Data, backing up, syncing, and the Cloud

Mustachio Jones

Going through and culling all of my data recently and setting up syncing and some other things got me thinking. How automated are the setups you're using?

For example: I have a folder with all of my writing in it. I've lost it before, it was pretty terrible, so I've taken the precautions of throwing a copy of that folder on every storage device I have. I've got a the backups on two drives, and the 'working' folder on one drive on my main computer, and one drive on my Eee to take with me. Remembering to reflect the changes on one side of the equation usually slips me by, so I decided to automate it.

Dropbox is the keystone here. I've got the folder with all my writing sitting in my dropbox. Using Synctoy, I have it automated to make the changes to the master folders on my desktop and my Eee every two days at 4:30 in the morning, so that it'll replicate the changes made to the master folder to the one in Dropbox, which will in turn get updated, which will in turn update the master folder on the other machine. I thought it was a pretty clever way of handling it, but I'm curious to know if anyone has any better ideas. The built in Windows task scheduler doesn't have an event trigger for when the machine enters a domain, or workgroup, or homegroup for that matter (both machines are running 7), which I decided would be the best option considering the coming-and-going nature of working on the Eee.

How much faith do you have in the Cloud as an idea? I know there was recently some cloud services that up and vanished with no warning, which frightens me to some extent. Backing up the data that you put on a cloud service is a necessary precaution, but in-so-far that it defeats some of the purpose of cloud storage in general.

Dark Shroud

First off do you trust the "the cloud" service with your data? Then there are issues of uptime, Bandwidth & storage costs, as well as security. I live in an older township and my internet drops for periods of time every so often. So even through I do use Skydrive there is no way I can seriously depend on and cloud storage for important data.

Check out Live Mesh from Microsoft as well. It has all the features of sync and more. Skydrive is also nice, they give you 25 gigs of storage free.

wunderbar

I use the cloud (amazon S3 specifically), as my offsite backup. I always keep all of my important stuff locally, and my primary backup is to a server in the house. I dont' rely on the cloud for my every day use, but if my house ever burns down, the cloud will hold all of my precious documents and pictures.

Starfuck

On my list is setting up off-site to my parents house. I used to use linux/bsd for my file serving needs and there was nothing rsync couldn't handle for my needs. I've since moved to WHS and back up to externals on a bi-weekly basis or so. I've been thinking of something like mozy for family photos and important documents though, in addition to setting up a mirror server at my parents house.

Cyvros

I used to use Live Mesh, but I use Dropbox now (with directory junctions rather than SyncToy to sync folders not in the Dropbox). No real reason behind the switch - Dropbox just feels a bit cleaner and a bit less bandwidth-eating. Also, Live Mesh refused to sync any of my user profile folders (Documents, Downloads, etc.).

Mustachio Jones

Live Mesh is pretty cool, but I see what you're saying. It's got some weird things about it, but I'll admit that it's probably me because I haven't bothered to poke through everything yet.

Using directory junctions instead of synctoy is an excellent idea and I'm somewhat upset with myself that I didn't think of that.

Cyvros

Well, I'd never have thought of it myself - someone gave me a link to a guide somewhere in the Dropbox wiki... which is currently under maintenance and can't be browsed anyway.