[zeidrich]

You can manage your own backups, and then you don't have to feel how safe your data is, you can know it.

If you aren't worrying about petabytes of data, you can run your own scheduled backup, take a copy off site, and test it regularly.

With Dropbox, you're right that they have more overall resources, but you also have no way to audit their processes. Other cloud services have lost people data. If you want to be secure in your data, you need a way to audit those processes, so you would need to do it yourself anyways.

If I know I have a known good backup in a fire resistant box off site, I know I'll have access to that data later. If I have data in Dropbox and then the next day it's gone and they don't return my inquiries, that's a possibility. Maybe they get shut down without warning for hosting copyrighted materials like megaupload. Maybe they have been cutting costs by gambling on the safety of your data. Maybe they get attacked and all of their online backups get destroyed, and they don't have an offline copy.

When I look at Dropbox's backup policy they tell me what is backed up, but they don't tell me how. I just have to trust them. But I really know nothing about them.