Best Web Hosting Service: Brain Host

brainhost-logoI have had the pleasure of being a Brian Host client for a couple months, and I love the customer service and interest in their clients. This is definitely a host that cares!

Why choose Brain Host Web Hosting Service?

Unlimited data transfer, unlimited web space, and unlimited domain hosting. Brain Host web hosting packages also provides tons of free bonuses, like daily spam and spyware scans, free marketing credits, and their easy-to-use site builder. You’ll also get tons of convenient features and tools, like hassle-free FTP accounts, dozens of one-click install applications like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla, and extensive programming language support. Dedicated support staff is available 24/7 via phone, email, and live chat to answer all of your web hosting questions, and they also provide online tutorials, videos, and an extensive Knowledge Base to teach you how to get the most out of your web space. With feature-rich web hosting packages starting at as little as $6.95 per month, they have got a plan for everyone!

Two types of web hosting services:

  • Shared Hosting – With shared hosting, many websites are stored on the same web server, with each site having its own section of the server.
  • Dedicated Hosting – With dedicated hosting you rent out the entire server. This is a great option for large sites that get a lot of traffic. Dedicated hosting also allows you to have more control over your hosting environment, since you’re in control of the server instead of your web hosting provider.

Brain Host Web Hosting Plans:

brainhost-web-hosting-service

Brain Host strives to provide a top of the line web hosting service. Each of their feature-rich hosting plans comes with everything you need to help you manage your web space.

Brain Host Web Hosting Features:

brainhost-features

brainhost-features-bonus

brainhost-features-guarantees

Read More

Data Loss, A Growing Concern For Small Business

data-lossThe growing trend toward bring your own device(BYOD) in the workplace is putting company data at risk, according to a survey by Mozy and Compass Partners. Most (87 percent) small and midsize businesses have no formal policy in place regarding employees’ use of personal devices for work purposes — and 80 percent weren’t even concerned. About 33 percent of companies let employees make their own decisions about how to back up company and client data on their devices, and most companies lack adequate backup or data recovery plans for those devices.

Besides not backing up, employees are engaging in other risky behavior with their personal devices, including not having antivirus protection, leaving laptops alone in coffee shops or other public places, using public computers to access company networks and transferring unencrypted data.

Why it matters to your business: The risk of loss isn’t just theoretical. For example, 11 percent of the survey’s respondents said employee laptops have been stolen in the past, and in 98 percent of those cases, all of the lost data was never recovered. The “bring your own device” trend isn’t going away, but if you allow it, you do need to set some rules to protect your customers’ data, your data — and your business.

About Mozy
Mozy is the world’s most trusted online backup service for consumers and businesses, with more than three million customers, 70,000 business users and 70 petabytes of information stored at its multiple data centers around the globe. Mozy was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2007 and operates as part of Decho Corporation, an EMC company. More information can be found at www.mozy.com

About the Study
The study was executed by Compass Partners LLC, an independent market research firm focused on consumer technology. The study was fielded among 641 business decision makers responsible for the purchase of software and computer related services for small and medium businesses with 1 – 1,000 full-time employees. Field dates were October 24 through November 1, 2011. For each industry vertical sampled (each cell contained a minimum of 100 responses), the margin of error is +/- 9.8% at 95% confidence interval.

Read More

5 Ways to Reduce Hosting Costs

5 Ways to Reduce Hosting CostsWithout a web host, it’s going to be impossible to show your website to the rest of the world. Since there’s no way around a hosting bill, you’re going to have to fork over cash month by month. Thankfully, there are some things that you can do to save on your monthly hosting bill. To make sure that you’re not throwing any of your hard-earned money away, here are five saving tips to consider:

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is a pinch different from a virtual private server, also known as a VPS. A VPS is a server that is your own, where a shared host is shared by hundreds of other customers. If your website is now hosted on a VPS and it doesn’t receive a lot of traffic, consider making the jump to a shared package to save at least 50 percent.

Shop Around

Web hosting pricing packages change. If you haven’t compared prices in at least six months, you may want to shop around. What you may find is that some companies may offer promotional deals or a price that is hard to beat. When choosing a new web host though, just be sure to research the host ahead of time. Know the server up time, customer service and features it offers.

Reduce the Features

Do you have a web host that allows you to store 100 gigabytes? If you’re running a small five-page website that takes up no space, why bother having that much space? Talk with your host to see if they can lower your space and bandwidth. Similar to a cell phone package, the less you need, the less you’ll pay.

Multiple Domains

Do you own more than one domain? If so, hopefully they are hosted all on the same server and not spread across multiple hosting plans. Many hosting companies such as Brain Host allow you to host unlimited domains on one server. This way, you only pay one hosting bill for all your domains. It’s kind of silly to have a hosting account for each domain that you own.

