Best free storage managers
Low-cost online backup beats free alternatives
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By
Ian "Gizmo" Richards
In the last year, we've seen dozens of online backup services appear, spurred on by the widespread adoption of broadband Internet access. The best of the lot give you plenty of bang for just a few bucks. |
The pros and cons of storing backups on the Net
Backing up to a remote server offers some attractive features compared to traditional backup methods:
• You don't need to buy dedicated backup software.
• You don't need to buy CDs, DVDs, or external USB drives for backup.
• Backups are not stored locally and are thus secure against fire, theft, and other physical risks.
• Your backups are generally accessible from any Internet connection.
That sounds attractive, but there are some serious downsides:
• You must depend on a third party to ensure the privacy and security of your backups.
• Transmitting your data over the Internet introduces additional privacy and security risks.
• If your ISP caps your data transfers, you may incur added charges for exceeding those transmission limits.
• Backup and recovery times are many times slower with online backup services than with restoring a backup from local media.
• There is no support for creating and recovering from system images such as those generated by Acronis TrueImage and other drive-imaging programs.
• You are dependent on the backup service's remaining in business.
This last point is particularly significant. Setting up a proper online backup system involves a serious time commitment, so you don't want to waste that investment on a service that goes out of business. But it's not only a question of time and effort: imagine a situation where you need to recover your data from a backup, only to discover that your online backup service is no longer operating!
This is not a purely theoretical risk. In the last year, I'm aware of at least two popular free backup services that ceased operation, one of which was called The Linkup. Others will surely follow.
Those who used these defunct backup services lost all the time and effort they had put into creating their backups. If their ISP caps the amount of data they can upload, they also lost the money spent transmitting their data to the remote server. And what has happened to the private data stored on these discontinued services? You have to fear the worst.
For this reason, I don't recommend totally free backup services for any critical data. If you decide to go the online-backup route, use a commercial service that has a viable business model and has been operating for some time.
The good news is that some commercial services, such as Mozy (see below), offer a limited free service. If you can live with the limitations, such a free service will be fine. You then have your free account, but you also have some guarantee of service continuity.
The three commercial services that I can recommend based on positive personal experiences are: Jungle Disk from Amazon A3, Mozy, and Carbonite. All three are well-established, have a solid user base, and provide a quality service.
The three services have a lot in common. Each requires you to download and install a desktop client that you use to configure your backup, manage restores, and handle the regular background backup of new and altered files to the service's remote servers.
Each service specializes in backup rather than in simpler and less-secure file sharing. All three encrypt your data before transmission and store it in encrypted form on their remote servers. You can also restore your data to a different computer.
Jungle Disk's on-demand pricing and ability to back up multiple PCs gives it an edge over Mozy and Carbonite. Mozy offers an abundance of backup and restore options but is slightly more difficult to use than Carbonite. My biggest knocks against Carbonite are the service's slow performance and lack of Web-based access (you have to use the company's client app).
#1: AMAZON JUNGLE DISK
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$20+storage
86 More info |
With Carbonite, Mozy, and most other online backup services, you get a similar offering with similar pricing. The Jungle Disk/Amazon S3 service is quite different.
The actual online storage is provided by the high-end Amazon S3 system that's designed for corporate and IT professionals. The "Amazon" here is the online book company, so we're talking about a serious player.
Jungle Disk is the client program that allows users to access the Amazon S3 system. It's a product developed by a third party, not Amazon itself.
To use this system, you need to purchase the Jungle Disk client software for a once-off fee of U.S. $20 and you need to separately pay Amazon S3 monthly for the storage you use.
The cost of the client covers any number of PCs accessing the same Amazon account. This contrasts with Carbonite and Mozy, where you pay separately for each PC.
The S3 charge for online storage comes to roughly $0.15 per GB per month for storage used plus $0.10 per GB of data uploaded and $0.17 per GB of data downloaded.
So if you have 10GB of online storage and you refresh 20 percent of that each month, you would pay $1.50 for storage plus $1.00 for the upload, a total of $2.50 for that month.
