Online Storage Option Wanted
September 24, 2006 1:31 PM Subscribe
Looking for a decent online storage option, someplace that i can automatically back up and keep updated my entire hard drive and won't cost me an arm and a leg. I've googled but there seem to be a zillion sites, and wondered if anyone has any particular one to recommend over another? Thanks!
Amazon S3, now for the masses.
Amazon S3 has been discussed previously, but several user-facing services have appeared in the last few weeks that allow ordinary non-programmer end users to take advantage of it. One of the most useful of these appears to be Jungle Disk, a free front-end (free beer!) that lets you use S3 as a webdav-mounted disk drive. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and there's GPL code available (free speech!) that lets other people develop alternative compatible front-ends.
Fifteen cents a gigabyte, encrypted, no being tied to some startup company and their proprietary software both of which might disappear tomorrow, works just like a disk drive, and your data ends up backed up in multiple data centers on multiple continents.
posted by dmd at 2:35 PM on September 24, 2006 [1 favorite]
Amazon S3 has been discussed previously, but several user-facing services have appeared in the last few weeks that allow ordinary non-programmer end users to take advantage of it. One of the most useful of these appears to be Jungle Disk, a free front-end (free beer!) that lets you use S3 as a webdav-mounted disk drive. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and there's GPL code available (free speech!) that lets other people develop alternative compatible front-ends.
Fifteen cents a gigabyte, encrypted, no being tied to some startup company and their proprietary software both of which might disappear tomorrow, works just like a disk drive, and your data ends up backed up in multiple data centers on multiple continents.
posted by dmd at 2:35 PM on September 24, 2006 [1 favorite]
I'm using Jungle Disk too, I think it's brilliant. And it's encrypted, too.
I'm just dying for some kind of rsync support, though.
posted by evariste at 2:53 PM on September 24, 2006
I'm just dying for some kind of rsync support, though.
posted by evariste at 2:53 PM on September 24, 2006
I've been using rsync with it every night for months, evariste. What problems have you been seeing?
posted by dmd at 3:03 PM on September 24, 2006
posted by dmd at 3:03 PM on September 24, 2006
A new solution from carbonite has just come out. $5/mo, unlimited storage. I've never tried it, so this isn't a recommendation by any means, but might be useful in your search.
posted by ThinkNut at 3:38 PM on September 24, 2006
posted by ThinkNut at 3:38 PM on September 24, 2006
My attempts to use
I keep my important, long-term data in a Subversion repository hosted at Strongspace.
posted by cmyers at 3:44 PM on September 24, 2006
rsync with JungleDisk were disappointing: JungleDisk seemed to spend several hours backing up data that according to rsync hadn't changed at all.I keep my important, long-term data in a Subversion repository hosted at Strongspace.
posted by cmyers at 3:44 PM on September 24, 2006
From the FAQ:
posted by dmd at 5:13 PM on September 24, 2006
Can I use rsync with Jungle Disk?Your symptoms almost certainly indicate that you're not using those flags.
Yes! We recommend using the --inplace and --size-only flags to ensure proper operation.
posted by dmd at 5:13 PM on September 24, 2006
Joyent, the parent company of Strongspace, just started offering a new service called BingoDisk that might suit your needs. It's not as secure as Strongspace, but it's cheaper and easy to use on the desktop via WebDAV.
posted by RogerB at 5:14 PM on September 24, 2006
posted by RogerB at 5:14 PM on September 24, 2006
You might want to check out this price comparison between BingoDisk and S3.
posted by dmd at 5:28 PM on September 24, 2006
posted by dmd at 5:28 PM on September 24, 2006
I've been using Carbonite for about a month now, and it's by far the best service I've ever used for online backup. I tried box.net on three different computers and it was buggy on all of them. Carbonite just works.
posted by capcuervo at 5:48 PM on September 24, 2006
posted by capcuervo at 5:48 PM on September 24, 2006
Daniel: Thanks for the heads-up on the
Bingo! is probably worth it primarily if you have close to 100 GB of data, or if you want direct WebDAV support.
posted by cmyers at 6:39 PM on September 24, 2006
rsync flags. I'll play with it again sometime.Bingo! is probably worth it primarily if you have close to 100 GB of data, or if you want direct WebDAV support.
posted by cmyers at 6:39 PM on September 24, 2006
Carbonite is absolutely great. I've had it for several months, and have had no problems, and more than one occasion to thank my stars for it. One feature I really like that I would not get with a daily snapshot type backup is that when you delete a file from your HD, Carbonite does not delete it for one month. This has saved me from a particularly nasty accidental deletion mistake.
You can configure many important features (lower priority, temporary pause) with further flexibility coming soon.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:38 PM on September 24, 2006
You can configure many important features (lower priority, temporary pause) with further flexibility coming soon.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:38 PM on September 24, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
For additional storage it's really a great deal. $5/month or $50/year for 5gb. Or $10/month or $100/year for 15gb. Of course, you didn't say how big your harddrive is or how much you need to backup, but I would say this is a great place to try out.
posted by freudianslipper at 1:46 PM on September 24, 2006