Comments on: Finally a Backup (and sync) System that Works!

By: MrPete

MrPete — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:15:35 +0000

Darren,
Your backup goal misses two crucial items that bite people more often than we’d like to admit:

1) Maintaining old versions of files.

- Oh no! I deleted that file two months ago and never noticed. Or last week.
- Oh no! That file got corrupted earlier this year and I never noticed.
- Oh no! I need to recover our bookkeeping file from the end of 2006.

2) Disaster recovery

Easy backup is crucial. Even more important is getting going again after a disaster. When that panic sets in, how easy is it to get back up and running?

These, and other issues, are not covered by a backup-and-sync method.

Here’s another suggestion. It fits all your parameters except for the need to spend some money up front. If you work with a lot of data (photos, videos, etc), this beats any online backup system by a mile.

Go to Amazon.com and buy Retrospect Pro for Windows. This will backup one Windows computer plus two other computers of any kind (Win, Mac, Linux).

Buy two external Seagate FreeAgent drives. Once a year, buy another one and retire one as a permanent annual archive.

Cost:
Retrospect Pro: $84 (3 computers)
Drives: cheapest is about $90 for a 500G USB drive. I recently paid $130 for a 750G USB/ Firewire/ eSATA “Pro” version. eSATA is the same speed as your internal drive! NICE.

So you can do three computers for $265 and $90 a year after that…

Why Retrospect: reliable and smart. Got duplicate files? We all do. It smartly stores one copy.

Why Seagate: 5 year rock solid warranty on drive and case. I don’t mess around w/ anything else anymore.

Disadvantage vs S3: $265 (or more) up front cost

Advantages vs S3:
- Full backup history
- Easy, full recovery of your computer, including all software, settings, etc.
- Incredibly fast
- Far cheaper than S3 over time (S3: 100GB stored, 1GB change per day costs over $200 a year for storage an upload)
- Huge capacity. And by replacing one drive each year, your capacity automagically grows.

Hope that helps!

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 29 May 2007 20:29:55 +0000

@Jennifer
I suspect S3 isn’t on the list because it isn’t a backup company persay but is instead a webservice that could be used as an online backup solution (but isn’t limited to that). In fact, if you look at some backup companies online you’ll find that their storage is actually on S3 servers.

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 28 May 2007 01:54:11 +0000

trench,

Yeah, external drives are a great solution now too. Especially with the speed of USB 2.0 ports and the size you can get the drives in now. I don’t like the idea of having to manually start a backup with them as you suggest. However, hooked up with the right software you could set the backups to occur automatically.

There’s only one problem with external drives though. The cost factor. Granted, they are coming down in price - but compared with the solution I mention in this post it’s still a factor that keeps them from being the “ideal” backup solution

By: trench

trench — Sat, 26 May 2007 21:51:36 +0000

Im fine with a couple external drives and USB 2.0 ports. I backup once a week if possible. It gets the job done and isn’t as time consuming as many think.. Do it before going to bed and let it run its course.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 22 May 2007 05:31:15 +0000

For online backup news, information and articles, there is an excellent website:

http://www.BackupReview.info

This site lists more than 400 online backup companies and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.

Any one can add their company in the directory. Just click on the “Search” button found at the top.

PS: Why is that S3 has not make the top 25 list so far?

Cheers,