Clearly, this pricing structure is cheaper than Carbonite or Mozy for anyone who doesn't need a huge amount of online storage. However, when your storage requirement is larger than, say, 20GB or 30GB, the Jungle Disk/A3 approach is more expensive.
The 20GB-to-30GB threshold increases when you back up more than one PC to the service. For example, if you have four PCs, Jungle Disk starts to be more expensive than alternative services closer to the 100GB level.
But it's not only Jungle Disk's pricing structure that differs from Carbonite and Mozy: Jungle Disk is also faster and more full-featured.
In particular, the service is the only one of the three I tested to offer true network drive mapping. This means the files backed up to the Amazon server are accessible to you and your programs via a drive letter in Windows Explorer, Open and Save dialog boxes, and other folder windows.
On my PC, the Amazon backup appears as drive K:, and I can read and write files to this drive as with any other. Similarly, any program on my PC can access the files on this drive.
Unlike the other products, Jungle Disk offers a user-adjustable cache. This lets you tune your system to get the best possible performance when updating or changing your backup data.
Jungle Disk supports the Mac OS and Linux as well as Windows. There's even a portable client that you can run from a USB flash drive.
But for me, Jungle Disk's neatest feature is its ability to do block updates. This means that only the changed portions of large data files are transferred to the remote server. You'll realize huge speed improvements when backing up Outlook .pst and other big, regularly updated files in which only a small portion of the file actually changes.
Figure 1. The Jungle Disk service lets you back up a selected "bucket" manually or all buckets at once.
The block-update feature is available only through Jungle Disk's "Plus" package, which costs an extra $1 per month. Other features in the Plus package include Web access and e-mail or RSS notification of your backup status.
Jungle Disk may have a lot of features, but it also has the most complex setup of the three products I tried. You need to sign up for an Amazon S3 account in addition to buying the Jungle Disk client.
No, you don't have to be an expert to set up Jungle Disk, but you do need to be experienced. Certainly, beginners would be challenged.
Strengths:
• You pay only for the storage you use
• Experienced users will appreciate the ability to create a backup set
• True network drive mapping allows your programs to access your server data directly
• Online storage backed by Amazon will be accessible even if the desktop-client vendor goes out of business
• Fastest of the three services tested
• Caching of server files with user-adjustable cache size offers improved performance
• Personal encryption key
• Data can be permanently archived
• All major platforms supported
• Portable version available
• Desktop client can be used on any number of PCs
• Desktop client comes with unlimited lifetime upgrades
• Ability to do block updates means that only changed portions of large files are uploaded (Plus version only)
• Web access (Plus version only)
• E-mail or RSS backup-log notification (Plus version only)
Weaknesses:
• Setup is more complex than with other services and not suited to beginners
• Resource throttling is not as flexible as in Mozy
• You need to buy the desktop client separately ($20)
• Requires a subscription to the Amazon S3 service
• Vendor of desktop client possibly not as substantial as other vendors
• Web access, resumable uploads, and block-level file updates are available only with the Plus service ($1 per month)
#2: EMC MOZY HOME
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$5/mo. 82 Free version 78 More info |
Mozy, like Jungle Backup, offers unlimited storage but with slightly different pricing: $4.95 per month or $54.45 per year. You get more features with Mozy than you do with Carbonite for roughly the same price. Mozy is faster, offers Web access, and is more flexible in the way backup sets can be defined.
However, this comes at the cost of a slightly more complex setup. Still, Mozy isn't that complex and is probably a better choice for experienced users.
Most importantly, Mozy is the only one of the three services I reviewed that offers a free option. The free service is for a maximum of 2GB of online storage, but if that's enough to hold your data, you need look no further.
Strengths:
• Option of a free account, though limited to 2GB of online storage
• Experienced users will appreciate the ability to create a backup set
• Very flexible resource throttling
• Lots of setup options
• Calibrates your Internet bandwidth during setup
• Local 1GB caching of server speeds up operation
• Allows optional use of private encryption key
• Web-based restore
• EMC, the owner of Mozy, is a substantial company
Weaknesses:
• More daunting for beginners than Carbonite
• No genuine network mapped drive in home version
• Poor archiving — old versions deleted after 30 days
• No file-sharing option
• Separate license required for each PC
#3: CARBONITE
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$50/yr.
