Inexpensive Alt to Carbonite / MozyPro

[justaguy168]

I am looking for a less expensive alternative to Carbonite and MozyPro. Want to configure unattended backups to some internet connected storage. Was originally thinking of scheduled batch file with command-line 7-zip w password and then FTP. Is there a reputable FTP hosting service that I could use? I live in the NYC area.

I tried to search the web best I could come up with was a site I'm not familiar with here and a warning about DreamHost here. This other thread proposed Jungledisk. I'd prefer my solution rather then this proprietary one. Size of compressed archive of user files is only 150MB. Would like to keep a couple of versions. Will archive larger photos and music separately.

Thoughts?

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I dont know what you are going to find cheaper than carbonite, its $60 a year for unlimited storage. Is it just price or is there some technical reason you want to go another way?

 

[drebo]

I was going to say...carbonite is about as cheap as it gets.

 

[PCTC2]

I dont know what you are going to find cheaper than carbonite, its $60 a year for unlimited storage. Is it just price or is there some technical reason you want to go another way?

If you buy multi-year, CrashPlan is even cheaper for unlimited at $36/year (for 4 years) or $18/year for 10GB (for 4 years). CrashPlan has Linux/Mac/Windows clients.

You could always just use DropBox (they have a linux client) and use rdiff (python-based rsync script) to backup version to the folder. It's a little slow but for smaller amounts of data it's fine (not for 1TB... lol)

 

[justaguy168]

I dont know what you are going to find cheaper than carbonite, its $60 a year for unlimited storage. Is it just price or is there some technical reason you want to go another way?

The technical reason is that I'm leery of trusting backups to a proprietary solution. It seems like the problem of backups was solved long ago and companies like MozyPro / Carbonite are just trying to turn it into a revenue stream. For an example of what I am talking about see this thread in another Anandtech forum. If things go right the proprietary solution is great. If they don't, one has little recourse at a vulnerable time.


Do companies that host websites also provide FTP? www.panix.com provides 1 GB for $100/yr but that's still more then the proprietaries.

 

[justaguy168]

Still more Carbonite problems posted on Anandtech here.

 

[mosco]

The technical reason is that I'm leery of trusting backups to a proprietary solution. It seems like the problem of backups was solved long ago and companies like MozyPro / Carbonite are just trying to turn it into a revenue stream. For an example of what I am talking about see this thread in another Anandtech forum. If things go right the proprietary solution is great. If they don't, one has little recourse at a vulnerable time.


Do companies that host websites also provide FTP? www.panix.com provides 1 GB for $100/yr but that's still more then the proprietaries.

Panix seems non-standard, but generally shared web site hosts don't allow your hosting space to be used for backups and if they notice you have taking up a ton of space and using not a lot of traffic, they will shut you down. You would need a VPS which is more expensive.

 

[paperwastage]

https://hostigation.com/?page=Backup

~$0.03 / GB / month, though i would only use this as a secondary source, as they say they don't have backups of your backups (probably meaning they won't use RAID for redundancy either)

 

[Sephire]

Carbonite is just way too slow for people who has gigabytes to backup.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Carbonite is just way too slow for people who has gigabytes to backup.

Depends, it only backs up what changes so unless you are making massive changes and have a slow pipe it works well.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

The technical reason is that I'm leery of trusting backups to a proprietary solution. It seems like the problem of backups was solved long ago and companies like MozyPro / Carbonite are just trying to turn it into a revenue stream. For an example of what I am talking about see this thread in another Anandtech forum. If things go right the proprietary solution is great. If they don't, one has little recourse at a vulnerable time.


Do companies that host websites also provide FTP? www.panix.com provides 1 GB for $100/yr but that's still more then the proprietaries.

You never know what the issues involved with other users issues. Could they have had a failing stick of RAM, or failing controller that caused corrupt data to be sent? You are just using a few posts here and there and saying its a bad solution. I've used several types of these service and havent had an issue yet. There are always failure points in any system, and saying FTP is more reliable vs a managed solution is just naive.

 

[nickbits]

I use amazon s3 and some custom software.

 

[kevnich2]

My vote would be crashplan. You have the option of backing up to a local USB Hard drive, to a friends drive through the internet (for free) or pay for unlimited internet based backup (That is fairly fast IMO) and for pretty cheap. I used to use carbonite but switched to crashplan and it's been great for the past 2+ years.

 

[justaguy168]

There are always failure points in any system, and saying FTP is more reliable vs a managed solution is just naive.

Okay, point taken RadiclDreamer. Kevnich, crashplan does look very good. Especially for low volume backups $25/yr/10 GB can't be beat. Makes my homegrown solution look extravagant. Much as I was all geared up to write my save-5-generation-and-ftp batch script, maybe I'll have do do something like take my bike out for a nice ride instead.

Paperwaster, Hostigation looks cheap but their website is quite terse, I'm not a professional, only a family sysadmin, and I'd have to check it out further.

 

[Arcanedeath]

How about backblaze? they made the storage pod and seem like a good company.