You've all heard of Amazon's Simple Storage Service by now. If not then check it out and sign up for own Web Services account.
Amazon S3 gives you access to scalable storage for 15c per GB per month, with a 10c per GB data transfer cost.
Assuming you just use the service to upload data for backup purposes you are getting high performance, scalable storage for 25c per GB per month. All charged to your existing Amazon account.
There are a bunch of utilities popping up to help with the transfer of data. One such program is Jungle Disk (cost $20). Once configured, it basically sets up a new drive mapping to your Amazon S3 storage.
Simply drag and drop files onto the drive (J drive on my machine) and it automatically copies them up to Amazon.
It can be set to do backups automatically as well (eg I have set it to copy stuff up in the early morning hours).
There are numerous other online backup services available, and some work out to be cheaper if you have very large data storage requirements (eg >20GB).
However I particularly like the simplicity of the Amazon/Jungle Disk combination. In particular I like that Michele and I both have J drive's on our machines pointing to the one S3 account. I can pull down a backup of Michele's files onto my machine if required (and vice versa).
It is also easy to share files using this method (although there are cheaper methods of achieving that requirement I must admit). But paying a few bucks a month to have the security and ease of Amazon is a small price to pay.
(Jungle Disk also offer add-on services such as Web based access, you can find out more here.)
6 comments:
I setup Mozy backups for Em. Same idea, except that you don't have to "remember" to drag things to the J: drive. Set and forget.
Up to 2GB is free, then you can pay $5/month for unlimited.
Thanks Grant. I tried out the Mozy service for a few weeks too - but found it slow to use - and I couldn't share my drive with other users. But it was free which was good.
Note, to clarify Jungle Disk functionality - it has an automated feature as well (as described above) - you don't have to do any dragging of things unless you want to.
Cheers,
Craig
For all online backup and storage related info, I recommend this website:
http://www.BackupReview.info
Thanks - great link
Hi Craig
Just reading this on TPN and thought of you and this article. http://skydriveteam.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!977F793E846B3C96!1697.entry
Apparently 5GB free storage available.
Cheers
Tony
Craig,
thanks for an interesting article. As I am currently looking into online storage I was keen on other user's feedback. Would you have any comment on the security of this service. As a non-techie I find it difficult to evaluate this. Having read through the documentation I understand that they use encryption for upload via ssl and that the files are encrypted on the S3 servers. However are you sure that neither JD nor Amazon has access to your keys?
Cheers
Eto
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