77 More info |
Carbonite offers unlimited online storage for a flat fee of $49.95 per year. It's the easiest of the three products to set up and has the best user interface. However, Carbonite is also the slowest of the three and the most limited in other respects.
The service doesn't allow the use of personal encryption keys and lacks a Web interface. The latter problem means that the only way you can access your data stored on the Carbonite server is by installing the Carbonite client software.
Strengths:
• Easy-to-use interface
• Select files to back up by right-clicking, which is intuitive and easy for beginners
• Default selection of files to backup will suit most users
Weaknesses:
• Lack of traditional "backup sets" will annoy advanced users
• No provision for personal encryption key
• Client must be installed in order to recover data
• No Web-based restore feature
• No genuine network drive mapping, so your programs cannot access remote files directly
• Poor archiving — old backups are deleted after 30 days
• No file-sharing option
• Separate license required for each PC
• Slowest of the three on my test PC
For backing up multiple PCs, the choice is clear
After using all three of these systems for at least a month, I found that the product best suited to my needs was Jungle Disk. For backup sets less than 20GB, Jungle Disk is the clear winner on both price and features. Similarly, anyone with several PCs to back up will be attracted to Jungle Disk's licensing policy, which allows use of the client on any number of systems.
If you need to back up less than 2GB of data, then the free version of Mozy's service is an easy first choice. If you need to back up more than that amount of data and you're a beginner with PCs, then Carbonite is your best bet.
More experienced users are better served by either Jungle Disk or Mozy Home.
Ian "Gizmo" Richards is senior editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He was formerly editor of the Support Alert Newsletter, which merged with Windows Secrets in July 2008. Gizmo alternates the Best Software column each week with contributing editor Scott Spanbauer.
More free online storage options
In recent times I've had a flurry of email suggesting free online storage sites. I've covered many of these in previous newsletters but here are two new ones:
Nick Carter writes "Gizmo, I've been looking round for a decent media storage site and stumbled across Humyo [1]. I think it rates as good if not better than the MediaMax site you mentioned."
Subscriber Todd Hudspeth has found another. "Gizmo, I've been constantly looking for great freeware or online storage solutions. The new one that I've found to be very capable and of interest is called ADrive, and it allows you 50GB storage for free!"
I checked these out and Humyo offers 30GB of free space of which 25GB can be media files. However, the free service does not encrypt file transfers, has no desktop client or file sharing features and if you fail to login at every 90 days your files will be deleted. Signing up to the $60 paid service removes these restrictions.
ADrive provides 50GB of free storage with file sharing, and the accounts never expire. However, once again there is no desktop client, so you must upload or download via your browser. Additionally, I can see no mention of encryption. There is currently no paid service, though the site states that one is planned. How this will impact free account holders is unclear.
BTW, MediaMax has now morphed into "The Linkup" [3] and the offering has been changed. Their free account now offers only 25GB and has a very limiting maximum download size of only 10MB.
That's the problem with these free services: there is simply no guarantee of service continuity. That may be OK if you're backing up only non-critical files, but for serious data backup it's unacceptable.
If you want to back up critical files I suggest that you consider a paid online backup service like Mozy or Carbonite, both of which provide an excellent product at a reasonable cost. Personally I use Amazon's S3 service along with JungleDisk for a cost of less than $2 month, and I'm very happy with this solution. For more details, see here [4].
[1] http://www.humyo.com[2] http://wwww.adrive.com
[3] http://www.thelinkup.com
[4] http://www.techsupportalert.com/issues/issue154.htm#Section_2.2
Add Vista flash drive ReadyBoost to Windows XP
The description on the website sounds very enticing:
"eBoostr is an alternative solution to Vista's ReadyBoost and SuperFetch technologies now available on Windows XP. It speeds up your PC and improves application responsiveness by using flash memory and free RAM as an extra layer of performance-boosting cache for your PC."