Free Features

How many features does your current web host have? Do they offer free website builders? Do they have free email clients? Many hosting companies today charge extra for additional email accounts, scripts, shopping cart software and other related features. Try your best to get as many free features as possible.

With thousands of web hosts out there, it’s not that hard to find one that can save you a lot of money. By implementing a few of the tips mentioned above, your hosting bill can drop as early as next month.

Read More

5 Ways To Secure Your Data

It’s never been more important to have comprehensive data security. Hacking is on the rise, as is malware and data loss. Many business entities and individuals are investing
major money into ensuring that their information is safe. Here are the top 5 ways to secure your data:

Use cloud services and/or data

centers—More and more companies are securing their data by utilizing online storage in the cloud, or cloud services, in order to centralize data in real time environments. Data centers like the Digital Realty Trust allow companies to colocate their services, host, and use cloud services in order to cut down on data loss and back up their data.

Steganography—Steganography has been around for a while. It involves hiding data inside of files so that they cannot be easily found. This can be as simple as storing programming code within a folder named “Pictures of Lily,” or it can be a complex process of using security schemes to embed data.

Protect your network—This can be cumbersome process but some would say it is crucial to ensuring that your information cannot be accessed by hackers. The first step is to change your wireless router password. Forget about hiding the Service Set Identifier, disabling DHCP, and filtering MAC addresses—these options will do little to actually protect your network. Your best bet is to throw out the WEP network and adopt WPA or WPA 2, which are encryption standards that use 128-bit encryption keys and a Temporary Key Integrity Protocol. This security should include your Xbox, Wii, laptops, and smartphones.

Encrypt your data—Do your own encrypting and make sure that even if a hacker or thief does get a hold of your hardware they won’t be able to access its data. A great option for this is TrueCrypt, a cross-platform software application for natively securing drives and folders.

Acquire browsing and downloading

privacy—Let’s face it, much of your most important data is entered by you as usernames and passwords while you’re browsing the Internet and downloading files. That’s why securing your Internet privacy and downloads is extremely important . Use an anonymous proxy service such as Vidalia in order to hide your online activity. These are five options for securing data. Combined they should provide you with an extremely valuable safety net against hacking, malware, and viruses. Many of these options, such as cloud computing, will include additional benefits like mor

Read More

Imation Launches DataGuard Backup Appliances

Imation Launches DataGuard Backup AppliancesDataGuard R4 and T5R appliances are suitable for many cloud-storage APIs, including individuals from Amazon . com S3, Dropbox and OpenStack-based cloud companies.

Scalable-storage and data-security company Imation Corp. (New york stock exchange: IMN) introduced purpose-built backup appliances designed to enable small , midsized companies (SMBs) to safeguard their information with multiple amounts of data protection from one backup infrastructure. The DataGuard Model R4 and Model T5R appliances use hard disk drives, detachable RDX disk tubes, replication and cloud storage to deliver data protection for budget-conscious companies. The appliances can be found through Imation’s network of funnel partners.

Using DataGuard R4 or T5R appliances, SMBs can replicate data to another DataGuard appliance at another site or to store off-site on RDX detachable disks. DataGuard appliances also integrate with existing backup and disaster recovery infrastructure, including most backup programs. Additionally, onsite copies are made to enable fast full reinstates to meet recovery-time objectives and off-site copies help ensure quick disaster recovery.

“Imation’s DataGuard appliances are the main thing on addressing the main concerns that SMBs have about safeguarding their data, by enabling customers to make the most of the backup infrastructure they presently have in position, Imation supplies a media-agnostic solution for customers to solve their backup challenges nowadays while serving as a bridge to safeguarding and storing their data within the cloud tomorrow.” stated Jerome Wendt, lead analyst and leader at storage analyst and talking to firm DCIG.

DataGuard R4 and T5R appliances are suitable for many cloud-storage APIs, including individuals from Amazon . com S3, Dropbox and OpenStack-based cloud companies. When a cloud backup is seeded by shuttling RDX tubes, DataGuard supports remote backup copies, and SMBs can automate protection since data backup to cloud storage is carried out with no human intervention once it’s initially set up.

“Cloud is extremely compelling, however the initial data to a cloud service encounters very real limitations – large levels of data and limited bandwidth, this initial transfer – known as cloud seeding – can take days over a web connection, with respect to the data footprint. Imation’s DataGuard appliances eliminate this problem, as clients can physically transport an RDX cartridge to a cloud provider for initial seeding, and integrated software handles periodic inspections to make sure the cloud backup is current.” stated Ian Williams, v . p . of worldwide marketing and product management at Imation.

