LiveDrive terminates Backify contract, users don't have access to their backup

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

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

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

Email sent out by Backify last night<p>"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.<p>In order to prevent your account from deletion, please login into [sic] your account and update your Billing Details.<p>[HUGE GREEN "UPDATE BILLING DETAILS" BUTTON]<p>Once again, we thank you for using Backify. Please update your billing details before November 22, 2011 to continue using the service."

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 <i>all</i> have to die at the same time.<p>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.

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

The following line from the email is a little but more worrying:<p>"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."<p>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.<p>Mixed messages are never good.

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

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!

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.<p>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?<p>"We apologize for any inconvenience..." please rub salt in the wounds. [<a href="http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-outage-language" rel="nofollow">http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1528-the-bullshit-of-outage-l...</a>]

For what it's worth, an off-site backup should not be your only backup. I maintain a three stage backup strategy:<p>* Local full backup using TimeMachine<p>* Remote full backup using Backblaze<p>* Working documents are in a Dropbox folder with my regular Documents folder serving as an archive<p>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.<p>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.

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 &#38; 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.<p>Can anyone confirm the existance of reseller contract?

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

"No contract exists between yourself and Livedrive and we are not able to assist further in any dispute you may have with BACKIFY.COM."<p>This is extremely unprofessional. Just because there is no legal relationship, that doesn't mean you should just cut everybody off.

My laptop runs duplicity once every two hours from cron which does gpg encrypted incremental backups to a network share.<p>My HTPC does the same, but to an external hard drive plugged in via USB.<p>Easy and quick to set up, and I don't have to rely on a third party run service.

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.<p>Even if dropbox disappeared overnight I would have my data.

If anybody's looking for an alternative to backupify, i run a comparison website for other services: <a href="http://skeptu.com" rel="nofollow">http://skeptu.com</a><p>(feedback very welcome)

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

full text of e-mail Livedrive sent:<p>ADVISORY NOTCE FROM LIVEDRIVE REGARDING BACKIFY.COM<p>Dear Firstname lastname<p>We are writing to you regarding BACKIFY.COM who you recently created an online backup account with.<p>BACKIFY.COM was a reseller of Livedrive (<a href="http://www.livedrive.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.livedrive.com</a>) . Livedrive provided the technology and service behind the product offered to you by BACKIFY.COM.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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:<p>On Windows<p>Go to Start &#62; Settings &#62; Control Panel and select Add/Remove Programs (or ‘Programs and settings’), select Livedrive and select uninstall.<p>On Mac<p>Go to Finder &#62; Applications and delete the Livedrive application.<p>Please note that any data you backed up using BACKIFY.COM cannot be retrieved and we recommend you establish an alternative backup service immediately.<p>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 <a href="http://www.livedrive.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.livedrive.com</a>. Please note however that we do not provide a free service as BACKIFY.COM did.<p>Other online backup vendors you may wish to consider include:<p>Carbonite.com<p>iDrive.com<p>Mozy.com<p>We are sorry for the inconvenience this situation may have caused you.<p>Kind Regard<p>Livedrive Limited