I downloaded the product and tried it on my XP based IBM T42 laptop with 1GB of memory. For a flash drive I used a Lexar Lightning with 2GB allocated to the cache. The Lightning is one of the faster flash drives and is well suited to the role.
The setup was simple enough, although creating the cache took a few minutes. Once it's setup the program runs quietly in the background, actively caching commonly used files and memory processes. It's quite active: the LED on the Flash Drive was flickering just about every time I did something on the PC.
The product uses an unusual trial system. The program works full-featured for four hours after a reboot, then disables itself until the next time you boot, at which time you get another four hours.
I guess it was designed to highlight to users the difference in performance with the product enabled compared to disabled.
It's a nice idea except that I didn't notice any real difference in performance!
I ran some timing tests and they did show my PC was running between two and six percent faster. The trouble is that didn't translate into a significant perceived improvement in speed.
After a week I uninstalled it. With the product fully removed my PC performed much the same.
However, my experience may be different to yours. You can download it and try it on your PC and see if it helps. Let me know if it does. Before you purchase it, consider that you might get better results if you simply buy more RAM memory for your PC. Commercial software, $19-$39, Windows 2000, XP, 2003 with USB 2 port, 1MB.
http://www.eboostr.comSupport Alert subscribers sniff out best USB deals
Last month I light-heartedly offered a free premium subscription to the first subscriber who could locate a 2GB Kingston Traveler drive under $10, including shipping. Little did I expect that so many of you would be successful. The best find was made by subscriber Dario Valenzano, who located the drive for $5.99 including shipping. Yet again, dear readers, you managed to impress me. The link to Dario's find is below but I believe they are now charging shipping.
http://www.espotdeals.com/Shop/Control/Product/fp/SFV/31824/vpid/4599305/vpcsid/0/rid/123267
The best free portable applications
This is an important item. It's not only about a great new portable apps list, it's also your chance make a contribution to the internet community.
I've asked subscriber Matt Perkins to compile a "starter list" of the "46 Best-ever Free Portable Programs", and this very basic list is now online [1] on my new wiki-style website.
Rather than just read Matt's list, I'd like you to make you own contribution using the features of the new website.
You can contribute by adding some comments at the bottom of the page or by registering at the site and directly editing Matt's list.
The plan is to pool the huge collective wisdom of Support Alert subscribers and create a really outstanding list of portable applications that everyone can use as a guide and an on-going resource.
Even if you can't make a suggestion, you can help by adding some download links to Matt's list.
The more of you who contribute, the better the end result for all of us. So come on, guys and gals, jump in and lend a hand! Together, we can create the best-ever free portable apps list on the internet.
http://46best.com/dr/best-free-portable-programs.htmUSB flash drives get even cheaper
In issue #153 I mentioned Buy.com had 2GB Kingston Traveler USB Flash drives for $19.95 and joked that prices were dropping so quickly that you would soon be getting flash drives free with your Corn Flakes. Well, it's not far away. I noticed today that CTCStore.com [1] now has the same Kingston drives for $12.95 and if you buy two you get free shipping. A free premium subscription for the first subscriber to report a 2GB Kingston Traveler drive under $10 including shipping. A free lifetime subscription for the first subscriber who actually gets one in his/her breakfast cereal packet ;>)
[1] http://www.ctcstore.com/Kingston-DTI2GBKR-Data-Traveler-2-GB/M/B000FZX9I0.htm
More Amazon S3 storage options
Subscriber Igor Brejc writes "Gizmo after reading your article in the Premium edition about Amazon S3 [1] I signed up. Since then I've done some testing of clients other than JungleDisk [2] that can use the S3 service. Here are a few useful links:
S3 Drive [3]: This is a free virtual disk client for S3. I tried it on Windows XP and I had some problems with it. But it does work on my Vista machine. It's beta and has some quirks, but I think it should be mentioned here. But JungleDisk is probably a better option, since it's actively developed and supported and it is cheap.
S3 Backup [4]: This is a free client for S3 backup (it's beta too). I tried it and it works, but sadly it lacks the virtual-disk feature
List of Amazon S3 Backup Tools [5]: At the same site there is also an interesting article [6] comparing the economics of home backup server with Amazon.
