Our previous post on using Amazon S3 storage service as a personal back-up option was quite popular. Though many pointed out that backing to that service wasn’t all that easy. Jeremy Zawodny has come up with a list of popular tools to help you with all that. Of the lot, the best one from ease of use standpoint seems to be JungleDisk.
Still, if you don’t want to deal with the hassle and are looking for simple solutions, AOL, Box.Net and quite a few other services offer upto 5 GB storage for free. There are some file size restrictions, but hey, they are free.
On the paid side of things, Joseph Scott finds that Dreamhost is actually a better deal than S3, especially if you are dealing in huge amounts of data. Not sure if they are as reliable as S3, so you might have to make that call.
I am currently using this new product offering from Joyent: Bingo Disk which gives you 100 GB of disk available via WebDAV for $199/year. No restrictions. I think it is something worth trying out. And if you do, use the code “gigaom” during the check-out process as Promo Code and you get $20 off the first year.
I have also been researching online backup and found Carbonites service at $5 a month for unlimted backup excellent. I now have over 50GB backed up. Not sure if they are using S3 but I suspect so.
If you use this link you get a free extra month when signing up for the first year. Link
Oops – the link http://www.carbonite.com/raf/signup.aspx?RAFUserUID=14461&a=0
I’ve been using Mozy for a few weeks and really like it. 2 gigs are free, but 30 gigs only sets you back $4.95 a month. It’s also a really simple set up.
Defintely worth a look… http://mozy.com/
I would NOT recommend Dreamhost.
1.) No phone number. Try Googling Dreamhost and phone number. It’s kind of funny. It was a total pain in the butt to get in touch with them. It would take 48 hours for a reply that wouldn’t answer my question, another email, another 48 hours.
2.) About a month ago we were booted without warning due to too many connections. We were using just over 10% of the bandwidth we were allocated and 10% of the webspace we were allocated. There is no way to know how many connections you have at once. There was no way they could upgrade us, they said.
3.) Their control panel is clunky.
That said, yes, they’re cheap. If you’re going to just park files, then it should be fine, unless you have 200 connections an hour.
Jungle Disk IS easy, but
filicio (online access, even sharing) is even easier and
sync2s3 is just as simple.
I agree with ScottW’s comments on Mozy. I’ve been using them for over 6 months now and the backup process has been very smooth. They’ve also been consistently releasing updates to the software. I’ve also been experimenting a bit with Jungle Disk and I like it so far. Mozy is set up to be completely automated though which is mandatory IMO for backing up crucial data. It has been giving me hiccups on my large 1GB+ Outlook pst file though.
I have been doing remote backup for several years now, I’ve tried .Mac, @Backup, Carbonite and recently Mozy. They all have their good features and I always got to the point that either the price or the service made me not renew my subscription. I have got to say that BackupRight has been working for me and the pricing is tough to beat for what you get.
I just want to warn users before they get all excited that JungleDisk since it’s still very buggy. It is very Alpha software and has many bugs which can snag you and make uploading GBs a royal pain. It errors out and doesn’t continue, hangs, has caching issues, etc. It is just simply not robust or reliable yet.
Eventually it will become a worldclass client for using S3, but for now consider yourself warned that many people find it to be buggy and it will probably not work for you at one point or another.
The other cheap and cheerful service, Carbonite, works well BUT they have an aweful security policy that leaves your data at great risk. Unless you encrypt your data BEFORE you upload it Carbonite is NOT a safe service to use. Their CEO, DB admin, and who knows all have direct access to your data. If the DB admin get pissed think of how much damage he can do? If their server gets hacked think of how screwed you will be all because Carbonite keeps a database of all the keys to everyone’s data available to their staff.
Do not I repeat do NOT use any service which does not let you encrypt your data with your own private key. S3 offers it both ways but if you’ve even been paying the slightest bit of attention to how invasive the Gov has gotten, you’ll agree that putting your encryption key where a company can get to it is a major no no.
Thank you for the link to Bingo disk! I’m glad I came back to this older post. I was looking for an inexpensive WebDAV server that didn’t require a web interface for our organization’s Acrobat 8 shared reviews. We don’t need that much space, so the 25 GB version does the job nicely and with the promo code, for only $44 per year. I just needed a WebDAV server that works from the OS X Finder and XP Network places that I didn’t have to host locally…this is perfect. Everything else I looked at charged a higher fee. I was even considering .Mac at one point. Thanks again, boss man. 🙂
Has anyone checked out Tilana Reserve?
