Currently I have a very effective and flexible backup process between my HTPC and my laptop, as I have posted on here before....
But with more and more personal data stacking up (Mostly photos), I want to get together an online backup strategy (As I don't really want to start leaving portable HDs at work, and rely on me remembering to swap them occasionally)
Ideally I want a differential nightly backup of data around the 40-60GB mark total, with expected data changes being from a matter of k to up to a GB.
If possible I don't want to have to pay for the service, but will consider it!
The alternative, install a 'server' (Probably just an XP machine) at my parents running 24/7. Does anybody know of any suitable software that can do this automatically? Preferably that I can copy the files to at my house, to get the big data transfer out of the way, then just setup at a remote location using dynDNS and either XPs own VPN as the router doesn't support it, or maybe SFTP?
Anyone have any experience of either would be appreciated?
Thanks
Jake
I've no experience of any free software, but I use Mozy Home. $5.99 a month for 50/gb.
your on virgin arent you? - you get free storage - space depending on your subscription
L = 5gb
XL = 10gb
XXL = Unlimted
http://www.virginmedia.com/myvirginmedia/vstuff/find-out-more/
if you want to pay, then take a look at Live drive -for their £10 a month package
it will mount an L: drive that you can use like a normal HDD - accessible from my computer, etc.
Dropbox?
Thanks guys, just got home and checked my storage and I'm at about 65GB at the moment! And could easily add another 20GB each year :)
So my comments below on the options you have so far been suggested:
Mozy Home: Their website is rubbish, I can't even find a mention of the 50GB limit! (I might just be being blind) If it is 50 GB it wont be enough :(
Virgin: I'm currently on L (10MB) which will give me 5 Gig :(
Dropbox: $19.99/month for 100GB would work, but more than I really want to spend..and...
Live Drive: Interesting, I don't really need the L drive feature, so for could* go for £35.88 for the year and truely unlimited space! Egg have you used this? How do you get on with it?
Now I say could* because although this does actually look like a great deal, my main concern is if things do go bang, It's going to take an age to download all that data especially when virgin will throttle me during peak times (let alone upload it in the first place with cable upload speeds of 0.5MB soon* to be 1MB)
Hence my other part to the question, the do it yourself option, which means I can copy everything to disk, then re-locate it, then pick up the disk if everything goes bang. What I might do if give the do it yourself option a go, and report back to you guys how I got on and how I did it, as I'm sure I'm not the only person considering this?!? If it doesn't work properly then I guess I'm going to have to get a sub service!
Thanks for all your input though, much appreciated, just wanted to know what you guys did and your experience.
nope, for me virgin will do everything.
I dont have that much data worth losing + as you say, who wants end up downloading 100's of gig if it does go tits up.
I looked at Livedrive for the reseller program.
price on HDD's these days, just get 2x 500gb hdd's & a twin dock that has disk cloning -looking at about £100 all in I guess
- unlikely both will break the same time. - maybe find someone who wants the same service - set up a VPN & voila
your data at your place & their place, their data at your place & their place.
This is a very good point of discussion actually. I've got a 2x NAS backup system in place which works okay and means I have redundant copies, but I too would be happy to have some form of offsite/online backup system, especially if it does not involve any additional outlay as I'm far more inclined to find a workable solution that I don't have to shell out each month for. The two biggest worries for me are data security (who is snooping and is it secure or better yet encrypted) and capacity.
perhaps we could setup an inter-Tek backup network? Of course inter-personal backups involves a good deal of trust.
Cheers Egg, on-site redundancy isn't really an issue for me, Everything is on my laptop and also backed up to a mirrored raid array on another computer, so on site isn't an issue, but if someone comes in and nicks my laptop and computer, or my house burns down, I'll lose at least 10 years worth of data and photos!! Hence needing something off site and secure.
I've got an Athlon XP1800 computer sitting round, so will install something on there and have a play, and see what I can come up with as a workable solution and using as little bandwidth as possible! So will need to only copy what has changed, the transfer needs to be secure, so either windows VPN or SFTP I expect.
Just need to work out what software to run, I use SyncToy for the local backup from laptop to PC, which is quick and lets me run from the command line which is hand for my batch file
Clock'd personally I wouldn't consider doing a share, as I wouldn't want to give people access to my data regardless how long or well I knew them :) Apart from my parents who wouldn't even know how to login to the box! Encryption is another point... Might look at seeing if I can setup trucrypt in such a way that the backup program can only access it, just in case it is stolen from my parents.
One of the things that made me think about security was the PWND thread, so need to review the other points he made as well... Like laptop tracability... I'm sure there is a free program you can use for that as well which you can wipe your data remotely... Lots of research to do me thinks!
And for anyone interested, just found my original post, for my local backup script!
http://www.tekforums.net/computing-internet/batch-script-to-turn-on-backup-to-and-turn-off-second-pc/ (http://www.tekforums.net/computing-internet/batch-script-to-turn-on-backup-to-and-turn-off-second-pc/)
And Clock'd still waiting on that mentioned FTP script :P
And do you think it would be a good idea to create a sticky thread, for guides, where people can put links to their guide threads?
I had this all set up from the office at work using scheduled tasks when I was doing a remote CSV file upload for a client for their product data feed, it basically consisted of downloading a copy of the feed file and reuploading it to one of our servers, but I can't for the life of me remember why - I'm sure there was some zipping and other actions in between - but in any case when I started working from home they neglected to backup the machine and so all of it was lost when the cheapass Dell machines they had ordered packed in. But anyway, I've found the command line programs I was using to acheive this again:
http://noeld.com/programs.asp (http://noeld.com/programs.asp)
He has some useful tools!
And yes, this kind of thing defeinitely deserves a sticky.
Here's the email I got from Mozy yesterday. Probably why you didn't see the limit.
QuoteThanks for being a valued Mozy subscriber. For the first time since 2006, we're adjusting the price of our MozyHome service and wanted to give you a heads up. As part of this change, we're replacing our MozyHome Unlimited backup plan and introducing the following tiered storage plans:
50 GB for $5.99 per month (includes backup for 1 computer)
125 GB for $9.99 per month (includes backup for up to 3 computers)
You may add additional computers (up to 5 in total) or 20 GB increments of storage to either of the plans, each for a monthly cost of $2.00.
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on February 07, 2011, 20:47:18 PM
And yes, this kind of thing defeinitely deserves a sticky.
Like they said in field of dreams: If you build it they will come ;)
(You chuck up the topic and sticky it and me and other people will add links :) Might even do well for attracting more visitors ;) )
And cheers Soopah... I don't think it even reflects that pricing on the website? But something else to consider!