[ale] [OT] Best remote/local backup for less technical?

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi John,

I use, and like Jungledisk ( https://www.jungledisk.com/ ).  Setup is 
complex, so your relatives probably couldn't set it up.  Note, I never 
accept the defaults on any program and generally don't use the wizards.  
I always go into the advanced configuration and see what the options 
are.  They are almost never set like I want them by default.  However, 
you could set it up.  I could help if advice is needed.  It's highly 
configurable.  If they store all their data in their home directory, 
setup is not so bad.  On Linux, I do store most of my data in my home 
directory.  However, in Windows, my data and apps are all over the hard 
drive.  So, that configuration is much more complex.  Anyway, once it's 
set up, it's pretty much set and forget.  The exception is that 
sometimes the backup application needs updating.  I don't remember if I 
installed it within or outside of the package manager.  If it's outside 
the package manager, it has to be manually updated.  Actually, I think 
there's a Ubuntu repository, but I'm not running Linux at the moment, so 
I cannot check.

The system is very powerful.  I have it running every 6 hours to back up 
any new stuff I've saved.  Jungledisk was bought by Rackspace.  It can 
use either the Rackspace cloud or the Amazon web services cloud for 
backup.  Both systems are highly redundant and reliable as far as I 
know.  I use the Amazon cloud.  If you wish, you can pre encrypt the 
data with a password / passphrase.  If you do that, the service company 
has no access to your data at all, even if they get a court order, 
nothing gets out without your permission.  In that case, they also 
cannot help you if you lose your password.  If you check the privacy 
policies of some of these companies, you'll find out that they can 
decrypt your data if they're forced to.

Cost is $ 2 - $ 3 / mo plus 18 cents / GB of storage if I recall 
correctly.  There are some data transfer fees, but once the initial 
transfer to the cloud is done, those are relatively minimal, as only 
updates are sent.  If you had to recover all the data at once and 
restore it, and if it was 5 GB, for example, it might cost you a buck or 
two to do the restore.  If you had to restore 100 GB, it might cost $ 15 
or so.  I'm running JD on 3 computers which dual boot between Windows 
and Linux, so in effect, I have 6 computers.  I probably have ~100 GB 
stored in total, and pay about $ 14 / month.  For small amounts of data, 
the cost is really minimal.  JD is not the cheapest cloud storage, but 
it is one of the most versatile.  My take on it is that, if I need to do 
a restore, I'm probably having a catastrophe.  I want to be darn sure 
the data I need will be there.  I figure that running world class, 
geographically dispersed, redundant, professionally managed data centers 
is not the cheapest thing around either.

Sincerely,

Ron


On 2/25/2012 5:43 PM, John Anderson wrote:
> I have some older relatives who could use a better backup solution for
> their work files. They work from home and mostly use office files, which
> are not huge. Yes they are running windows.
>
> So, there are two things I am considering, remote backup to one of the
> many services available, and/or a utility to copy the contents of their
> work folder on the laptop over to a usb hard drive in the background.
>
> Any personal experience/recommendations? It ideally should be something
> that I could set up on the laptop and not worry about unless they have a
> crash on the laptop itself. If it takes regular maintenance on their end
> it might not work out.
>
> If I have the files on the laptop syncing to a hard drive do I have to
> worry about unfortunate deletions propagating over?
>
>    

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT c3energy.com