Selecting an Android Cloud Backup Service

Submitted by Bill Anderson on 08/23/2013 - 22:02.

The last place you ever want to store your backup files is on your Android device's internal storage or external storage. If your Android device is lost or stolen, you lost your backup files. If your device does not have external storage, a factory reset wipes out your internal storage backup files. Unless you encrypted the backup file, a thief only needs a copy of your backup files to capture your data. Samsung mobile device owners can use Kies to backup their mobile device to a Windows, or Mac, machine. Samsung Kies, or equivalent software from other vendors, is not automated, and requires that you have access to the machine running Kies. Unless you are extremely disciplined, manual backups are rarely done. If anything happens to your Kies machine, you lost your backups. For those that use adb (Android Debug Bridge), you can use adb to backup your files. However, the stock adb cannot run as root, so your backups are limited to files accessible as a user. Storing your backup files with a cloud service allows automated backups, reliability, and easy retrieval.
This article is a supplement to the article on Android Device Backups. The focus of this article is selecting a cloud storage service for storage of backup files. As mentioned in the above article, there is a difference between backups that have no root access, and those that have root access. Since most Android mobile devices do not have root access, the discussion begins with this topic.

Backups with NO root access

As discussed in the previous article on Android backups, account synchronization services are a form of almost continuous backup. The primary synchronization services are those for your Google and Samsung accounts.

• For Google, the key services are: Sync App Data (does not include secure data), Sync Chrome, Sync Contacts (only Google contacts), Sync Drive (15 GB limit), Sync Gmail, Sync Google Photos (shared photos), Sync Google+, and Sync Google+ Auto Backup.
• Google+ Auto Backup stores your photos and videos in a private album. You can then share them from this album to Google+. Google Drive and Google+ Auto Backup share the same storage. If 15 GB is not sufficient, you can purchase 100 GB for $4.99 USD per month.
• The Samsung account provides for synchronization of these key services: Sync Contacts (only Samsung contacts) and Sync S Memo.
• The Samsung Backup and restore features allows you to backup Logs, Messages (SMS), Messages (MMS), and Wallpaper. It is an automated backup, but only performs the backup when the phone is on the charger, connected to WiFi, and the screen is off. The timing rules result in the backup being performed on a very irregular basis.

The following cloud services also provide for synchronization:

• Dropbox provides an option to automatically upload photos and videos taken with the device's camera. Anything that you place in a Dropbox folder is automatically synchronized. Unless you have a special offer, such as the Samsung 50 GB for two years, the initial space provided is 2 GB. For those that require a additional space, the beginning price is $9.99 USD per month for 100 GB. Dropbox encrypts your files with 256-bit AES encryption, and supports Google's 2 tier authentication.
• SugarSync provides an option to automatically upload photos and videos taken with the device's camera. Any file placed in the Magic Briefcase is also synchronized. Although the link is hard to find, there is a 5 GB free account. Their standard offer is a 30-day free trial for plans that start at 60 GB for $7.49 USD per month. SugarSync uses 256-bit AES encryption.
• Box does not provide any synchronization options. The free account starts with 10 GB of storage, with 100 GB of storage costing $5 USD per month. Box uses 256-bit AES encryption.

Except for the synchronization of photos and videos, Dropbox and SugarSync do not provide a backup service. For this, you need a backup app, such as:

• avast! Backup is an extension for those that use avast! Mobile Security. The free version of avast! Backup only backs up contacts, SMS, call logs, and photos, but not videos. For music and videos, you need the premium edition of avast! Mobile Security, which costs $14.99 USD per year.
• Helium (previously known as Carbon) backups all information, including apps, that do not require root access. For apps, the information available is essentially the same as that provided by Google's Sync App Data. You have a choice of storing the backup file on either Dropbox or Google Drive. However, you need the premium edition for automated backups and to restore the data from a cloud, which costs $4.99 USD. You must install the free edition first, as the premium edition is just a key that unlocks the premium features. 
• G Cloud Backup allows you to backup your contact, SMS messages, call logs, documents, settings, photos, music, and videos. When backing up contacts, it backs up all contacts including those synchronized from Facebook, Skype, LinkedIn, or any other social network. From their Web site, you can view your contacts, call logs, messages, and photos. You can download contacts, call logs, messages, and documents. G Cloud Backup backs up documents from both the internal storage and external storage. G Cloud Backup comes with 1 GB of free space. Additional storage starts at $16 a year for an additional 16 GB.

