Tech by PC

Here is what I do for backups.

JungleDisk

JungleDisk is first because of its low cost and extreme versatility. Purchase the full version for $20 and use it on as many computers as you like. I have my same license running on at least 7 computers, Windows and Linux. This gives you a drive location that you can share between computers, and even archive information to. For my desktop and laptop I have a number of programs that use this as primary storage. I store software that I pay for online. I store my photos in it. I store a little bit of music in it.

JungleDisk uses Amazon’s S3 service to store information. This means that all your information is backed by a large corporation across multiple data centers. Businesses use S3 as their means of livelihood, for example Smugmug. I’ve never had a problem with availability. The JungleDisk client that runs on the desktop or server encrypts all your data before sending it to S3. You should choose to create your own key, print it out and save it in a safe place or two along with your JungleDisk registration information. This will ensure that in the event of a disaster that you can recover your data.

My Linux server used to back up every day automatically through JungleDisk to S3. I had a series of scripts that dump MySQL data, and rsync the web structure. I can browse these from my laptop at home to ensure backups are being kept. I also archive old log files. Unfortunately I decided to move to the next version of Jungledisk and it wasn’t compatible with the old Linux client. I have to jump through a lot of hoops to get my headless server to run Jungledisk, so I’m using SCP to home in the mean time.

Mozy

I use Mozy on my primary computer, which happens to be a laptop. The advantage over JungleDisk isn’t great, except that the cost is fixed at $4.95/month. My current backup size is 15.3GB, but I am expanding the selection of files that it is saving, so eventually it will have my entire non-installed base of files that I would like to recover. Mozy’s backup engine seems to be a little more robust and hands-off. Again, I created my own encryption key and saved it in a safe place – JungleDisk, and hard copy.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Services, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.