Cloud storage
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Matthew Yglasias has a piece on Slate about Amazon's new cloud storage service and how it's likely to kill Dropbox. Naturally I signed up. But I already have a Dropbox account that's not full. I also have Goggle Drive and Microsoft Skydrive accounts. (I also have a Cloud Experience account.) I'm sure I don't need all of these, but I haven't spent the time to decide what I really want to do. Has anyone thought about this? My needs are pretty modest. I tend not to store videos or music, just text and software.
-- Russ
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I haven't thought that much about it, but it just occurred to me that it might be fun to build a distributed, RAID-inspired "el cheapo" cloud storage system. Sign up for about ten services each offering 5 GB of free storage, and think of each as a member of a RAID system, and stripe blocks of files onto them. Voila! 50GB of free, redundant storage. If one or two of the services went out of business, you could dynamically rebuild your RAID by signing up for another free service (with appropriate driver/adapter software). Great for us penny pinchers!
;; Gary On Apr 3, 2013, at 3:50 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by Russ Abbott
I'm pretty simplistic about it and use mozy. My computers are backed up automatically and I don't spend any time thinking about it. The two times there was a failure of their data base on my machine getting corrupted, they were able to recover everything quickly. When we returned to NM after two months away, I found both a crashed disk and a hardware failure the backup disk on my wife's computer, both of which were powered down while we were away. A couple of clicks on the mozy site restored her whole disk. It's worth $150 a year.
Ed __________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon On Apr 3, 2013, at 2:50 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
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So what plan do you have? How's it work? Is a full disk backup, or do you specify directories?
-- Owen
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You can specify directories or back up the whole disk. Being a little cheap and having 3 computers on my account, I don't back up the OS or some aps that are easy to reload. You pay by the how much space you use for up to three computers on the basic plan. I think carbonite is about the same.
Ed __________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon On Apr 4, 2013, at 9:25 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
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All the plans I use are free. They range from 2GB to (I think) 25 GB for Microsoft! Everything in the designated directories are backed up automatically.
-- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 8:36 PM, Edward Angel <[hidden email]> wrote:
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If someone would just up the free storage to 150 GB.
Actually what I will switch to at some point is backing up my Time Machine disks, The problem with all the free and pay cloud backups is they only have the latest copy of a file. Ed __________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon On Apr 6, 2013, at 12:33 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
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So has anyone successfully restored an entire system from the Cloud
(or a Time Machine come to think of it)? How easy was it? Any
statistics on success rate? Some TM instructions require 'your
original Mac OS 10.5 Leopard DVD' but I upgraded to Mountain Lion on
line and have no corresponding original DVD. If I stop backing up
will my system crash but only till then (Murphy's Law)?
-- Robert C On 4/6/13 7:17 AM, Edward Angel wrote:
If someone would just up the free storage to 150 GB. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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I have one data point. One of our Macs near Seattle had a drive fail, so I had an employee take it to an Apple store. The 'genius' was very happy when he saw the Time Machine, and, I think, nothing was lost.
About the depth of cloud backups: I now use Arq on the Mac. The backups are in Amazon's S3, and the frequency is settable: I have one done every hour. You set a limit on how much space you want to use -- just as a Time Machine has a fixed size -- and once you hit that limit, it will overwrite the oldest versions as necessary. Also the paid version of DropBox keeps at least some history. For saving a Time Machine offsite, Amazons Glacier storage is one cent a gigabyte per month, so your 150 gigabytes would be $18 per year. They really hit you with transfer charges if you try to read a large amount in a short time, but since that presumably happens only when your Mac and your time machine have both been roasted in a fire, you probably will be happy to pay them. Unfortunately 150 gigs is not enough for most time machines. --Barry On Apr 6, 2013, at 8:42 AM, "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]> wrote: So has anyone successfully restored an entire system from the Cloud (or a Time Machine come to think of it)? How easy was it? Any statistics on success rate? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by Robert J. Cordingley
I dropped my previous MacBook air once and crashed the hard drive. Fortunately, I had a Time Machine backup from only an hour before. I was either on Snow Leopard or Lion, don't remember which. It went without a hitch and took around three hours to restore the newly installed 500 GB drive with about 300 GB of data. I haven't used the cloud for backup, as I have maximum of about one megabit of bandwidth.