For those without root access, I recommend G Cloud Backup as the best choice. You can conserve space, by using Google+ Auto Backup, Dropbox, or SugarSync to automatically store your photos and videos. It all depends on how much space you need. I sync my music with my PC, as I have over 2000 songs on my external SD card. It would take too long to backup this amount of data over the Internet. By syncing photos and videos to Dropbox, I can perform nightly backups using G Cloud Backup, without backing up photos, videos, and music.

Backups with Root Access

A complete backup of applications requires root access. Apps are divided into three categories: system apps, protected apps, and normal apps. Protected apps and normal apps are downloaded apps. Protected apps include Box, Google Authenticator, Google Earth, and LastPass. A backup utility may not backup all three categories. The backup utility needs to just backup the app data, as the downloaded application, itself, is available from Google Play. Backing up the app to cloud storage is a waste of storage space, and dramatically increases the backup time. Following are the app backup utilities that I recommend:

• G Cloud Apps Backup is a key that unlocks the apps backup feature of G Cloud Backup. The key costs $5.45 USD and comes with an additional 4 GB of storage. G Cloud Apps Backup covers both protected and normal apps.
• Helium charges $4.99 USD for the key to restore the apps, and you must install the free version first. Helium automatically detects if the device has root access. Consequently, there is not a separate version for rooted devices. Helium only backs up normal apps to either Google Drive or Dropbox. There is an option for backing up apps plus data, or just data. You just need to backup the data, as Helium prompts you to download the app from Google Play.
• Titanium Backup Pro Key costs $6.18 for the key to premium features. You must install the free version to activate the key. TB uses Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive as cloud servers. By default, Titanium Backup includes apps plus data for system, protected and normal apps. There is an option for each category that limits the backup to just app data.

There are apps that should be excluded from any backup:

• Feat VPN contains sensitive credential information that should not be stored in a backup file. This data is easily recreated, so there is no needed to create a backup.
• The LastPass login and credentials should never be part of a backup. It is better to create a secure copy of this information, and include it as part of a data backup.
• Samsung Account, S Suggest, Samsung Cloud Data Relay, Samsung Hub, Samsung Like, and Samsung Push Service are recreated when you login into your Samsung account.

Selecting a backup utility for applications is more complicated, as it depends on individual needs. Following are my comments:

• Titanium Backup Pro is an application management utility that also is a backup utility. It is the preferred app by many developers, and often used with custom firmware. In my opinion, TB is an app for the advanced user, who needs the extra features.
• Helium is limited to backing up normal apps, and not protected apps. The free version does backup and restore apps using either internal storage or external storage. You can backup to a cloud server or PC, with the free version. However, you need the premium version to restore these files.
• Neither Helium for Titanium Backup have their own cloud server. Instead they use Box, Dropbox, or Google Drive. The advantage of Dropbox and Google Drive is that they support Google's 2-tier authentication.
• G Cloud Apps Backup backs up both normal and protected apps. With the extra 4 GB of space provided by G Cloud Apps backup, there is plenty of space for app data. As mentioned above, you can always sync photos and videos to Dropbox, Google+ Auto Backup, or SugarSync. G Cloud backs up both internal storage and external storage.

If G Cloud Backup supported 2-tier authentication, it would be the clear winner. My solution to this is to store sensitive information in either Google Drive, or Dropbox, folder. For backups prior to flashing new firmware, I still use Helium to store the backup on external storage. For regular backups, I use G Cloud App Backup for the following reasons:

• The Web interface provides a way to view backups from a non-Android device.
• The extra cloud storage space frees space on other cloud services for photos and documents. I use Dropbox to store all documents that I do not want to risk losing, and I do use 2-tier authentication.
• Since it backups up both normal and protected apps, G Cloud App Backup reduces the amount of work required to restore a new device in case of lost or theft.
• If a firmware update manages to reformat the external storage, I still have a backup on G Cloud Backup.
• If a device is returned for service, I have a backup to restore the device after a factory reset.
• Automatic backups means I don't have to remember to perform the backup.

Regular backups are part of an overall strategy to preserving your data in case of loss, theft, damage, or failure of your Android device. By balancing backups with storing data on cloud services, you can both protect your data from loss, and share it to other devices. With so many cloud service offering automatic synchronization of photos and videos, it is easy to waste bandwidth, and battery power, by sending them to multiple cloud servers. To protect access to cloud services, you need strong and unique passwords, and, when available, 2-tier authentication. While 256-bit AES encryption is important, it cannot protect you against poor passwords. When was the last time you made a backup of the data on your mobile device?

http://www.all-things-android.com/content/selecting-android-cloud-backup-service