Number 317 - October 2009
Online Backup Services
There Are Pros & Cons But They Are Up & Coming
by Ira Brickman, President, ICON PC User Group, Inc., NY
The ICON Graphic, Newsletter of ICONPCUG, October 2008
president (at) iconpcug.org

This article has been obtained from APCUG for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).


   The changing face of how we use our computers includes the latest concept: using programs and services directly from the Internet. Many of us, for example, have found it more convenient to access our email using a Web browser (a.k.a. "Webmail") instead of a dedicated client like Outlook Express. The Internet's evermore ubiquitous nature means that receiving email is as simple as finding an available computer with browser software. Backing up your hard drive using an online service is one of the up and coming online services. The advantages are:
   
  • No need to buy backup software or purchase external USB drives or optical media to backup to.

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  • Not storing backups where the computer is located secures against fire, theft, and other risks.

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  • Like Webmail, the backups are available from any computer with an Internet connection & a browser.


    •    As good as that sounds, some of the other considerations are:
       
  • There are some costs usually involved.

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  • Backup privacy and security is dependent on a third party and transmitting your data over the Internet adds privacy and security risks.

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  • You become dependent the backup service staying in business. If not, you are out of luck.

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  • It takes a lot longer to backup or restore than using a local hard drive.

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  • There is no imaging which means you are not backing up a picture of your hard drive, including your operating system installation. Rather you are backing up folders and files.


    •    All in all, the pros certainly make trying online backup worthwhile. The cons, however, mean you have to judge how private the files are and how large your backups will be. And the risk of a service folding means you should be wary of using smaller, totally free backup services for anything very critical to you.

       There are some well-known, reliable services which can be free to use, within certain limitations. Or for a small monthly fee, you can get all the pros and limit your risks. If you want to use an online backup services, there are three commercial services you can explore and consider to start with. They are: Amazon S3/Jungle Disk, Mozy, and Carbonite. All three have similarities:
       
  • They require that you download and install a desktop client to configure backups, manage restores.
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  • Once your first backup is created, the client program then works in the background to backup of new and altered files.

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  • All three encrypt your data before transmission and store it in encrypted form on remote servers.

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  • None require you to restore from the original computer.


    •    You can also restore your data to a different computer.

       If you search the Web, you will find an abundance of reviews about each of these services. There is much that has been positively written about Jungle Disk and Amazon's Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). The S3 service is part of a package of Amazon services meant to be accessed through third party software. Jungle Disk is the leading program to do that. It "mounts" the online storage so that it seamlessly appears as another drive in your Windows Explorer. Jungle Disk can schedule automatic backups, but the mounted drive means you can drag and drop to manually backup files and folders And it allows for incremental backups.

       This last is important because there are costs involved. Amazon currently charges 10 cents per Gigabyte per month for storage and another 17 cents per GB for the data transfer. Incremental backups mean the transfer costs are kept to a minimum after your initial backup.

       Amazon S3: http://tinyurl.com/qx87a

       Jungle Disk: www.jungledisk.com. JungleDisk costs $20 after a 30-day free trial.

       Mozy, at http://www.mozy.com/, on the other hand, can be free if you use the "MozyHome" alternative, limited to 2Gb of storage. But for $4.95 per month, Mozy offers unlimited backup of a single home computer. Though not as convenient as Jungle Disk, the MozyHome software makes backing up easy and has many backup options.

       Carbonite, www.carbonite.com/, offers a yearly subscription for unlimited backup of a hard drive, starting at $49.95 per year, with lower costs for upfront payment of multi-year subscriptions. This makes it a little less expensive than Mozy per year. The Carbonite software might be a little easier to use than Mozy. Some reviewers found Carbonite to be slower and the Carbonite Web site does contain a caution about speed.

       With costs potentially less than the upfront cost of a hard drive, these backup services are at least worth a look for their convenience for computer users.

       This article originally appeared in The Examiner, Beaumont, TX, and is being reprinted, with permission, for the benefit of User Groups
      Number 317 - October 2009