Remote backup

[Turbo-G]

Do many of you with more conventional backup routines also back up over the internet?

I currently back up to an external hard disk via Time Machine, which sits above my Mac on a shelf - great if I need to make a quick restore of a particular file for example. Not so great if there was a fire or burglary, as I'm likely to lose both my iMac and external hard disk!

So it seems the logical solution would be to back up to some remote storage over the net in addition to my normal time machine backup...

I've been looking around, and CrashPlan seems decent at a good price. Does anybody have experience of CrashPlan or others on their Mac's?

I think I would opt for the "CrashPlan+ Unlimited" package which would work out as $49.99 for the year - http://www.crashplan.com/consumer/store.vtl

Cheers.

G

 

[Turbo-G]

Yeah my broadband connection is a 20mb line but I only get 3.5mb dl and a pretty poor upload due to the line infrastructure, so I imagine the initial full backup would take a couple of days and then incrementals won't be too noticeable.

Mac Format did a comparison review in issue 230 and crashPlan came out top overall.

 

[Turbo-G]

Yeah I would literally only recover from it if my iMac and external hard drive got damaged/stolen. My time machine backups are fine for day to day recoveries if ever needed.

The only thing that is slightly concerning is the fact you're uploading all of your personal data onto a server somewhere which in theory could fall over or it's security could become breached. But you would hope security and resilience were catered for strongly with one of these more popular solutions, and I doubt Mac Format would reccommend them if their policies were dubious.