Newie Q: Can I use BH as backup / storage for non-web related files?

[Schelly]

Originally Posted by Early Out

Good point, and I can see that you're absolutely right.

I really do like you. Great discussion!

[Early Out]

Originally Posted by tbeta

Is it possible to do some sort of drive mapping? I use various Windows machines at different locations, and it would be great if I could just "map" a drive on each of them to a shared/mounted drive under my Bluehost hosted account.

I would have thought that was possible, but I can only get partway there. Launch Windows Explorer, and go to the address bar (if you don't see it, right-click in a blank area in the menu bar, and choose it). Enter ftp://bhuserid@bhuserid.com/public_html (where bhuserid is your Bluehost user ID, which, in turn, corresponds to your domain name). It should prompt you for a name and password - check the "save password" box, so Windows Explorer will reconnect you automatically the next time.

At that point, you can treat your BH space just like any other drive or directory within Windows Explorer. However, the Map Network Drive won't let me choose it for drive-mapping! So close, and yet....

[alligosh]

Originally Posted by Early Out

Good point, and I can see that you're absolutely right. Even though anything I don't want others to have access to is in password-protected directory, BH wouldn't be able to police that. After all, I could be giving the password to almost anyone.
I'll concede - I'll settle for "no copyrighted material unless you are the owner of that copyright."

I am all for personal rights, including the right to make backup copies of any licensed software. The issue here does involve the ability to police who gets access to what, and if you even have the license to begin with. Even more, I don't think the ISP should even have to police anything, and in an honest and perfect world, we wouldn't have to.

In my opinion (and not that of Bluehost), the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a terrible piece of legislature that aims to protect the owners of copyrights (software, music, video, etc), but treats everyone as guilty before proven innocent. In effect, we have to become even more heavy handed, and appear somewhat sinister in order to comply.

That is why copyrighted material is generally not allowed on the servers. And yes, there are exceptions, like if you are the copyright owner, or if it is licensed to be run on the server (professional web packages, etc).

I just want everyone to be aware that storing backups on the servers can be tricky (legally speaking) where copyrights are concerned.

[alligosh]

Also, please be carefull with backups. I had a customer once (at a previous company) that archived his entire hard drive, them split it into small files and emailed them to himself. He then reinstalled windows (and completely wiped his hard drive), then expected to just get his email and restore all his data.

The issue he experienced is that the mailbox only had a 10 MB quota, and bounced the rest of the email, which ended up getting "cleaned" by the spam and virus gateway.

He lost everything.


The point of this story is to just be careful, and never completely depend on a remote service to care more about your data than you do.

Storing data on the server isn't a bad thing, but you should make sure your truly critical files have multiple backups in multiple mediums. CDR, second hard drive, hardcopy, etc.

[kaskudoo]

as for a neat email backup idea, gmail always came in handy.
i use bluehost as virtual drive, but larger files sometimes timeout and thats just a headache. i have this network drive on 2 pcs (win2k) and my mac (osx) and it works fine for everything <10MB .....

as a general backup i use several harddrives (cd's and dvd's just age too fast)

[tbeta]

Originally Posted by Early Out

I would have thought that was possible, but I can only get partway there. Launch Windows Explorer, and go to the address bar (if you don't see it, right-click in a blank area in the menu bar, and choose it). Enter ftp://bhuserid@bhuserid.com/public_html (where bhuserid is your Bluehost user ID, which, in turn, corresponds to your domain name). It should prompt you for a name and password - check the "save password" box, so Windows Explorer will reconnect you automatically the next time.

At that point, you can treat your BH space just like any other drive or directory within Windows Explorer. However, the Map Network Drive won't let me choose it for drive-mapping! So close, and yet....

I have tried this, and have the same problem. In addition, I would prefer to be able to edit files on the sever, i.e. not just FTP protocol. Does anyone know how to do this?

[egtech]

Originally Posted by tbeta

I have tried this, and have the same problem. In addition, I would prefer to be able to edit files on the sever, i.e. not just FTP protocol. Does anyone know how to do this?

Novell has released a utility to public domain called netdrive.exe. They do not support the program, so you will have to do an internet search, and download the last version: 4.1 for Windows. Next you need to setup an ftp user/password on Bluehost. Then config netdrive to go to ftp.yourdomain.com; choose the ftp protocol; then enter the ftp user name and password in the netdrive config, and map it to a drive letter.

You are all set. Remember, ftp is not secure, so your password will be floating around the internet in clear text. Also, I would not directly edit the files on the mapped netdrive, as you are working on a low bandwidth connection, and files are easily corrupted - edit them locally, then drag and drop to update the netdrive copy.

[charlesgan]

Originally Posted by michael p

So can or should I use BH as a backup for non-web related files, such as documents, calendar or address books? What would be the pros and cons? Would this violate some terms of the service agreement? Wouldn't be a lot of stuff.

And if so how would you recommend one sets this up so that the files cannot be randomly accessed by the web at large?

Newbie and a mac user, if that matters.

TIA

Mike

as i understand, you can use it for your website content or media that you might need. even rarely using media.

as long you not use it to store site backup copy, for sample cpanel site backup tar.gz. etc. that will consume up lots of space

[verifone411]

Sorry to update this older thread. A great free windows program that I have seen is cobian backup. This will allow you to specify ftp upload speed, archive to zip with a password, copy to mapped drives and cdrs and more

http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

[ofer4]

Hi, folks -

I realize that this is an old thread, but it appears to be on-topic. Bluehost has changed its Terms of Service (without notice) to specifically ban use of accounts for storage purposes. You can read more details here:
http://bluehostforum.com/showthread.php?t=15396

Suffice it to say that I am unhappy about this change, and it has definitely changed my (otherwise rosy) view of BH.

If you are thinking about using your space for backup purposes, look elsewhere. If you are currently using your space for these purposes, you've been warned!