Tilana Reserve…
– protects files securely, off-site
– syncs file between your computers
– includes Web access
– keeps versions when you save
– archives deleted files
– makes it easy to retrieve files
– works in the background
You can use Tilana Reserve on as many computers as you want. The software doesn’t cost anything – just download it for free from the website.
Whenever you create a file, or save changes, Tilana Reserve updates the files to your personal space at the Tilana Reserve off-site data center.
You don’t have to swap out tapes, manage backup disks, or even remember to press a button, like some external backup drives.
When you protect files in Tilana Reserve, you can also sync them between any of your computers on the same account. Every time you save a file, the new version gets protected in the data center, and your other computers automatically get it from there, so they’re always current.
Check it out at http://www.tilana.com
I’m going to put in a plug for ElephantDrive– http://www.elephantdrive.com. Also using S3, easy to set up, easy to use, and, secure. non-buggy. cost-effective. truly unlimited storage. i have zero complaints with this, and have been using it for about 6 months.
http://www.bingodisk.com is a wonderful solution – for MAC users. I am a PC user and tried it – ultimately the company refunded my payment since the product does not work very well in a Windows environment. It is a fantastic solution for MAC users and worth exploring.
I’ve been using mozy for quite awhile and for me it’s currently the best online solution on the marked. Encryption, multiple file versions (very useful if you changed a file by mistake and didn’t notice it until the next backup has been performed: in this case you are able to restore easily an older version) and partial updates are supported (only the changed part of a large file will be transmitted to the server, which saves time and bandwidth) As mentioned above you get 2 gig for free and if you use or make a referral you even get 256 mb extra. Using a referral is quite easy, just use this link with the promo code inside: https://mozy.com/?ref=Q4AGBK
Intertesting to see such a varied response to such a wide range of backup options.
I think where alot of these solutions fall down is when they try and preach to the unconverted. I believe they rather the miss a whole (and wider) band of people that don’t want to be bothered with installing and configuring software (no matter how simple that may be) and could otherwise be ‘introduced’ to online backup in a way that doesn’t involve installing yet another bit of proprietary software – like me.
Give me somewhere I can just backup to using drag and drop WebDAV or some other browser based solution and hell I am more than taken care of.
That’s where I think box.net, bingodisk.com, and ewedrive.com are clear winners for people like me (of which there are a lot more than most backup companies seem to think).
Peter, I used to use box.net, but then I found mydatabus.com…it’s sooo much better. 5 GB of free storage, 250 MB per file/upload (unlike box’s measly 10MB), 1 GB daily public download bandwidth, plus online image/doc editing, file format conversion, Facebook.com integration, photo album creation/sharing, public file links, e-mail files with no attachment sizes…it really is a one-stop shop for online file hosting/storing. And no software installation.
2 years ago I made a mistake of backing up some of my photographs to one of those backup storages. Next thing I know,all date was lost. I was left with nothing! Now I am too careful. Maybe it’s good for some music and stuff,but definitely not anything else
Sorry about what happened to you, PHOTOGRAPHER. You didn’t say which service you tried, which would have been helpful. I’ve used Carbonite for the past 18 months have 37Gb stored with them and never lost a thing (though I haven’t needed to restore much). The major services are very competent and I wonder if you chose a smaller player that went belly-up?
For me, it’s time to renew and I’ve decided to switch to Mozy so I can access my home files from work occasionally. But Carbonite has been rock-solid for me. I like that it’s “set and forget”, unless I want to tell it to ignore certain folders that I don’t need backed up.
I’m not looking forward to switching and waiting for all those files to upload to Mozy though!
BingoDisk has been down since yesterday and the latest report says it will be back in 24 hours at soonest. I am not impressed.
For those who want to try out Mozy’s free plan (2GB): When you use a promo code you get an additional 250 MB. Disclaimer: Me as well when you use the code (c:
link: https://mozy.com/?code=5EEERM
or code: 5EEERM
Thanks,
Deniese
I have to echo the comments about Carbonite’s poor support. I had a problem with stalled/failed backups and their “support” consisted of confirming that my computer hadn’t completed a backup in a week. It just so happened that my subscription was expiring this week; the irony is that I wouldn’t have looked for another service and would have forked over another $50 if this support issue hadn’t come up. As it is, I’ve switched to JungleDisk, which will turn out to be a less expensive option for me (I’m backing up <10Gb). Poor support plus the economics of S3 is going to kill these guys.
Don’t risk losing your valuable business data just to save a few bucks on one of these cut-rate, residential backup plans. Go with an experienced, reliable online backup solution like http://www.RemoteDataBackups.com. Responsive, free 24/7 phone support, unlimited redundant bandwidth, reliable restores.