
      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    6. Re:Privacy? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Got it. Thank you. I stand corrected.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    7. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

      --Joseph Goebbels

    8. Re:Privacy? by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      All of it?

    9. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I feel asleep during the covfefe"

      -- Sir Winston Churchill

    10. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh bullshit. The worst that'll happen to anyone these days will be a fine (assuming the worst is stuff like pirated content). But you can hardly counter that given the fact you know it's pirated.

      If it's anything worse than that (such as a manifesto to destroy the Government), then consider your life choices and if you want to waste them on a futile gesture with the one life you have.

    11. Re:Privacy? by oakgrove · · Score: 1

      Wonder how much of your data will be parsed, stored, collated and available to the IRS, NSA and others at their discretion?

      I would suggest encryption then. At least for the files that are sensitive. I have a dropbox account that I use extensively to transfer stuff between all my devices but there is no way I'd put any plain text document in there without encrypting it first. Been using veracrypt. Works for me but there's always bcrypt which is a good option of you're on Linux.

      --
      The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
    12. Re:Privacy? by schleimkeim · · Score: 1

      Wonder how much of your data will be parsed, stored, collated and available to the IRS, NSA and others at their discretion?

      I don't wonder about that. The answer is: All of it.

    13. Re:Privacy? by NewYork · · Score: 1

      "Everyone has committed a crime, it's about who we decide to prosecute" --KGB

      --
      Casteism
  10. Backing up important data by sinij · · Score: 4, Funny

    This move by Google likely guarantees that porn would be sufficiently duplicated to survive collapse of our civilization.

    1. Re:Backing up important data by torkus · · Score: 1

      Actually, if google is smart (and they usually are) they would de-dupe on a massive scale...while still replicating multiple copies for speed/redundancy.

      That vastly lowers their required storage (oddly enough you aren't the only one with biggestboobz.mp4) and lets them continue offering more 'space' that doesn't cost them nearly as much as it looks like it would.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    2. Re:Backing up important data by torkus · · Score: 1

      Trolling aside, if you don't encrypt and a certain file gets flagged as kiddie-pron then it's extremely simple for google to hash files and look to see who else also has that illegal file.

      It certainly simplifies warrantless searching if you upload all your files to a company that specializes in...search.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    3. Re:Backing up important data by dasgoober · · Score: 1

      Porn-stash

    4. Re:Backing up important data by swb · · Score: 1

      I used SugarSync for a while and it must have been deduping because if I copied a widely available .ISO into my folder it would often immediately upload and begin downloading on other synchronized computers.

      I was always kind of curious what their global dedupe ratio was.

      This behavior is not something I have seen Dropbox do.

    5. Re:Backing up important data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RELEVANT

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1218415/

      A prolonged Internet service outage hits South Park...

    6. Re:Backing up important data by WeezulDK · · Score: 1

      "if you don't encrypt and a certain file gets flagged as kiddie-pron then it's extremely simple for google to hash files and plant that illegal file on any political enemies' backups and call the FBI."

      There, I FTFY.

  11. Google isn't trustworthy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously why should I put all of my personal files on Google or any other companies machines when they can easily decide who can access them behind my back. Forget that garbage.

    1. Re: Google isn't trustworthy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine you are Creimer. Dude is poor, but still feels a need to continually buy new hard drives and maintain a raid 6 home nas server and burn dvds to distribute off site. Waste of money, and he could be using the time to write more amazon books.

      Even if you don't like the idea of government surveillance, in real life the only negative consequence will be Google more highly targeted ads.

  12. I hope it can bake up my joke video by cuthead · · Score: 1

    if I have time to view those joke video with joker

    1. Re:I hope it can bake up my joke video by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Why do you want to bake a video?

      Wait, how does that even work?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  13. Re:Nice try, NSA... encrypt by charliemerritt03 · · Score: 1

    Full (disk, partition, folder) encryption. Let Google store all the encrypted bytes they want. Let NSA do what they do - analyze

  14. 30TB, good luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My computer has over 30TB of used-up space. I'm sure this will work just fine with my 250KB upload Internet connection.

  15. No, it won't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No text.

  16. Thanks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thanks NSA for the free hard drives!! Signed, Google

  17. Backup to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Backup to NSA service

  18. Considering what Amazon did earlier this month... by itsme1234 · · Score: 1

    I don't think Google wants to get into the business of saving crap for nothing (or pennies).