;; Gary On Apr 6, 2013, at 9:42 AM, "Robert J. Cordingley" <[hidden email]> wrote: > So has anyone successfully restored an entire system from the Cloud (or a Time Machine come to think of it)? How easy was it? Any statistics on success rate? Some TM instructions require 'your original Mac OS 10.5 Leopard DVD' but I upgraded to Mountain Lion on line and have no corresponding original DVD. If I stop backing up will my system crash but only till then (Murphy's Law)? > > -- Robert C ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by Barry MacKichan
My $.02 on Time Machine.
I bought a 2TB time machine about 4? years ago and set up two MB Pro's with it. Other than a little irritation from accidental reboots on the device (connected to the same power strip as my flakey motorola internet service, yielding a reboot via powerstrip toggle sometimes), I've had nothing but good look. I've only had one occasion to do a full restore in an emergency and it worked like a charm.. I *have* used it to migrate between MB Pros and an iMac about 5 or 6 times in the same period. That has worked flawlessly as well. It might be prudent to back that up somewhere offsite, but I'm just not that prudent and now am spoiled to my regular "backup" and potential "restores" being almost entirely invisible to me. I can't tell from the discussion on the list how "transparent" the true cloud services are, unfortunately I'm pretty sure my totally lame internet would make *restore* a long and painful experience. - Steve I have one data point. One of our Macs near Seattle had a drive fail, so I had an employee take it to an Apple store. The 'genius' was very happy when he saw the Time Machine, and, I think, nothing was lost. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Just curious why you Mac guys are buying backup systems, when there is a perfectly good way to use rsync. Here's my nightly backup script, which currently sends my nightly incrementals to a cheap 3TB USB3 external drive:
#!/bin/bash # Just in case they are not mounted /bin/mount /mnt/3TB >&/dev/null /bin/mount /mnt/Movies >&/dev/null /bin/mount /mnt/Video >&/dev/null
# #/home/roberts # echo "Starting /home/roberts backup" >>/home/roberts/backup2.log date >>/home/roberts/backup2.log /usr/bin/rsync -vurltD --exclude-from=/home/roberts/.rsync/exclude /home/roberts /mnt/3TB >>/home/roberts/backup2.log 2>&1 echo "Completed /home/roberts backup" >>/home/roberts/backup2.log
date >>/home/roberts/backup2.log On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Doug Roberts
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Douglas Roberts wrote at 04/08/2013 11:26 AM:
> Just curious why you Mac guys are buying backup systems, when there is a > perfectly good way to use rsync. Here's my nightly backup script, which > currently sends my nightly incrementals to a cheap 3TB USB3 external drive: The cloud solves the physical problem. For example, if the house or office burns down, the extra mountable disk isn't going to help (unless you've gone to some extraordinary extents involving drilling holes in fireproof boxes or burying your extra disks in your apocalypse shelter under your house ... or perhaps on a wifi-enabled drone that continually circles above you). But that doesn't stop you from using rsync to a remote machine, which is what I used to do before I found SparkleShare. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. -- Socrates ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
Doug!
Just curious why you Mac guys are buying backup systems, when there is a perfectly good way to use rsync. Here's my nightly backup script, which currently sends my nightly incrementals to a cheap 3TB USB3 external drive:I'ts the glitzy interface! Have you ever *SEEN* it? You feel like you are traveling back in time and can find any previous state a the click of a button! ;^) Actually, there is *something* to this. In my case, it was after a particular ugly crash/loss (you know how hard I can be on my equipment) without a good backup... I hadn't *bothered* to set up and test a good backup system and finally got caught with my pants tangled around my ankles and decided that the incremental cost of a "Time Machine" over a basic disk of similar magnitude (might have been $400 vs $300) would pay for itself the first hour I *didn't* have to think too hard about how to use it. I spent more than a little time convincing myself the damned system actually *worked* but it wasn't until the first real emergency use that I got much confidence. I use even more clunky methods with my Linux systems and don't bother at ALL with my Winderz versions... except maybe to make entire disk images... but the fact is, these are not my *working* systems... I build them and use them to test for *very specific purposes* and am as likely as not to wipe and rebuild anyway for each new project. I occasionally use TM (mostly for my wife) to simply go find an event where she deleted or overwrote something she needed. Usually I can find in e-mail the date/time of the triggering event, usually several days to a few months previous, and then go bumble around in the Time Machine until I *see* the (usually a flurry of) changes and forensically can figure out exactly *what* changed and *guess* why, etc. A point and click later and we are back to the earlier state, and if I'm wrong, another point and click and we are at another state, and .... Is there an equivalent process you use for recovering things you aren't