JunglediskSnapIn [7]: This is a Powershell implementation of JungleDisk which uses the Amazon S3 storage services. This is ideal for making automated backups to JungleDisk.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261
[2] http://www.jungledisk.com
[3] http://www.s3drive.net/
[4] http://www.maluke.com/software/s3-backup
[5] http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/007641.html :
[6] http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/007624.html
[7] http://www.codeplex.com/JunglediskSnapIn:
Amazon S3 online storage impresses
Last month, I wrote about Amazon's S3 storage system in the premium edition. After using it for a month, I'm sufficiently impressed with it that I feel I should tell all subscribers about it.
Amazon S3 is not really a consumer online storage service like Mozy but forms part of Amazon's package of web services that is geared to technical users. Indeed, to access the S3 storage you need a separate third part application program.
The program I'm using is called JungleDisk. It's a $20 program backup management program recommended to me by Jean-Denis Marx, one of the volunteer editors for the Best Freeware Wiki project.
JungleDisk mounts the S3 as an external drive which can be accessed normally through Windows Explorer. It performs automatic or manual backups of the directories or files designated by the user. JungleDisk can keep deleted and modified files on S3 (time machine function) or ensure that the two drives are in sync.
They also sell a $1 per month add-on "Plus" service that provides web access to your backup files and allows true differential backup. The latter means that only the changed parts of large files are uploaded rather than the whole file. This feature should cut down on bandwidth use considerably. I say "should" as I haven't yet tested it.
And there's also a portable version for your USB flash drive that allows you to securely access your data from any public terminal.
Yes, JungleDisk is not free but the $20 is a once-up cost and includes lifetime support. And you can try it for free for 30 days.
I know what you are thinking: "Why is Gizmo recommending this when I can get a lot of these features at other online backup services for free."
Well let me tell you straight: I don't get paid a cent to say this nor do I derive any commission from S3 or JungleDisk. In fact I forked out my $20 for JungleDisk just like anybody else.
The real answer is simple. S3/JungleDisk is the only online backup solution that I've tried on my PC that has worked seamlessly and 100% reliably. And while it's not free it's so cheap it doesn't matter.
JungleDisk is not for beginners. Nor is it for those who want cute looking interfaces. JungleDisk is serious software designed to do a serious job.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261
[2] http://www.jungledisk.com
Best free portable applications
Subscriber Matt Perkins has sent in a well researched list [1] of portable programs for your USB flash drive. Many of these are portable versions of programs I feature on my 46 Best-ever Freeware list [2]. Matt's done a nice job of this but be aware that I haven't tested every program mentioned.
[1] http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-portable-programs.htm
[2] http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm
A quality 4GB flash drive for $19.95
Buy.com is currently making this offer on 4GB Kingston Traveler drives. I suspect that the day when we get these drives free in Corn Flakes boxes is not far away.
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=204134644&adid=17070&dcaid=17070
How to convert a U3 flash drive to a normal drive
U3 smart drives are USB flash drives which comply with the U3 mobile computing standard set down by U3 LLC (www.u3.com), a consortium of vendors lead by Sandisk.
The main idea behind U3 was to develop a platform where programs could run independently on USB drives without leaving any trace on the host PC. The U3 standard also provides for a user menu (the Launchpad) that pops up when the USB drive is inserted into a host and it also mandates password protection.
It's a great idea, in principle, but in practice there are not a lot of programs around that are written for U3. Indeed, some software authors have avoided writing for U3 because they feel that it's a proprietary standard. Furthermore, there have been a lot of reports that U3 drives simply won't work with particular host PCs.
Another limitation is that U3 drives will only work with Win2K SP4, XP and Vista. Older Windows operating systems, Mac OS, Linux, and UNIX are not supported. That's quite a limitation, particularly when using public terminals.
Don't get me wrong; U3 applications on U3 drives can work wonderfully well. It's just that you don't really need U3.
I had a couple of U3 drives but have since removed U3 from both. U3 removal is not hard. In essence, what you need to do is remove the LaunchPad.