    For reference: https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

  19. p.e.n.i.s. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    proprietary extrusion networking integrated system

    a new protocol was born

  20. Google Enables Surveillance for Whole Computer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There, IFTFY.

  21. Great, let's give our lives to Google by evolutionary · · Score: 1

    Yeah, let's put our ENTIRE history up for grabs, people can analyse our private lives and preferences, create ad campaigns, have NSA predict our movements, have governments predict our actions and political preferences and take steps to keep us in ignorance at best, or coerce us into submission at worst. Let's all create a world where our intellectual/psychological profiles can be used by marketing and politically interested parties, infiltrating our private lives as well as public lives to the point we are nothing more than cattle being moved around on the grazing fields. Are people truly so ignorant that we just give away everything about ourselves for the sake of convenience? Cell phone apps (with the data they extract, often without phone owner's knowledge) are bad enough. But this...Windows 10 of course contributes to this too (which we should all be shunning in favor of Linux (Linux Mint is the user friendly fave distro), but to upload your ENTIRE computer drive contents to a data mining company.... Wow, just...wow.

    --
    "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
    1. Re: Great, let's give our lives to Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Got a smartphone? Maybe a regular poster on Facebook?

    2. Re: Great, let's give our lives to Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neither.

  22. Anything win10 can do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google can do better...

  23. Hell No! by dyfet · · Score: 1

    Does this come with already baked in support for NSA prism selectors, too?

  24. Android first, maybe? by Imazalil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, um, maybe Google could actually roll this out to android first so that users have a proper full device backup. Just an idea?

    Also, Yay, now both Microsoft & Google get all may data.

    1. Re:Android first, maybe? by pimproot · · Score: 2

      My android devices are currently backing themselves up to Google somehow, and I've restored the entire phone from backup with almost no problem. There were only a few apps I had that didn't support this, causing me to have to reconfigure them or transfer settings another way.

    2. Re:Android first, maybe? by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

      Google already backs up Android devices, and has done so for several years now. When you buy a new Android phone, one of the setup prompts asks you if you want to enable backup for your phone. I've done so, and been able to move from one phone to another, taking nearly all my data with me. It even backs up most of the installed apps.

    3. Re:Android first, maybe? by Imazalil · · Score: 1

      My understanding is that, yes, Android does have a mechanism for apps to back their data up (and restore that data to a new device, etc), but it is not a system wide "full" backup of the device. In essence, it's the "nearly" part that is annoying.

      I would like both, a full device backup snapshot - the os, the temp files, the apps, etc, and, the app specific backups as well.

  25. Any folder? by apoc.famine · · Score: 3, Funny

    Google will be able to monitor and backup files inside of any folder you point it to.

    Even /dev/urandom?

    --
    Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    1. Re:Any folder? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no linux support!

    2. Re:Any folder? by rastos1 · · Score: 1

      If you ever loose /dev/urandom just drop me a line and I'll send you my copy.

    3. Re:Any folder? by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      If your copy is an exact replacement for mine, something's very wrong.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
  26. Versioning? by grasshoppa · · Score: 2

    Putting aside the notion of google and privacy issues, current google drive doesn't do file versioning. That, alone, tanks the notion of using it for "backups", although it's a pretty convenient file sharing tool.

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    1. Re:Versioning? by pimproot · · Score: 1

      What's wrong with the "manager versions" drop down they have at drive.google.com ?

      https://support.google.com/dri...

    2. Re:Versioning? by grasshoppa · · Score: 1

      Ha! What's wrong with it is apparently I've never actually used the web interface.

      Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

      --
      Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    3. Re: Versioning? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stick with it.

    4. Re:Versioning? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Well that sucks. I'm used to MozyPro through a reseller where retention is 90 days of versioning. Per GB, it's expensive, but you get what you pay for. I can't see a versioning-less cloud backup solution is of any use it your primary data get's whacked by ransomware only to have the backups overwrite the good data in the cloud.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    5. Re:Versioning? by sbrown7792 · · Score: 1

      Take a look at Duplicati.
      It's a backup software (been in 'beta' for years, but it works) that can use all sorts of backends, gDrive included. Encryption support (privacy issues no more), versioning support, multiple backup sets, scheduling, etc.

    6. Re:Versioning? by grasshoppa · · Score: 1

      Turns out I was wrong; google drive does keep versions, you just have to use their web interface.

      However, Mozy is overly expensive and complex. I use backblaze. It's 5 bucks per computer per month...period.

