Carbonite, an online backup service, is now available for the Mac. The service is priced at $55 per machine per year. A free trial is available.
They are even using a Mac on their home page, but it must be an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 or later in order to use the service. Carbonite provides unlimited storage capabilities and automation to simplify your backup needs, with the software running in the background, finding new and changed files and backing them up. Well, as long as you are connected to the Internet. Seems pretty adaptable and they offer a free trial (15 days to try it and if you sign up you get two months free).
I see from some posts that it doesn't yet support external drives, and it doesn't work reliably on Safari. They suggest switching to Firefox if you have a problem using Safari and that appears to fix the problem. I don't have much use for it since I have a Drobo, but the price isn't too bad. If I think I might need to have off site storage someday, I may consider it. Anyone out there use this type of service?
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I don't have much use for it since I have a Drobo, but the price isn't too bad. If I think I might need to have off site storage someday, I may consider it. Anyone out there use this type of service?
Your comments about Drobo are interesting, and I disagree with the logic.
My off site storage thus far has consisted of bimonthly backups and keeping another drive in another location. I am shopping around for offsite storage because even a Drobo can't survive fire, flood or theft.
Your comments about Drobo are interesting, and I disagree with the logic.
My off site storage thus far has consisted of bimonthly backups and keeping another drive in another location. I am shopping around for offsite storage because even a Drobo can't survive fire, flood or theft.
I disagree with the logic also. I have a 2TB Drobo, but I also just recently signed up for BackBlaze just in case. You never know when that external backup is gonna be needed. Granted, my chances are higher than others because I live in an apartment building and it could go up in flames because of someone other than myself, but that's not to say you couldn't blow up your house turning on the stove.
I feel a lot better knowing I have something bullet proof at home and a second copy somewhere else just in case.
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Just started looking into off-site backup and saw Carbonite is now compatible with mac. I'd like to backup an external hard-drive along with my laptop as well. What's my best option for that? Does Mozy do that?
Looked into DropBox this week as well. (http://www.getdropbox.com)
Seems cool but only syncs what is in your dropbox folder. Want a bit more versatility than that.
I currently have EVERYTHING on my laptop with a TimeMachine backup on an external. Out of 250GB on my laptop, I still have 100GB free.
But I've been ripping a lot of movies lately and plan on plan on adding in a bunch of home movies as well. Keeping EVERYTHING on my laptop soon wont be a possibility. So I was going to keep applications and documents and essentials on my laptop and put large files on my external.
Is that a good plan?
If so...what do I then backup? Everything? Including my OS? or just everything under my user folder? Recommendations appreciated!
I could have explained my "logic" a little better in this post. My reasoning is that I don't have anything that needs to be offsite for storage. I don't work from home or have a server that has files that need to have offsite storage. As far as my personal files, my drobo backs up all my itunes/photos files in case my home setup goes down, but I also do a periodic hard copy back up and that is stored in a separate storage building on my property. Granted, some people don't have offsite storage in the manner I do so they could find this useful. I just have never seen the need since it would have to be a pretty big fire for both buildings to go up, since they are so far apart, I suppose if Mt Hood erupted that would nail my logic. So for me I don't see the need for it in my case.
I have just realized that I need to explain my situation a bit more if I throw out an opinion so lesson learned
But I've been ripping a lot of movies lately and plan on plan on adding in a bunch of home movies as well. Keeping EVERYTHING on my laptop soon wont be a possibility. So I was going to keep applications and documents and essentials on my laptop and put large files on my external.
Is that a good plan?
It should be fine, but just be sure that you are backing up the external somehow, too (if it is a RAID solution like, say, a Drobo, you'll survive a disk crash more easily, but you still want to back up really critical things that you cannot replicate.)
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If so...what do I then backup? Everything? Including my OS? or just everything under my user folder? Recommendations appreciated!
Using Time Machine to backup everything is convenient, as you can reinstall the OS and, as part of the install option, just restore from any point on the Time Machine backup without actually having to install the OS, set up user accounts, and then migrate data. But, if space was an issue, you can always just backup your user account and just be sure that you have copies of install media for your apps.
One trick I use is that I created the Time Machine external for my MacBook with two partitions - one 10 GB, the second gets the rest of the disk - and then I used Disk Utility to copy the Leopard install DVD to the 10 GB partition (and made sure that I could boot from it.) Now, if I have a disk crash or something, I can boot from the external DVD to the Leopard install disk and use that to kick off a Time Machine restore from the other partition.
For online backup (like, say, Mozy), I'd definitely backup only critical files that you cannot replicate easily if, say, your computer and backup drive were both stolen, both destroyed, etc. In that case, assuming you replace with a new Mac, you can then use the online restore to bring back those critical files without worrying about those backups also going up in flames.
I personally use JungleDisk, as I like the ability to access the data over WebDAV if I wish, but it is more expensive than Mozy.
...but I also do a periodic hard copy back up and that is stored in a separate storage building on my property.
Glad you have something that works well for you. There's one common element I've found in failed backup scenarios, and it's the human factor: people buy an external hard drive, swear they'll connect it once a week to do the backup, then two months go buy and they finally remember do it. That's what I like about automated backup solutions: they don't rely on my frail memory to execute.
I use Windows Live Sync to push all of my documents and photos back and forth amongst all my computers, then I have a backup of all that content and a backup of my music+videos on my Windows Home Server. I have another layer of protection in the form of an external hard drive connected to my Media Center PC that mirrors all the content on the Windows Home Server (using SyncBack SE). Lastly, I use Mozy to back up the whole whack off-site (198 GB and counting stored on Mozy). Oh, and each computer in my house does a complete bare-metal backup to the Windows Home Server every night.
I take data backup very seriously.
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Jason,
Do you know if you can get MozyHome to work on Windows Home server? I sent them an email and I received a response in Bangalore English saying that I need Mozy Pro for Server 2003. I do not feel like paying 50 cents per gig. I currently have 785gig on my WHS and can buy a lot of 1TB drives for that kind of change.
Ideally if I could get Carbonite or Mozy to run on my WHS I can have it constantly backing up to the cloud. All of my machines are then covered. I do not really want to run Mozy on my Macbook. I prefer to back it up at gigabit speeds and then have the WHS pump that into the cloud.
Do you know if you can get MozyHome to work on Windows Home server? I sent them an email and I received a response in Bangalore English saying that I need Mozy Pro for Server 2003.
AFAIK, there's no way to get Mozy working on Windows Home Server. I too email them every couple of months and get the same lame-ass response that Windows Home Server is a "business" product.
I bet sending them Twits bypasses the Indian tech support we get stone-walled by:
I use Windows Live Sync to push all of my documents and photos back and forth amongst all my computers ...
Jason, are you running Windows Live Sync on your WHS box as well? Do your bare-metal backs also end up in Mozy?
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Carbonite Available for Intel Macs, Offering Free Trial
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