sure when/where/how you lost? Seems likely, but it is probably a little harder to learn. I no longer have the benefit of working amongst a group of like-minded Unix-Heads (though this list is a good resource) such that this kind of folk-knowledge suffuses through my bony skull. I also keep the state of my *entire* system backed up because (blame it on Apple, but I think the package managers for Linux create the same challenge) I have *no clue* where much of the state of my system is actually maintained... when I install software, libraries, frameworks, etc... I have at best a vague idea where it actually resides. To wit, I *know* that most Mac Apps are this hairball of code and data and libraries and pointers to dynamic libraries and simply dumping the Application File somewhere (usually the Applications Directory) is all that is involved in an install. Unfortunately, frameworks in particular are a bit trickier... and I *do* sometimes wish I understood better how all that worked (as I would *almost* have to if working closer to the OS as with Linux), but frankly I'm too lazy... I'm usually trying something out, and don't want to invest much more than a few point, clicks, and "agrees" to give it a test drive. This means my system is pretty crufty with installed stuff I never use. But so is my toolbench/toolbox.... tools I needed for *one job* still being carried around for no particular reason! Maybe I *will* use your method on my Linux systems... seems prudent and easy enough. But then surely more than my *home* directory which is the *least* of my worries on my Linux systems. thanks! - Steve
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
1. Is your 3TB drive off-site? Offsite backup is the problem to be solved, IMHO.
2. I imagine that the probability that your 3TB drive will be alive and functional in a year is less than 99.999999999% (not that I fully believe Amazon's claims, but they do monitor their disks and move the data when the error rate hits a certain threshold). 3. If my data is off-site, I want it encrypted. I'm not sure how to do that with rsync. We do use rsync nightly, however, to update our CTAN mirror. --Barry On Apr 8, 2013, at 12:26 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote: Just curious why you Mac guys are buying backup systems, when there is a perfectly good way to use rsync. Here's my nightly backup script, which currently sends my nightly incrementals to a cheap 3TB USB3 external drive: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Did I fail to mention that I keep backups of my backups? I did, didn't I...
I am not paranoid, the odds are out to get you. --Doug
On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 1:35 PM, Barry MacKichan <[hidden email]> wrote:
Doug Roberts
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No, the odds have gotten me. I am assuming that rsync overwrites past history, so it saves less than a time machine. Is that correct?
On Apr 8, 2013, at 1:44 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote: Did I fail to mention that I keep backups of my backups? I did, didn't I... ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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It will overwrite files with the same name. You can set with a parameter whether it will do a mirror-like sync or to instead leave files that have been deleted on source directory on the backup directory. To delete extraneous files on the destination directory use the --del parameter.
--Doug
On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Barry MacKichan <[hidden email]> wrote:
Doug Roberts
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Doug -
Apropos of your *original* point/question.... A Time Machine (unless it is offsite) doesn't solve the offsite problem. The overwrite problem doesn't solve *my* main problem which is NOT catastrophic failure but operator error... perhaps one of the options you mention in rsync, in fact solves it... though somehow I suspect it is designed for *competent* people, not the rest of us. As for backups of backups, belts AND suspenders? I like the Masahide (often attributed to his teacher, Basho) quote: "Barn's burnt down, now I can see the moon"Of course, don't expect me to be so philosophical next time my hard drive (or worse, my Time Machine? or my house) burns down... but it has a nice ring doesn't it? Better than "don't play with matches!" I also have to thank our own Morgan Thomas (on Discuss if not FRIAM) who uses this often as her own tagline. And for good reason. - Steve It will overwrite files with the same name. You can set with a parameter whether it will do a mirror-like sync or to instead leave files that have been deleted on source directory on the backup directory. To delete extraneous files on the destination directory use the --del parameter. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In addition to the other reasons for offsite backup, let me add break-ins. Mush more likely than a fire. Within two minutes your computers can all be gone.
I doubt any statistics on disk failures. I've had two backup disks and an internal disk fail in the last year. Two of the failures were on the same computer which was powered down for two months while we were gone. Offsite storage saved us. Ed __________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon On Apr 8, 2013, at 3:08 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
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