Remote backups

Remote backups

Lately I have been looking into offsite backup solutions and there seems to be quite a lot of choice. One popular, but fairly expensive solution, is rsync.net. They charge a couple of bucks per gig per month, but provide all the protocols you could ever want (including rsync, of course), and they even offer a second level of geo-redundancy for an extra charge. A much cheaper solution would be the Amazon S3 system, however it only provides a simple SOAP API set, so you have to use specially written client software to get rsync-like functionality. From what I have read, it sounds like a tool called duplicity is the current favourite as it provides rsync functionality plus gnupg based encryption. I'm currently using portable USB attached hard drives for backup, but I will likely be switching to online backups once I figure out the best approach from a cost and security perspective. Also, apparently google will be offering something in this market soon. Another idea someone mentioned to me was to make an agreement with a friend or colleague to mutually grant access to each others systems to do remote backups. If you know someone you trust enough to do this, it might be the least expensive option.

Another issue with respect to long term backups is file formats. Any files saved in anything but plain text or perhaps jpg will likely be unreadable after a fairly short amount of time.

Disks didn't quite win, you're missing the fact that tapes are far superior as something to
put into boxes and ship as bulk data storage. Much more resilient.

I'd second the recommendation for rsync.net. They even do discounts for free software people.

Gerv