Removal may not be hard, but be aware that it is irreversible (apparently it can be reversed on SanDisk drives). That said, it is essential that you backup your flash drive data before proceeding.
The best way to remove the LaunchPad is to use the removal tool provided by the manufacturer of your flash drive. With some drives this option is available from the LaunchPad menu itself under the item "Status and Settings". More likely, though, you'll need to download the removal utility. You can locate the utility for your drive by filling in this form at the official U3 site:
If you can't find a utility for your drive then download the generic utility provided by U3.
Before running the utility, ensure your U3 drive is the only USB device plugged into your PC.
After running the U3 removal utility you may find your drive is formatted using the FAT system. I suggest you re-format it using FAT32. You can do this by right clicking on your flash drive in the Windows Explorer window and selecting "format." Then check the FAT32 option.
Before proceeding with the reformat, double check that you have selected your USB flash drive and not your hard disk. Remember the carpenter's motto "measure twice, cut once" :>)
Once it's reformatted, your drive will be just a stock standard USB flash drive with nothing on it. But hey, who wants an empty drive? Go to www.portableapps.com and load it up with a whole bunch of free non-U3 goodies.
Disk drives hit 1000GB
Who would have ever though we would see terabyte drives arrive so quickly. The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 not only gets 1000GB into a single 3.5 inch drive but Hitachi can somehow manage to retail it for $400. It's fast too. Now one terabyte, folks, is one thousand thousand megabytes. By comparison, my first PC hard drive was 10 megabytes. People talk about Moore's Law and how quickly computer processing power has gone up, but the increase in disk capacity is proportionally thousands of times greater and shows no sign of stopping. When will we have terabyte USB flash drives? My guess: within five years.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13034/1
Fix your iPod yourself
Why pay money when you can probably fix it yourself by using the free guides at this site?
http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/articles/iPodSupport.shtml
The importance of naming your drives correctly
Properly naming your drives can be of critical importance when you have to restore from backup as your drive letters can get changed from their normal values. This can make it really hard to determine which drive is which. Subscriber Grover Hatcher has written an excellent guide explaining the situation and offers some good advice for alternative naming schemes.
http://206.128.27.80/name-drv/index.htm
Free online storage services
Subscriber Mark Repp writes, "Gizmo I want to let you know about a great online storage site called Streamload. It's got more space available for free storage than almost any other site of its kind, and for a small monthly or yearly fee, you can share huge files with anyone and download much more: gigs and gigs of data. 100MB can be downloaded per month for free, and over 25 gig stored on their server for free. How's that for amazing?" Amazing indeed when you think how quickly this market sector has evolved. There used to be two kinds of services: those geared toward backup/storage and those geared toward file sharing. Lately though, services like Streamload have opened to provide both public and private space. Other strong contenders are OrbitFiles [2] and Box [3].
[1] http://www.streamload.com
[2] http://www.orbitfiles.com/
[3] http://box.net/
How to put your DVDs on a video iPod
Wired magazine shows how to do it using free software.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.03/start.html?pg=15
Lots of free utilities for your USB flash drive
Many users now carry their data and applications around with them on a USB flash drive. However not all programs can be run directly from these devices. Many thanks to subscriber Evan Gardener for letting me know about PortableApps.com [1] "a community site devoted to the development, promotion and use of portable applications. The site was created by John T. Haller, the developer behind numerous portable applications (like Portable Firefox, Portable Thunderbird and Portable OpenOffice.org) as a way to centralize the knowledge and development efforts of multiple portable application efforts." There are lots of apps here, including a portable version of Firefox 1.5, Gaim 1.5 and a beta version of the upcoming Thunderbird 1.5. It's not the only site of this kind, I'm aware of at least two others ([2], [3]), but it's well organized and very up-to-date.
[1] http://portableapps.com/
[2] http://www.portablefreeware.com/about.php
[3] http://nedwolf.com/Freeware-Portable.htm
How to reformat your hard drive without data loss
You can do this using Partition Magic and a number of other expensive partition managers, but this article shows you how to do it for free using a Linux Boot Disk. For experienced users only.
http://www.help2go.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=245