The key issue when backing up or restoring using the HFS Storage Protect service from outside the University network is the speed of the connection whilst you are running the VPN software. In some broadband packages, the upload speed may be a third or even a quarter of the download speed: this is important to note because data being backed up is by definition being uploaded. You may therefore wish to try out backing up with Storage Protect and assess the backup speed. If you need to back up gigabytes of data you may find that this is only possible over a wired or wireless connection on the University network. Once your initial backup is complete, you can thereafter back up over VPN for the small incremental backups of files as they change over time.
It also worth noting that, as part of the backup process, an HFS Storage Protect server sends a list of files which have been previously backed up to the machine performing a backup. This list is then compared with the files found on your disk(s) to determine which files have been changed, created or deleted. Thus, if you select one or more directories for backup which contain millions of files, a list of all these files will need to be downloaded every time you run a backup, which can take a substantial amount of time.