      --
      Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
    7. Re:Versioning? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Do you have an opinion of CrashPlan? I've heard good things about it, but that's all.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  27. I would like it to back up /dev/random. by toonces33 · · Score: 1

    There is a lot of important stuff there that I wouldn't want to lose.

  28. All the better to surveil you with, my dear! by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    So it's come to this? They expect/encourage you to DIRECTLY give them all your Most Persona and Private Data? WTF, Google!? What's next, "Let us store all that banking and credit card information for you!". Fuck that shit. Glad I have nothing to do with any Google services that require a sign-in.

  29. s/will soon/will soon offer to/ by dmomo · · Score: 1

    FTFY

  30. Your entropy source? Jackpot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Feed it your entropy source?

    Jackpot of all jackpots.

  31. How long with that last? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'll bet they shut it down in a few years and everyone will bitch about Google shutting down yet another service...

  32. Boris says by XXongo · · Score: 2

    Boris: "We need an insidious plan to steal the private data from the Americans, every single one!"
    Natasha: "Well, why don't we just ask them to give it to us?"
    Boris: "You think that would work?"
    Natasha (long pause): "We could say 'please'."

  33. MS by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    I'd sooner trust Microsoft with my data in Azure. As people have been mentioning, I wouldn't be surprised if they randomly just pulled the plug with little notice, probably after they realize that most of the interesting stuff is encrypted and/or unprofitable.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  34. Have we learned nothing over the years? by Etcetera · · Score: 1

    Holy shit, it's like we've forgotten about the major privacy implications of the first version of this: Google Desktop

    Many privacy and civil liberties groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have concerns that personal information on people's computers could readily be copied from users' hard drives.

    Google Desktop version 3 contains certain features that raise serious security and privacy concerns. Specifically, the share across computers feature, which introduces the ability to search content from desktop to desktop, greatly increases the risk to users' privacy. If Google Desktop V.3 is set to allow Search Across Computers, files on an indexed computer are copied to Google's servers. The potential for information stored on their computers to be accessed by others if they enable this feature of Google Desktop v. 3 on their computers should be seriously considered. The EFF advises against using this feature.[17] Also, those who have confidential data on their work or home computers should not enable this feature. There are privacy laws and company policies that could be violated through the installation of this feature, specifically, SB 1386, HIPAA, FERPA, GLBA and Sarbanes-Oxley.

    Other more far reaching concerns arise around the packaging and end user license agreement – specifically the level of intrusion on the local machine and the disclaimers that users implicitly agree to future changes in the license agreement without actually being able to see them immediately. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Desktop#Privacy

    --
    Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
    1. Re:Have we learned nothing over the years? by scdeimos · · Score: 1

      We've learned, but millennials and other up-and-comings clearly haven't. Watching the nightly news gives you plenty of samplings of the stupid stuff they post to Facebook and such. We're not Google's target audience.

  35. Standard NSA Practice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wonder how much of your data will be parsed, stored, collated and available to the IRS, NSA and others at their discretion?

    Wish such thoughts were tin-foil conspiracy type things.

    I thought the NSA/ISP/Google were already doing this once we all started using always on Internet connections. Starting with just full file listings from our HDs and then including certain interesting files and over time everything copied from our HDs a little over time. Sending bursts of our data at the same time we are already using the net for other things so that it isn't obvious and with ISPs not counting the special packets against any data usage limits.

  36. Won't work. by DidgetMaster · · Score: 2

    Let's assume for a second that you actually would want all your important stuff backed up to the Google cloud (I don't). This kind of thing almost never works. File systems allow you (and the applications you run) to store a file almost anywhere in the directory tree. You can create new folders all the time. Maybe you have found a way to make sure ALL your important stuff gets saved to a few folders that are backed up and that some huge file containing unimportant data never gets put there, but I have found file systems woefully lacking in this area. You also have to make sure all your important folders get listed in the backup list, otherwise you end up missing something. I create huge test files all the time on my system and the last thing I would want is those files pushed up to the cloud. They would eat up bandwidth and storage space and I don't care about the data in them.

    1. Re:Won't work. by umafuckit · · Score: 1

      So don't make your huge test files in a directory that is being monitored for back up. This extends to any similar back up system, not just this one.

      --
      soylentnews.org
    2. Re:Won't work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure about this google system, but if you make a partition for your test files and mount it somewhere within your home folder (/home/user/test or wherever) and instruct your backup program not to follow symlinks, then you're good.

