Remote Backup Service - Disadvantages

Disadvantages

Remote backup has some disadvantages over traditional backup methods:

• Depending on the available network bandwidth, the restoration of data can be slow. Because data is stored offsite, the data must be recovered either via the Internet or via a disk shipped from the online backup service provider.
• Some backup service providers have no guarantee that stored data will be kept private — for example, from employees. As such, most recommend that files be encrypted.
• It is possible that a remote backup service provider could go out of business or be purchased, which may affect the accessibility of one's data or the cost to continue using the service.
• If the encryption password is lost, data recovery will be impossible. However with managed services this should not be a problem.
• Residential broadband services often have monthly limits that preclude large backups. They are also usually asymmetric; the user-to-network link regularly used to store backups is much slower than the network-to-user link used only when data is restored.
• In terms of price, when looking at the raw cost of hard disks, remote backups cost about 400 times per GB what a local backup would.