Cheap and Easy Backup Solutions
I was not a real strong believer of backups , cause i thought i am good to hard drives why would they act against me. And it turned out i was TOTALLY WRONG. Hard drives couldnt care any less if they were in a bad mood and it dawned on me like 6 months ago.
One night i am browsing my sites on my server and i see weird write permission denied errors , even for session data. Now i thought it was a simple glitch , so i went and did a reboot from my control panel provided by The Planet. Next thing i know , the server fails to restart. I put in a ticket and the great support people at the planet tell me that the BIOS isnt detecting any hard drive and i am like .. no no no , that cannt be so! After alot of effort by them they declared it was dead, nothing can be done. They went out of the way for me to check with techs if they can find a way to scrap off any data from the dead HD. But no luck! So i end up loosing about 5 GB of data on that server , with little or no backup. A lesson to be learned was there for me!
So they got the server back up for me with a new HD as soon as humanly possible for them. and the first thing i did was to buy a streamload.com account now known as mediamax.com then i went into my WHM (cPanel/WHN rox , Plesk Sux) and setup a periodic backup via FTP to streamload.com and since then i have been at peace. Atleast all the DB and files will be safe, the server config can be re-done with some pain, thats not a big deal.
So i suggest any of you who have dynamic websites or servers, getting mediamax/streamload account isnt a bad idea at all , even a free account will serve your purpose.
If you have 2 servers , you can swap the backups , backup server 1 on server 2 and vice versa. This way you dont even need a third party solution for backup. The chances of both servers getting kicked in the balls at the same time are really slim , unless goddess of bad luck loves you 
I learned my lesson the hard way , i should have known better after being in this field for like 6 years now. I hope someone who reads this understand the importance of having a backup solution.
November 8th, 2006 at 12:29 am
Since signing to this company, I haven’t been able to use their service.
I’ve asked them so many times for help, but all i get is an automated response. There’s no telephone numbers and their blog has had postings appropriately stopped.
I can’t believe that this company has my money and won’t even help me
November 8th, 2006 at 12:30 am
I would like to post this comment to warn others of MediaMax.
Since joining three months ago (and stupidly paying one year up front), I realised something was wrong when my initial login was met with an error. The company blog then reported that their servers were having some changes made and the error was being fixed.
This was 3 months ago.
Since then, and some 10 ticket requests (customer suppport emails) later, I have heard nothing apart from automated responses.
The company blog is discreetly edited as I saw numerous complaints being shown, only to find the following day these either being ignored or deleted. Interestingly, they have since shut down the ability to post onto their blog.
If you look around, you’ll notice that there are hundreds of unhappy customers - customers asking for refunds which are blindly being ignored by the company.
It saddens me to see the company use CNET, PC World, etc which reviewed their services many months ago, yet aren’t privvy to what’s really happening to the customers.
The best advice is to never trust a company that doesn’t even list a phone number.
Their website looks great, just as a car can look new until you open the hood !
December 4th, 2006 at 9:51 am
DOWN WITH MEDIA MAX BRING BACK STREAMLOAD NO SEACH FUNCTION ARE YOU MAD OR FOOLISH choose one as there was no choice to be CONVERTED to media max if i was on the old streamload set up id be a happy streamload user now i have lost music files work and have been stuck in a situation where i cant use your site as a file back up facility a si cant find them coz of no search function am NO WHERE NEAR A HAPPY USER and if there was an alternative to your service id change right now so the person who make that step will take at least 50 percent of your custom as A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE NOT HAPPY as the board is nt commen knowledge
December 10th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Can i just point out something that C-wise seems to be missing
Up until mediamax (which i might add was a year late) Streamload had a few problems but basically it was a good place for online storage..
Emails were responded to.. i have never over paid and even been given free downloads from them on occasion that i had to complain or had a problem
At Present since the upgrad in august to mediamax the service has become terrible.
Due to the volume of emails they recieve they are clearly finding it hard to respond
I mailed them 3 weeks ago and it took them a while but the other day i got a reply
yet again offering me a few free months as compensation for the loss of propper use of my account
In i have up until august found them pleasant and honest
Now yes its different i am asuming that they thougth everything was ready to go live
only as usually happens they discover some major hiccups.. ones which they never planned on and are taking time to sort out
Yes im angry and annoyed at the lack of communication from them and sometimes i get really annoyed and send them an email ranting about how useless the service is
Your posts are claiming that streamload/mediamax is totally useles.. i would agree with the mediamax.. but defo not streamload thats why folks want it back…
As for their blog pages.. they turned off the response for folks as they went back to the old way the blog was run after the major up/Down grade to mediamax.. at first it was so we could let them know our problems and we did.. some got replies some replies were made for the few that posted the same errors…
As morph2baad has said if there was an alternative folks would be grabbing what they can from their accounts and running but there is nothing like it available at such a reasonable price..
The lack of news from them is i think what is annoying us all most.. they need a forum and some one dedicated to that forum to give us news and respond to posts… thats what i would like to see… maybe even it would help them get the service sorted faster..
Although i dont think it will happen..
And id still prefer the old streamload back sometimes a change is for the best.. mediamax was certainly not one of those changes