    3. Re:Won't work. by DidgetMaster · · Score: 1

      So...before you create any file, you have to check your list of backup folders to make sure you are not creating something in one of them you don't want to back up. If your directory tree has a few million files spread across 10,000 folders, this task can be very daunting.

  37. Fk no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nope. Nope. Nope. No no No fk no.

  38. Two Masters? by Prof+G · · Score: 1

    Google continues its efforts to learn all that is known by MS.

  39. Yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hmm, so with a coax cable upload speed of about 300kbytes and a RAID array of about 28TB that should take me about what... 3 years?

    1. Re: Yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's only for the initial backup though. After that it's all downhill. Besides in 3 years the Trump infrastructure investments will have raised your upload speed to 100Mb/s (I assume with 300K upload you're in the US).

  40. If I wanted to live in Nazi Russia I would by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    Google that.

    I'll settle for my Linux blade servers and 1000 Gbps port, thanks.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  41. No it won't by Trogre · · Score: 1

    A cloud service run by an advertising company backing up my computer?

    Like hell it will.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  42. Sounds like Mega.nz... by matbury6017 · · Score: 1

    ...but with much less free storage and no end-to-end encryption

  43. If it's free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it's free and unlimited TBs I'd do it.
    Until then, I'll keep using crashplan which is unlimited for $60 a year.

  44. Not sharing with Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't see a need as yet to use cloud storage of any kind. But if I did decide to it would not be with Google. I would most likely choose a third party with a dedication to securing my data and not sifting through it.

  45. Encrypt and split between two different clouds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since there are now multiple players in the "cloud backup" business, how about an application that will encrypt my data then split it between two completely different providers. I *might* actually use cloud services if we had something like this...

  46. "Entire" computer? by Gumbercules!! · · Score: 1

    Typical Verge. "Documents, desktop, pictures" = "entire computer".

    No. No it doesn't. When someone says "entire computer", I think "that means the entire computer" not "that means my documents". Google Drive cannot backup c:\windows\ or other locked / key files. The title of this article makes it sound like this is a full disk backup, which it's most certainly not - all they're letting you do is change the directory Google Drive syncs. ownCloud has done this for literally years.

    TheVerge is supposed to be a tech site but they don't seem to understand much outside of fashion blogging.

    1. Re:"Entire" computer? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Good to know. So, it won't provide a full BMR backup set. It only lets you choose whatever directories contains user data. Though with the OS and common program files (MS Office, Adobe suite for example) being de-duplicated, it's not like it would make that much extra of a dent in storage use. Temp file and browser cache would however as those get pretty unique and large per machine; and it's those you can't de-deduplicate!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  47. Good place for my illegal downloads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now I can get them all off my PC and google is on the hook for that. Yipeee

  48. Whether you want them to or not. by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    nuf sed

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  49. Google Drive? by wkwilley2 · · Score: 1

    No, no it will not.

    --
    Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
  50. ha ha ha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    all your files are belong to us!

  51. 15 GB max by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 1

    That doesn't even cover what in my Documents folder.

  52. Don't know how this will work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have about 30TB of data and most of my friends have about 10TB some 50TB and a few with about 5TB, how are you going to get that amount of data into the cloud over a 25Mb or 50Mb connection. It would take months and months to upload and most likely go over your cap (if you have one). Next is Google going to just give me 40TB of space??? I don't think so. Next is this super encrypted and hidden in a way Google knows nothing about my contents, the admins have no access to it, I have invoices and very confidential data that should never be seen by anyone but me and my clients. This has failure written all over it.

  53. Oh yeah by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    "Google Drive Will Soon Back Up Your Entire Computer" ...whether you want it to or not.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  54. NAS? NSA. by AgNO3 · · Score: 1

    I keep my files where most people do, at the NSA, why use a middleware solutuin like Google when you can just to straight to the source.

    --
    OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink :-(
  55. Linux client? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And will we now get a Linux client for this?

    captcha: search

  56. Competitor to Carbonite? by indytx · · Score: 1

    If Google plans to sell this service and have decent encryption, then it could be a good competitor for Carbonite.

    --
    Make love, not reality television.
  57. FFXI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I shall back up my "Final Fantasy XI" folder. I'm not too worried about backing up much else, but the next time I reinstall that game, I would rather pull updates from Google's server than Square-Enix's POL servers.

  58. No, it won't. by JohnFen · · Score: 1

    I don't trust Google Drive with any file of mine, let alone my entire computer.