“Many SMBs are intrigued by cloud computing and comprehend the cost and operational efficiencies that cloud storage can deliver, but struggle to incorporate cloud to their existing backup infrastructure,Imation’s DataGuard solution provides a gateway to the cloud, enabling SMBs to easily safeguard their valuable data.” stated Bill Schilling, director, scalable storage marketing, Imation.

The organization also lately released Imation LTO Tape Libraries as well as provides Imation InfiniVault multi-tiered data-archive appliances and Imation RDX detachable hard-disk storage.

Imation Corp: http://www.imation.com/en-US/

Read More

HDD Capital Spending in 2012 and Beyond

In order to repair the damage to the HDD supply chain from the 2011 Thailand floods as well as meet the increasing need for digital storage the hard disk drive industry must continue to make investments in capital equipment and production facilities.  Future increases in HDD areal density as well as increasing unit sales will drive significant capital spending investments that will impact the revenues of companies such as Anelva, Hitachi High Technologies, Innovative Instruments, Intevac, KLA Tencor, Teradyne, Xyratex, Veeco, and many others in the next few years.

The 2012 Hard Disk Drive Capital Equipment and Technology Report provides 207 pages of in-depth analysis of technology developments and capital equipment spending to sustain the growth and development of the hard disk drive industry.  Some highlights from the 2012 report include:

169% growth in HDD capital spending is expected from 2011 to 2016, driven by three factors:  unit shipment increases of 167%, the introduction of new HDD technologies such as HAMR and the replacement and repair of equipment damaged in the 2011 Thailand floods.

Between CQ4 2011 and CQ4 2012 over $1 B in capital spending is expected to repair or replace equipment and facilities damaged in the Thailand floods.

HDD and component companies have more cash to invest in equipment and technology development in 2012 and 2013, due to higher drive demand, limited drive supply and higher HDD prices.

Total industry spending on capital equipment in 2012 is expected to be about $2.4 B with 72% of this spent on process equipment, 21% on production test and 7% on metrology.

Average HDD capital equipment spending per year between 2008 and 2016 is estimated at about 7.2% of HDD industry revenue, with this percentage increasing in the last years of this period due to new technology introductions.

HDD areal density has slowed to 20-25% annually but 3.5-inch HDDs with storage capacities of 12 TB and 2.5-inch HDDs with 6 TB are expected by 2016.

Lower AD growth will drive more components per drive and thus more capital spending on head and media production equipment in coming years.

Industry consolidation and recovery from the Thailand shortages will result in higher HDD prices than 2011 at least until 2014 and likely HDD prices will flatten out about 10-15% higher than in 2011—this will help fund expensive new technology transitions by 2015-2016 and increase areal density growth rates to 40+% CAGR.

The normal capital equipment cycle will likely be re-established by 2014.  Capital purchases in 2014 and later will be driven by increasing unit demand (assumed 14% annual growth) as well as the introduction of heat assisted magnetic recording in 2015 and 2016.

The 2012 Hard Disk Drive Capital Equipment and Technology Report is now available from Coughlin Associates. To find out more about this report please see the brochure at http://www.tomcoughlin.com/techpapers.htm

Read More

Hard Disk Prices to Remain High Through 2014

While hard drive (Hard disk drive) supplies are beginning to resurge, inventories won’t be back to normal before the third quarter of the year and costs will stay abnormally high through 2014, according to researching the market firms IHS iSuppli and Coughlin Affiliates.

Consequently of flooding in Thailand this past year, Hard disk drive prices will probably increase 20% to 30% over their average pre-ton prices and turn into there through the majority of 2012, Coughlin Affiliates stated in the report today (download PDF).

Hard Disk Prices to Remain High Through 2014

Furthermore, the hard disk manufacturing industry may have to spend about $1 billion to replace and repair manufacturing plants broken through the monsoonal flooding.

Hard disk drive supplies within the 4th quarter of 2011 fell by 26% in comparison to exactly the same period this year, according to IHS iSuppli. Deliveries are positioned to decline by another 13% within the first quarter of 2012 by 5% within the second quarter with an annual basis.

The typical global value for HDDs jumped by 28% within the 4th quarter of 2011, according to IHS iSuppli. While prices will decline by 3% within the first quarter by 9% within the second quarter, they’ll remain inflated for the entire year.

“Prices will stay high for several reasons, such as the greater costs connected using the moving of production, in addition to greater component costs due to flooding impacts among component makers,” stated Fang Zhang, a storage analyst for IHS iSuppli.

