Since I’m already being paranoid with my backups, I figured a little additional offsite backup for the really critical stuff couldn’t hurt.
The simplest solution is often the best:
- Amazon S3
- JungleDisk
- rsync
I’m storing a copy of my important MySQL data (my Tasks Pro™ data, the data for this site, the King Design site, etc.) and my SVN repository - looks like it will likely be a few bucks a month ($.07 bill for transfer so far). Totally worth it for the peace of mind.
UPDATE: A full transfer later, my bill is up to $.29. Awesome. 
Popularity: 8% [?]
Matt Smith adds this Comment:
I am currently using the following setup:
- 250GB internal for primary storage
- 250GB external for backup synced via SyncBack
- Amazon S3 + Jungle Disk + NetDrive for offsite backup synced via SyncBack
So far works pretty well except for the upload to S3 is pretty slow and a side-effect is that Jungle Disk keeps a local cache so I end up with another copy of data.
While the S3 prices are extremely reasonable, because of the slowness, I may implement offsite backup by adding another external hard drive and rotating it offsite weekly (most likely taking it to work).
December 4th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
Note: NetDrive and SyncBack are Windoze only apps.
December 4th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Brian Arnold adds this Comment:
Do you think you could maybe detail out just a little bit more what you’re doing here with this setup?
I’d like to get something going offsite myself, but I don’t know (and am a little worried about getting right) the options to rsync to make a proper copy. =)
December 4th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
I found a good example in the JungleDisk forums (Perhaps you’ve heard of Google? Very helpful for this sort of thing.
) - basically this:
rsync -r -t -v –progress –inplace –size-only /Path/to/source/ /Volumes/localhost/destination
And always test first with a source and destination that aren’t the real thing so you can see how it will actually react.
December 4th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Remco adds this Comment:
I currently use Mozy for my windows box and I’m very satisfied. They have free storage up to 1 GB which is all I need for critical files. They don’t have a Mac solution yet, but they seem to be working at it: https://mozy.com/support/macmozy
December 4th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
Some of the things I like about S3 over other solutions:
1. Cheap per usage fees - no
cliffs 
, no freebies
2. Solid company behind it - I have faith it will be around
3. Distributed/replicated data
4. Lots of tools growing up around it, and lots of ways to access the data from any platform
December 4th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Kerim Friedman adds this Comment:
S3 is great, as is JungleDisc. Supposedly the next version of JungleDisc will have backup tools built-in. I was personally looking for a way to use S3 to share files online, and JungleDisc isn’t good for that. After looking at a bunch of tools, I settled on filicio.us, which is a web-front end to S3 with tagging and uploading. Ideally I’d like to be able to run something like this on my own server and use JungleDisk for managing the shared files, but this works for now. The S3 Firefox extension also offers folder syncing and shared links, but no way to easily share a whole folder as in Filicio.us.
December 4th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Sergey adds this Comment:
There are better choices than rsync over jungledisk for, like my app: S3 Backup http://s3bk.com/
The point is that it’s a backup solution only changed files are uploaded and such. There will also be an option for keeping multiple previous files too. It’s really much neater than jungledisk because it doesn’t hide the reality of what S3 is under webdav abstraction (which doesn’t really fit)
December 6th, 2006 at 11:55 am
Alex adds this Comment:
I looked at your app - it looks like it could be nice. If your Mac version was available maybe I’d have used it. Since the Mac version isn’t available, I found something else and I’m quite happy with JungleDisk.
And may I add, disparaging your competition only serves to make you look low-brow and unprofessional.
Besides I don’t need a versioned backup (that’s what SVN is for), I need a current copy and a system (rsync) to only mirror the changed files.
December 6th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Sergey adds this Comment:
Alex, I agree my comments on JungleDisk were kinda arrogant, sorry about that, but the point holds true.
December 8th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Geof F. Morris adds this Comment:
Sergey: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. I would have chalked up your previous comments to being overly enthusiastic about being better than your competition, but now your non-apology just makes you look like an ass.
Like Alex, I’m a Mac user and can’t use your product, but you’ve guaranteed that I won’t use anything you do now. I hardly think that I’m the only person thinking the same thing right now.
I wish you the best in the future, and that involves learning when to keep your mouth shut—probably the most important lesson to learn in business. [One I’m still learning every day, in some small way.]
December 8th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Dan adds this Comment:
Geof, tell us: when does Sergey learn to stop masquerading as a successful person by ceasing to be a condescending, petty asshole with an obvious inferiority complex?
December 19th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Michael Visser adds this Comment:
Cool tips, pity about the comments. I’m throwing anything of value over FTP at the moment which is less than convenient.
December 27th, 2006 at 5:56 am
Brett adds this Comment:
My arrangement:
- mirror local clone nightly using SuperDuper
- mirror clone over local network weekly with SuperDuper
- mirror local drive monthly using SuperDuper and transport off-site
Questionable and need to implement, but not certain how:
- mySQL dumps to S3 on remote Unix hosted server (websites, etc.)
- rsync to S3 How?
- rotational backups using S3 with possibly rsync
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Michaelb adds this Comment:
My problem is I have almost 112 GB of files on a linux server in a datacenter that I don’t have root access to that I want to get to my s3 bucket. Downloading to home and then re-upping using JungleDisk would take ages and I haven’t found any solution Googling yet. Anyone have a script to use rsync to S3 via the CLI yet?
January 5th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
JungleDisk Tip | alexking.org adds this Pingback:
[…] you’re using JungleDisk on Mac OS X, double check that you’ve un-mounted (ejected) your JungleDisk volume […]
April 18th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Price Tipping Point: S3 vs. Local | alexking.org adds this Pingback:
[…] excited about my recent experience backing up some critical files to Amazon S3, I asked Adam Tow if he’d considered using S3 for his photo backups. Adam and I have talked […]
April 18th, 2007 at 11:18 am
addady adds this Comment:
Using “–inplace” is a bad idea. It mean much more bandwidth and slower backup.
Form the rsync man page:
–inplace meaning that the rsync algorithm can’t extract the full
amount of network reduction it might otherwise.
This option is useful systems that are disk bound, not network bound.
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 am
Dan m adds this Comment:
Dose any one try s3rsync.com ?
They claim to provide full rsync on top of s3.
Is it read work?
Dan
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 pm