What is your favorite Online Backing Service? and why?
March 31, 2008 2:06 PM Subscribe
What is your favorite Online Backing Service? and why?
I second JungleDisk. There are clients for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Your files are encrypted. Moreover, Amazon is not just going to disappear overnight which might happen to some of the smaller companies when they run out of money. I've been using it for a couple of months now and haven't had any problems.
posted by cerbous at 3:13 PM on March 31, 2008
posted by cerbous at 3:13 PM on March 31, 2008
3rding Jungledisk. The only thing I can add is that purchasing a license gets you all three client versions, which is great if you run a cross-platform office.
posted by sharkfu at 3:17 PM on March 31, 2008
posted by sharkfu at 3:17 PM on March 31, 2008
Jungle Disk. S3 is not going to go away, and even if Jungle Disk does, they've made source code for basic retrieval available.
posted by flabdablet at 5:01 PM on March 31, 2008
posted by flabdablet at 5:01 PM on March 31, 2008
Best answer: I started using Mozy a couple of months ago when Anil Dash mentioned it. It's $5 a month for unlimited storage and transfer per computer per month. I have a Mac and a Windows machine. The client will backup on schedule and also when the computer has been idle for a certain amount of time.
The Windows client seems to be fine. That computer is not storing all that much data with Mozy.
Mozy is backing up about 52GB for the Mac. The Mac client is in beta and does the job, but it's not perfect. I've sent logs and crash reports and numerous emails and they've responded to them and the program grows slightly better with each release. It's now on version 0.9.3.1, which is supposedly release candidate 2. They just sent me a survey in which they seemed to be indicating that they thought it was ready for release, but I would say it is definitely not. The Mac client still fails to give me confidence that it's doing what it's supposed to.
The main things that disgruntle me about it:
--There's a discrepancy between what it's doing and what it's reporting. For example, right now it shows under the menubar item "0 files, 0 backed up" which is wrong by gigabytes. I *think* it's backing up everything, but I can't be sure. For example, I added about 7GB of files to be backed up yesterday. At the upload speeds I have at home, that's going to take a while. It was 15% finished when I stopped it this morning. When the program next kicks in due to being idle, it should pick up and finish that backup. Yet, according to the program's backup history and the program logs, it didn't. It kicked in but it didn't backup anything. It pushed no files whatsoever.
The only way I can consistently feel sure that it's backing up is to launch the configuration program, let it scan for new files, and then save the configuration.
--It makes big virtual memory files overnight, making it easier just to restart the computer in the morning than to wait for the memory priority to be given back over to my regular apps.
So, that's a C- for Mozy. I stick with it because it's cheap but I can't say that it's much better than the rsync solution I was running before and I definitely make sure that every night I do a full drive image to one external drive and backup my user directory to another one.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:05 PM on March 31, 2008
The Windows client seems to be fine. That computer is not storing all that much data with Mozy.
Mozy is backing up about 52GB for the Mac. The Mac client is in beta and does the job, but it's not perfect. I've sent logs and crash reports and numerous emails and they've responded to them and the program grows slightly better with each release. It's now on version 0.9.3.1, which is supposedly release candidate 2. They just sent me a survey in which they seemed to be indicating that they thought it was ready for release, but I would say it is definitely not. The Mac client still fails to give me confidence that it's doing what it's supposed to.
The main things that disgruntle me about it:
--There's a discrepancy between what it's doing and what it's reporting. For example, right now it shows under the menubar item "0 files, 0 backed up" which is wrong by gigabytes. I *think* it's backing up everything, but I can't be sure. For example, I added about 7GB of files to be backed up yesterday. At the upload speeds I have at home, that's going to take a while. It was 15% finished when I stopped it this morning. When the program next kicks in due to being idle, it should pick up and finish that backup. Yet, according to the program's backup history and the program logs, it didn't. It kicked in but it didn't backup anything. It pushed no files whatsoever.
The only way I can consistently feel sure that it's backing up is to launch the configuration program, let it scan for new files, and then save the configuration.
--It makes big virtual memory files overnight, making it easier just to restart the computer in the morning than to wait for the memory priority to be given back over to my regular apps.
So, that's a C- for Mozy. I stick with it because it's cheap but I can't say that it's much better than the rsync solution I was running before and I definitely make sure that every night I do a full drive image to one external drive and backup my user directory to another one.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:05 PM on March 31, 2008
I use Mozy's 2gb of free storage and I love it. JungleDisk never worked for me and Amazon's S3 prices are a bit steep.
I tried Carbonite (Mozy competitor), but the lack of versions backups kept me from relying on it.
posted by bumper314 at 7:18 PM on March 31, 2008
I tried Carbonite (Mozy competitor), but the lack of versions backups kept me from relying on it.
posted by bumper314 at 7:18 PM on March 31, 2008
I use Mozy for offsite backups and it works ok. Big file backups do fail periodically.
posted by mathowie at 8:47 PM on March 31, 2008
posted by mathowie at 8:47 PM on March 31, 2008
seanyboy, unless I have this completely wrong, according to the pricing page at your linked site, Iron Mountain is charging around $2.50 per gigabyte-month; Amazon S3 (via Jungle Disk or whatever) is 15 cents per gigabyte-month. How is Iron Mountain 17 times as safe as S3?
posted by flabdablet at 3:59 AM on April 1, 2008
posted by flabdablet at 3:59 AM on April 1, 2008
I use Mozy Pro, as I have several machines that need backing up regularly, and I wanted the flexibility of their "versions" implementation.
It's perfect for my needs, but there are others which might be more suitable for you.
I got a lot of help by reading through Battle of the Backup services at Lifehacker.
posted by Scramblejam at 5:55 AM on April 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
It's perfect for my needs, but there are others which might be more suitable for you.
I got a lot of help by reading through Battle of the Backup services at Lifehacker.
posted by Scramblejam at 5:55 AM on April 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
How is Iron Mountain 17 times as safe as S3
1. It works.
2. I know it works.
3. $2.50 per GB per month isn't really that much.
4. Delta Backups are awesome.
5. The software is easy to use.
flabdablet: If your data isn't worth that much, go with the cheaper options. My data is worth much more to me than than $2.50 per Gb per month. I'm personally not going to recommend our company going with what I perceive to be an inferior product to save a mere $120.00 dollars per month.
Not to say that I won't change. But everything I've investigated so far has come up short.
posted by seanyboy at 9:57 AM on April 1, 2008
1. It works.
2. I know it works.
3. $2.50 per GB per month isn't really that much.
4. Delta Backups are awesome.
5. The software is easy to use.
flabdablet: If your data isn't worth that much, go with the cheaper options. My data is worth much more to me than than $2.50 per Gb per month. I'm personally not going to recommend our company going with what I perceive to be an inferior product to save a mere $120.00 dollars per month.
Not to say that I won't change. But everything I've investigated so far has come up short.
posted by seanyboy at 9:57 AM on April 1, 2008
As Mo mentioned, I can testify that Mozy works. It is undoubtedly a smoother experience on Windows than on the Mac, but once the interminable first backup is complete, it's a life-saver either way.
posted by anildash at 11:21 AM on April 1, 2008
posted by anildash at 11:21 AM on April 1, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ejaned8 at 2:47 PM on March 31, 2008