As more and more of our consumption comes in the form of bits, how to keep all that data safe becomes a big problem. Obviously, data security is a big issue. But the bigger one, I think, is keeping good backups.
It used to be that only geeks and businesses could keep good backups. To copy everything, you had to buy a second hard drive or a stack of CDs or DVDs (or floppies or cartridges) and spend too much time setting things up and flipping disks. The really hardcore bought tape drives, and those with deep pockets signed up for network-based solutions like Retrospect.
But all at once, the market for the rest of us is heating up. The home user now has some excellent options.
A good backup system needs a few attributes. First, it has to be easy. If it’s complicated, things can go wrong, and you don’t want things going wrong with your backups. Second, it has to be automatic. Counting on the user to run a backup manually doesn’t work. Third, it can’t be a burden. Running a backup shouldn’t require the user to do anything and shouldn’t slow the computer to a crawl.
If possible, the backup system should also be redundant (in case lighting strikes and everything gets hosed), off-site (for fires and floods), versioned (so that screwing up a file on your computer doesn’t screw up the only copy in the backup too), and make your data available to you wherever you are, when you want it.
And it should be cheap, of course.
The easiest solution is just an external drive. They’re cheaper than ever before and usually come with decent backup software. While there are no doubt better ones on the market, this 400 GB external drive is serviceable and can be had for a mere $150 if you shop around. If you’re on a Mac, spend another $30 on Super Duper, which is very reliable and can make a full backup of your main disk(s) on schedule. Apple’s forthcoming “Time Machine” software also will use an external drive.
But what if you have more than one computer or don’t want to have to plug your laptop into a hard drive every day? Network-attached storage may be the solution. Expect to spend $100 to $150 more than for a comparable external drive. Some wireless routers–like the newest ones from Apple–now include a USB port for this purpose, letting you supply your own hard drive.
The big movement lately, though, has been in online storage. It’s easy to see why. When your data is housed on the ‘net, it’s far away from any disaster that might claim your computer, it’s usually backed up with redundant copies, your files can be accessed from everywhere, and you can backup from anywhere with ‘net access. If you have broadband or easy access to broadband, this is the way to go.
I have about 100 GB of data that I wanted to backup and so tried a couple online options.
For years, I’ve backed up data on a hosted server that I own. This is a bad deal. You don’t want to administer a server yourself (it’s hard and time consuming), and the costs add up. It made sense a few years ago, when web hosting services were less sophisticated, but not today.
My first stop this time was Amazon’s S3, which is the same storage platform that Amazon uses to house its sites. It’s super-reliable and, according to Amazon, scalable so that it will never slow down. There’s the added bonus that, perhaps unlike other dotcoms, Amazon will be here in 5 years.
End-users can’t access S3 directly–nor would you want to. You need a program to do it, and I chose JungleDisk, which is a $20 client (for now, though, it’s free) for S3. Amazon charges 15 cents per GB of storage per month and 20 cents per GB of transfer. JungleDisk can do automatic backups, and encrypts all data.
JungleDisk+S3 isn’t perfect: it’s expensive if you have a lot of data; JungleDisk itself can be a bit slow and sometimes buggy; it’s hard to configure; and it can overwhelm a computer if you try to backup a lot of files. Still, give it a bit of time to mature, and this could be a good option for storing especially confidential and important data–but probably not your mp3s.
The next one I tried is Mozy, which is at the top of the pack of (and comparable to) a large number of hosted backup startups . It costs about $5 per month for unlimited backups and is free for 2 GB or less. (I was concerned, with all the data that I have, that “unlimited” might not really mean unlimited–I’ve read that there may be a 50 GB limit but can’t find any solid documentation on it.)
Advantages: Mozy is inexpensive, encrypts data, versions files, performs automatic backups, and is pretty easy to setup. The most interesting part of the service is that the company will ship you a DVD of your data if you need to restore it faster than is possible over the ‘net.
Disadvantages: at least initially, it’s slow; it’s hard or impossible to share data with others; it may not work on multiple computers; and the Mac version (now in beta) is buggy, as is the Windows version, to a lesser extent.
Bottom line: Mozy is pretty neat and is more than sufficient for most users. But if you have a lot of data, or want to share some of it with others, Mozy is probably not for you.
My last choice, and the one that I settled on, isn’t marketed as a backup service but as a web hosting provider. For $10 per month, Dreamhost will give you 170 GB of online storage. It takes snapshots of its fileservers regularly, providing redundancy, and, because it’s a full hosting environment, can be made to do more or less whatever you want. The downside is that it will be difficult to setup an automatic backup system, though this page provides some hints. But once you have it going, it should just work.
I wrote a quick script that uses rsync to seek out and backup any changed files a few times a day on each of my computers. It runs in the background, without any user interaction, and creates weekly snapshots of important files. While most of my files are not encrypted on the server, they are encrypted in transit. The tools powering all this are simple and rock-solid after years, or even decades, of use.
Because Dreamhost is a full-service hosting service, you can also make your files available on the Web. I decided to use Ajax File Browser as a front-end, because it’s fast and flexible and allows multiple users with different permissions. I can also retrieve files through SFTP or rsync (which would be good for mirroring a directory on second computer).
Again, setting up a system like this isn’t for everyone…yet. But with the prices of disk storage and bandwidth dropping, expect fierce competition in the online backup sector, which should lead to flexible solutions at prices even lower than today. Rumor has it that Google may be getting into the game; if so, prices could plummet to $0 for all but picky corporate customers.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see online backup bundled with Windows and OS X in few years. That’s a good thing, because even with low-cost services available, many or even most home users will still neglect making backups (blame optimism bias). For a computer with music software, photo tools, word processing, and email, reliable backup is basically required and should probably, in the end, be a part of the base operating system package.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
Comments on this entry are closed.