PC prices may also be affected because system makers have signed annual contacts with Hard disk drive makers which have locked them into elevated prices deals for that relaxation of the season, Zhang noted.

Furthermore, industry Hard disk drive consolidation could hold prices greater than pre-ton levels for any couple of more quarters because you will find less rivals on the market, IHS iSuppli stated. It had been mentioning to mergers between Seagate and Samsung and between Western Digital and Hitachi GST.

Inside a report launched Friday, iSuppli predicted the Thailand flooding continues to have an affect on inventory and costs until deliveries rise first by 2% within the third quarter, then a 42% surge within the 4th quarter of 2012.

“The recovery of worldwide Hard disk drive manufacturing has started and can continue throughout each quarter of 2012, hard disk drive prices will stay inflated and inventories continues to be depleted, showing that demand is exceeding supply. Demand and supply should return to balance through the finish from the third quarter.” Zhang stated.

Coughlin Affiliates stated the mixture of industry consolidation and Thailand-related shortages, can lead to greater Hard disk drive prices a minimum of until 2014. The greater prices, however, can help fund costly new technology transitions by 2015 or 2016 and increase areal density growth rates by 40%.

The annual rate where hard drive areal densities increase has slowed down recently, Coughlin Affiliates stated.

However, drive capabilities continue to grow due to technology developments for example Warmth-Aided Magnetic Recording (HAMR). While hard disk areal density growth has slowed down, storage capabilities continue to rise: 3.5-in. HDDs with storage capabilities of 12TB and a pair of.5-in. HDDs with 6 B are required by 2016.

Due to reduced areal density growth, user companies may have to save money per gigabyte of drive capacity within the next 2 yrs. The typical hard disk capital equipment investing each year between 2008 and 2016 is believed at about 7.2% of hard disk industry revenue.

Read More

Why Everyone Needs Off-Site Backup

Why Everyone Needs Off-Site BackupA fire swept through the College of Hawaii’s financial management office inside a portable wooden building at its Manoa campus. The Honolulu Star-Marketer reviews (via Chronicle of Greater Education):

Your building houses computerized and paper documents for payroll, vendor obligations and student financial loans for the whole 10-campus, UH system around 60,000 students and 7,000 to 8,000 faculty and staff, stated UH?spokesperson Gregg Takayama.

“A few of the records are backed-on an off campus site, but many aren’t,Inch Takayama stated. “We will not be aware of impact until they are able to get into the office and discover what type of computer records and paper documents could be restored. For the time being it’s a little too soon to say exactly what the immediate impact is.

This can be a indication of among the greatest gaps in computer security — lack of remotely saved duplicate records. It’s well-known that home customers are negligent even about on-site backup copies almost 90 % don’t back up regularly, despite the fact that they have lost data, according to research reported this year. Only one backup is not enough. Fire and storms regularly destroy backup drives, business and private. Companies frequently maintain mirror sites that may be completely up to date just in case of disruption. After September 11, many colleges also recognized the significance of data continuity planning.

The Boss of Cantor Fitzgerald, the buying and selling firm reborn after grievous deficits within the September 11 World Trade Center attack, was questioned through the Telegraph:

Much has transformed within the ten years which have passed, not only for Cantor – which experienced a lot more than every other company on 9/11, losing 658 of their then 1,500 global employees – however for Wall Street in general. For [Howard] Lutnick, the greatest lesson he thinks the road in particular has learnt is the requirement for back-up.

“Young people need serious back-up. They require multiple counter-parties for the stuff that they are doing, they should not just depend on a single monopoly, they ought to have options.”

He argues this lesson makes “the finance industry more powerful and much more sustainable”, hinting that may possibly not have made it the loan crisis been with them not been for 9/11.

May be the cloud the solution? Storing all vital data on remote servers is most likely safer than using home — that’s, if you’re certain your host has condition-of-the-art backup copies of their own and will not be jeopardized by cyberattacks. Since the Defense Department finds the second challenging, I remain skeptical. The large disadvantage for individuals people using more than 100 GB approximately of information — and many new laptops have 320 or 500 GB drives — it’s time it requires for any full initial backup to among the remote services like Mozy and Carbonite. These businesses have admirable records and reasonable subscription prices for satisfaction. However their Frequently asked questions generally avoid talking about how lengthy initial backup copies generally take given most home and small company users’ slow upload speeds — days of 24/7 operation for bigger drives.

