Offsite Data Backup sites - Any suggestions?

[Stress Co_]

I'm looking into using an offsite data backup service (GOTTA BE MAC COMPATIBLE).

I've tried the free demo of Mozy www.mozy.com and .Mac. Both seem OK.

The Home version of mozy is $5/month for unlimited backup and seems like a deal compared to .Mac's $200/yr for 30GB (I need about 80GB of storage).

Does anyone have experience/recommendations with these or other services?

[Rick Thompson]

If you go off site, with that large a storage need, would you post you satisfaction level? It seems like a slow process to me, and the Pro, with good features, seems expensive and no Mac. Where I am, I would worry about DSL drop outs while it would be going, which would need to be off hours. Seems problematic? I just have 2 - 250G firewire external drives I rotate between the bank's safety deposit box every month or so. I back up at my desk all the time, and rotate off site for fire protection..and that has been painless.

[Chazz]

The problem with the bank safety deposit run is that ya gotta do it. I applaud your data righteousness, Rick but I'm just not that disciplined. The conventional wisdom is that for backups to be successful, they need to be automated.

I use EMC's Retrospect for the Mac, a once good, now awful tool that seems to taunt users with it's horrid interface and nonexistent upgrades. I can't wait to be done with it. But Retrospect doesn't really address the offsite issue. I'm excited about tools like Mozy but to really take advantage of a solution like that, you need to be in an area served by (and pay for) really high speed net connectivity. Especially since you're worried about the uplink speed. Right now it's available in only limited markets. Plan-jane DSL doesn't really cut it.

Still, it makes sense to me that you still back up to a 2nd drive (preferably located in another room from your workstation). This gives you quick retrieval in 90% percent of the cases of data loss. Mozy and their ilk are their mainly for catastrophic loss.

[Rick Thompson]

I didn't like Retrospect when I was using it a long time ago, back when I had to burn disk:( Silverkeeper came with my Lacie drives, and it is fast and simple. I sell stock plans, so fire and loss worries me the most, so the bank vault is great. I just put it in my wife's bag when it is time, and she rotates the next trip. I keep the drive mounted, so it is really easy to hit the back up button. I just got a new bigger drive(s) (from 30G) since I am putting all my music on a Mac Mini as a music server. So, now I really need a large capacity! I am very interested in what the new Mac system backup will do. I think it will be nice.

[Chazz]

Rick wrote:
I am very interested in what the new Mac system backup will do. I think it will be nice.

Ditto, but as with any successful marriage the key is low expectations. Apple has only demonstrated its forthcoming backup solution, TimeMachine as a simple ( but oh so beautiful) file recovery tool. Steve Jobs has never said that it could be used to restore an entire dive, something I have done with the dreaded Retrospect. It seems like it should do this but why haven't they said explicitly that it will?

Maybe more interestingly, will they make it open so that it could interact with services like Mozy? Or will they keep it closed and just for the overpriced .Mac? All will be revealed next month.

[Rick Thompson]

So Chazzzzz, are you going to lead the way, once again, and take the first arrows I remember way back, maybe AC8? when you used that line... a very good one for this work.

[Chazz]

Getting nicely OT here.......

I'll definitely get OSX 10.5 shortly after it's release. I have always been impressed with the OS updates from Apple. I've never regretted installing one. No arrows there.

This does not seem to be the case with Vista. One of the offices I consult for just got new equipment and they specifically sought out machines that were loaded with XP.

This to me is amazing! If a company like Microsoft, after spending as long as it did to rev their primary strategic product, cannot add enough value to make users really clamor for it, well, that could kind of be described as abject failure. It just boggles my mind that MS could expend that much resource and end up with something that is so disliked (or at least unloved). Almost makes you feel sorry for them.

And just to try and relate to the topic while keeping things suitably nattering and negative....

The reason MS can't take on a problem like painless backups (a la TimeMachine) is because they would be accused of killing off existing backup developers. Apple apparently could care less. If they see something that can be made way better, they just do it. I love that.

[Chazz]

Getting nicely OT here.......

I'll definitely get OSX 10.5 shortly after it's release. I have always been impressed with the OS updates from Apple. I've never regretted installing one. No arrows there.

This does not seem to be the case with Vista. One of the offices I consult for just got new equipment and they specifically sought out machines that were loaded with XP.

This to me is amazing! If a company like Microsoft, after spending as long as it did to rev their primary strategic product, cannot add enough value to make users really clamor for it, well, that could kind of be described as abject failure. It just boggles my mind that MS could expend that much resource and end up with something that is so disliked (or at least unloved). Almost makes you feel sorry for them.

And just to try and relate to the topic while keeping things suitably nattering and negative....

The reason MS can't take on a problem like painless backups (a la TimeMachine) is because they would be accused of killing off existing backup developers. Apple apparently could care less. If they see something that can be made way better, they just do it. I love that.

[Anonymous]

back on the original topic - I've tried a few different services and so far I've found that getting my data uploaded just hasn't worked. I've only got about 10 GB that would really like backed-up but the uploading has always failed for me - just times out or something.

If I could get it all uploaded, then maybe the updates wouldn't be so bad, but so far no luck. Anyone have success?

[Eduardo Rolon]

Instead of retrospect you could try using Carbon Copy Cloner it has been updated to version 3 and has a very complete feature set.

www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

One of the few it is Free but i works great OS X Apps.

Or you can also use SuperDuper which is not free and I would definitively wait after 10.5 to buy.

PS. Both do Incremental backups to external and network drives.