My previous backup solutionn consisted of a couple latest homeworks on a thumbdrive (purely coincidental) and prayers. Luckily fate was out to lunch and so I decided to get a grip on things – or more specifically, the 8gb or so of vital data in my home directory. (Quite honestly, my videos and music collection can take a running jump any day – touch wood)
I considered an external hard drive, but for whatever reasons I decided that I’d get a fuzzier feeling inside me with an online backup solution. The preferred file transfer mechanism was rsync, of course – for the uninitiated, it’s basically a way to synchronise files incrementally (you only transfer changes, not the entire thing). This left me looking for a reliable, affordable, and flexible provider. After a while of online trawling I decided upon rsync.net, with their main selling point being their philosophy.
A couple bash scripts later (and a trip to Langkawi) I had a daily cronjob replicating a setup not unlike rsnapshot. For those who have seen Apple’s Time Machine in action, this is basically the same thing, except with obviously finer control and minus the cool zoom-through-the-galaxy effect. Just today I finished a hefty 6.2GB transfer over the precarious Malaysian internets to someplace in Zurich, Switzerland (a two and a half day process, I might add).
Let’s rewind a bit and go back to this rsync.net thing. Rsync.net gives you a remote filesystem with optional geo-redundancy, direct unix-engineer support, a common sense TOS, unlimited bandwidth, and most importantly a system that will revolve around you. It will do what you want, how you want it done, and those engineers are there to help you do that.
When considering services, I sent them an email with a few vague and qualitative questions as well as a few precise and decently technical questions. I wasn’t even a customer and in the succeeding email thread that unraveled I was receiving top-notch answers and what seemed like a genuine interest. Even the package I settled on later was catered to my needs. This is not something I’ve experienced elsewhere.
When setting it up, I received a similar if not better support to help iron out the little annoyances here and there (on my end). They provided comprehensive (and tailored) guides to my questions and there were no “no, I meant this, not this” moments. It worked out amazingly well and I’ve got a backup system (and I do plan to do a bit more with that filesystem later) running like it should – transparent and reflective at the same time.
Rsync.net does seem to be on the costly side though – but if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. While some other companies like to prove that paying good money isn’t proportional to good service, rsync lives up to its word. Luckily there is a student and open source developer discount!
Fate, lunchtime over.
Related posts:
There are a couple of reasons why I could never use an online backup solution
1. I love to have physical access to the media of storage to my personal files and don’t feel comfortable that it exists somewhere halfway across the globe in a remote server.
2. I have almost 100 GB of data that is valuable enough to back up and I simply couldn’t back up so much (even 1 GB is daunting with a 64 kbps DSL connection) even if I wanted to.
Having said that, I would have to consider getting a more reliable storage media than an external USB hard drive. I wish solid-state storage came in bigger capacities as they seem to be more reliable.
About physical storage, I actually find that I feel more secure with a remote filesystem I won’t have the chance of accidentally giving it one too many knocks.
I’m rather thrifty with my filespace, I believe the ultimate destiny of any file on any computer is to be deleted >:) For this reason I don’t archive emails, I mercilessly nuke anything I haven’t touched for a good couple years, and my favourite application is Filelight, which tells me which directory I should target next. The fortunate side effect of this is that I can afford to leave my computer uploading for 2.5 days straight to up my 6-7GB worth of to-be-nuked data.
If 100GB were cheap online, I wouldn’t mind leaving my computer on a 4-week long upload when I sleep. After that incrementally it should be a breeze to maintain.
We have greatly different philosophies when it comes to back up. Although our basic goal remains the same.
Having said that, I don’t believe in nuking files mercilessly especially if I’ve created them and they represent some form of creative work.
Programs, yes. They can be restored. Some files are irreplaceable. Disk space is cheap though.
I am waiting for mass storage solid state devices.
Hari, I actually just reread your post on your backup solution failing. http://harishankar.org/blog/entry.php/never-ever-use-an-external-usb-hard-drive-as-backup-media
As you say:
Other backup media are either specialized and are not easily accessible for desktop end users. Online backup is impractical even with high-speed internet connections and carries some obvious privacy and security risks, while local network backups require some kind of quality archival media already in place.
I’d actually think you’d find rsync.net does solve your problem there. Geo-redundancy if you’re really paranoid? In general a company doing this knows how to deal with backups and you can be assured of their safety.
As for privacy and security, a quick skim through their TOS will show you where their priorities lie. It even goes so far to offer a canary report system. Note that you can encrypt your data and all secure protocols are supported.
As for the whole “uploading” cost, if you’re on an unlimited bandwidth connection this should be no problem – every night tell it to upload, and within a week at most you’ll have it online. The incremental uploads take no time at all.
The only question is if you’re willing to take out your wallet