rsync.net – a commendable backup solution
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.
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