CloudBerry Online Backup Uses Amazon S3 (And More Later)
September 22, 2009
If you are a user of Amazon Web Services’ S3 storage service, you have probably come across CloudBerry Explorer, which is a tool for managing your S3 data.
Well, now the team from that product have taken the next step and have a new product in Beta called CloudBerry Online Backup which, not surprisingly, acts as a front-end for Amazon S3.
I personally am a big fan of Amazon S3. Even if you are nervous about storing your data “in the cloud” with some startup company, in the case of S3, its pretty unlikely that Amazon is going anywhere any time soon.
Currently, CloudBerry Backup is Windows-only, and of course an Amazon S3 account is required.
Installing CloudBerry Backup is pretty simple. Once you do you are greeted with a welcome screen.
It has easy to access buttons for doing a Backup and a Restore, and helpfully comes with Backup Plans (what you set up to tell CloudBerry what to backup when) already defined for My Pictures, My Documents, and My Internet Bookmarks.
When you first install, you will be asked to set up your Amazon account.
If you don’t already have an account, they have a link to set one up. I know some less technical users might have a hard time wrapping their head around this step, but with S3 there isn’t really a way around it (that I can think of). CloudBerry does a good job in helping the user along and pointing them where they need to go.
Setting Up Backup
Setting up the backup is pretty easy. They use a wizard system to take you step by step.
The first step is a tree where you can choose the directories you want to back up.
Next you can choose whether you want to backup all files or just certain types (or exclude certain types).
The next step will be good for privacy-conscious people. You can choose to compress or encrypt your files on upload. They have a ton of different options for encryption, which are too many to list here but suffice it to say there are a lot.
You also have the option to purge files (if you choose). You can purge versions of files older than a certain number of days, or only keep the last x versions of a file.
Finally, of course, you can choose the schedule that the backup runs on.
Running The Backup
When you run a backup, you get a progress report (of course), and then once it is done you can check the history, either for all backups, or for each backup plan.
Restoring
Restoring is also done via a wizard. You can bring back the latest version of a file, or bring it back to a certain point in time (great feature), or of course you can also choose it manually.
What’s Next?
Of course, this is a Beta, and CloudBerry is still working on some new features. The first is to create a virtual disk so that your S3 backup looks like a drive on your computer.
They will also be adding estimates for storage costs. This is a great idea. One of the problems with using S3 as backup is you really don’t know for sure how much your backup is going to cost. Sure you can sit there and use Amazon’s calculator, but who wants to do that? If CloudBerry can estimate before uploading, that would be great.
They’ll also be expanding to support Azure and Sun Cloud storage. This is a smart move to not be tied to one provider and give people choice.
So, if you want to check out the CloudBerry Online Backup beta, go here. Anyone else using Amazon S3 for their backup?
SpiderOak Provides Cross Platform Backup and Sync
August 18, 2009
One company that I have been meaning to write about for quite some time is SpiderOak, which is an online backup and sync provider I have been hearing a lot of good things about.
Cross Platform
While other online backup providers have been Windows-only until just recently, SpiderOak has been cross platform right from the start. They have clients for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Slackware).
In addition, they provide remote access over the web so you can get at your files from any web device.
What is ‘Zero Knowledge?’
It goes without saying (or does it) that an online backup company needs to have security in mind.
SpiderOak takes this to the next level by having a zero-knowledge policy. What does this mean? Aside from strong encryption, which they have, the company never stores or sees your password or encryption keys.
One of their FAQs is “could you read a user’s data if forced at gunpoint?” and the answer (they say) is no.
This is a big benefit if you are concerned about privacy of online backups, but of course it does have one downside. If you forget your password, you are completely and totally on your own. The company can’t help you, because they don’t know your password in the first place. (You can set a password hint, so I strongly recommend setting a good one!).
Not just backup
SpiderOak doesn’t limit itself to just online backup. They are in the sync-ing game too. If you are familiar with Dropbox, it is the same sort of deal. You can sync files across multiple machines automatically, and do it cross-platform between Mac, Windows, and Linux as well.
Pricing
The pricing is tiered. The first 2 Gigs are free, which is great if you don’t have too much to store. After that, pricing is in 100 Gig increments. It’s $10/month for the first 100 GB, and then $10/month additional for each 100 GB on top of that.
They have yearly discounts so if you buy a full year, it is $100.
Sync-ing wise, SpiderOak is cheaper than DropBox which is also free up to 2GB, but then $9.99/month for 50 GB and $19.99/month for 100 GB.
Geeks Make The World Go Around
One thing I like about SpiderOak is that you get the sense that it is run by people who really care about making good software and giving back to the software community. It sounds cheesy, but I love the fact that they have an “Engineering Matters” section of their website that describes what is going on in techie terms, and that they give back tools and code to the open source community.
If you are looking for online backup or syncing software, you definitely want to make sure SpiderOak is one of the ones you look at.
Mozy and Carbonite Reaching Out To Abandoned HP & Yahoo Customers
March 11, 2009
In the last few weeks, two online backup services, HP Upline and Yahoo Briefcase have both announced that they are closing.
While some have said that this is a sign that the online backup market is not sustainable, both Mozy and Carbonite have been clever and used it as an opportunity .
Nate from Mozy has posted a blog post entitled “Hey Upline Users, We Love You!” giving a discount code to ex-Upline users.
Dave Friend, co-founder and CEO of Carbonite, has posted two blog posts: one on Yahoo Briefcase and one on HP Upline, discussing the decision to close both.
By the way, I really appreciate the fact that Dave personally blogs and shares his insight. It’s great.
What do you think, is Upline and Briefcase a sign of things to come, or is it just separating the wheat from the chaff?
Rackspace Buys Jungle Disk
October 22, 2008
Wow, there was a shakeup in the online backup space today. Rackspace, a well-known web hosting provider has bought Jungle Disk, an online backup provider. The cloud backup space is heating up.
Jungle Disk provides an interface to Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service, which makes this deal a little strange.
Many people think that Rackspace is making this move because they want to better compete against Amazon Web Services, which makes sense, but that is exactly what Jungle Disk uses to store users’ files.
For its part, Jungle Disk says that Amazon S3 will continue to be supported:
Does this mean you will discontinue support for Amazon S3?
Absolutely not. Although Jungle Disk will now also be supporting Rackspace’s Cloud Files, we are still committed to supporting Amazon S3 and other potentially cloud storage providers in both current and future products. Being able to support multiple cloud storage providers is one of the unique differentiators for Jungle Disk and a big reason why Rackspace was interested in acquiring the company.
Even though S3 will continue to be supported (and it would be pretty brutal for their clients if it was not), you have to think that much of the focus is going on be on supporting Rackspace’s cloud offerings.
We will see how this shakes out. Now that Mozy has been bought by EMC and Jungle Disk by Rackspace, I wonder if Carbonite will be next.
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