Even when you think certainly one of individuals services is better, you still need to back up religiously throughout individuals initial days. It’s a little such as the story dental practitioners tell: “‘Do I’ve to start flossing my teeth?’ ‘Only individuals you would like to keep.'” So children a survivor of two PC failures and check out this technique. Get 2 or 3 exterior portable hard disk drives with room for the data you anticipate for the following couple of years. (Most thumb drives degrade with frequent use and therefore are unacceptable for lengthy-term storage.) Get disk-imaging software which makes a little-for-bit copy of all things in your drive. Test if once you first utilize it and regularly after that. Keep one drive in your own home whatsoever occasions and the other in a remote location much like your place of work or perhaps a family member’s house — encoded should there be a danger of thievery. Enter into the habit of smoking of creating a complete backup whenever you are away for 2 hrs approximately. Swap the remote and residential drives as frequently as you possibly can. I have used Shadowprotect, which enables copying backed-up files to another computer you will find also Norton Ghost and Acronis. Since ordinary people much like me are most likely to want support in carrying out a restoration, make sure to know ahead of time whether there’s an additional charge.

Computing satisfaction is straightforward: Just stay paranoid and compulsive.

Read More

Heat Makes Data Storage Faster

A new way of magnetic recording using heat will allow data processing hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology, – British researchers say.

International research led by the physics department at the University of York found heat could be used to record information onto magnetic media at a much faster rate than current technologies, a York release said Tuesday.

“Instead of using a magnetic field to record information on a magnetic medium, we harnessed much stronger internal forces and recorded information using only heat,” York physicist Thomas Ostler said.

“This revolutionary method allows the recording of Terabytes (thousands of Gigabytes) of information per second, hundreds of times faster than present hard drive technology. As there is no need for a magnetic field, there is also less energy consumption.”

Until now it has been believed that in order to record one bit of information — by inverting the poles in a magnetic medium — there was a need to apply an external magnetic field.

The researchers demonstrated the positions of the poles of a magnet can be inverted by an ultrashort heat pulse, harnessing the power of much stronger internal forces.

“For centuries it has been believed that heat can only destroy the magnetic order, now we have successfully demonstrated that it can, in fact, be a sufficient stimulus for recording information on a magnetic medium.” ” said Alexey Kimel of the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Read More

Cleversafe Launches 10 Exabyte Data Storage System

Enterprises are now routinely storing workloads comprised of terabytes of data, which eventually add up to petabytes of storage. Next stop? Exabytes.

We’re going to be hearing the preface “exa-” as it refers to the data storage industry a lot more as time goes on, so we might as well get used to it.

A current illustration of this point is object-based storage provider Cleversafe, which launched a new multi-rack array system Jan. 30 that can hold billions of objects inside up to 10 exabytes of capacity.

That’s a serious amount of space. While some people describe it as limitless, it isn’t—but it’s pretty close.

For those who would like to see the actual numbers that describe just 1 exabyte, here they are:

1 exabyte = 1,000 petabytes = 1,000,000 terabytes = 1,000,000,000 gigabytes = 1,000,000,000,000 megabytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000 kilobytes = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

Terabyte Loads Now Routine

Enterprises are now routinely storing workloads comprised of terabytes of data, which eventually add up to petabytes of storage. All those packs of petabytes also pile up as time goes on, so what’s the next level of storage needed? Right: exabytes.

Realistically, only the true high-end enterprise systems—such as those deployed by scientific researchers, online game providers, digital video studios, stock markets, government and military installations and high-end financial services companies—are using petabyte-type storage now and will be looking at exabyte-able storage in 2012 or 2013.

But Chicago-based Cleversafe is one storage provider that figures no time is better than the present for planning for the future.

In its new 10-exabyte configuration, Cleversafe uses the same object-based dispersed storage system it developed on its own six years ago; only now it has been expanded to allow for independent scaling of storage capacity through what it calls a “portable datacenter,” a collection of storage and network racks that can be easily deployed or moved.

Each portable datacenter contains 21 racks with 189 storage nodes per PD and forty-five 3TB drives per storage node. This geographically distributed model allows for rapid scale and mobility and is optimized for site failure tolerance and high availability, Cleversafe said.

The company’s own configuration includes 16 sites across the U.S. with 35 PDs per site and hundreds of simultaneous readers/writers to deliver instantaneous access to billions of objects.

Traffic Volumes Increasing at 32 Percent Rate Per Year

“Internet traffic volumes are increasing at a rate of 32 percent globally each year. It’s not unrealistic to think companies looking to mine that data would need to effectively analyze 80 exabytes of data per month by 2015,” said Russ Kennedy, Cleversafe vice president of product strategy, marketing and customer solutions.

“To any company, data is a priceless component. However, it’s only valuable if a company can effectively look across that data over time for trends or to analyze behavior and to do it cost effectively.”

Pricing and other information can be obtained on an individual basis via email or on the Cleversafe Website.

Read More