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back it up
Nov. 25th, 2008 01:39 pmFinally took the plunge and invested in a true backup system: jungle disk. This is the software front end that uses your Amazon Web Services account and S3. Which means it's super cheap, web-accessible, and best of all functionally infinite. The only thing limiting it right now is the speed of your web connection. I went all out and backed up my entire hard drive (sans pieces of the OS I have backups for already). It wasn't a very big backup, only 21GB in fact. However, ugh, we have a relatively slow network connection. It took—I shit you not—four days + 21 hours. And that was only 21 gig of data!
So is this a plug for or an indictment of Jungle Disk? Neither I guess --I'm very attracted to a cloud-based backup and I was willing to put up with the shit of using our home net pipe to get what I wanted. I don't have to maintain any hardware, it's offsite and certainly fireproof. Probably bomb proof! That really makes me feel good. I have some files I really value and I've been meaning to get them somewhere safe for a long time. Some of my writing has been backed up to google docs, sure; but what about songs in progress or projects I've laid aside but want to come back to? It's nice to have it outside of the realm of backup media questions or hard drive failure. Yes, cloud computing isn't perfect, but this is huge.
In fact, I did this with the free download version, which means I could decide to not buy the software at all: my data is there, and the cost to me is now only thru AWS. I'll probably buy the software because I like convenience. I can use it to backup any other machines to any of my S3 buckets...
I also set up gmail IMAP and moved all of my emails off my hard drive into gmail labels (all of the mail files backed up to JD as well), set up to check and send from all my accounts thru Gmail, and dumped everything off the hard drive.
So how about you guys? I'm getting there—moving big chunks of my digital life online, I mean. All photos get uploaded to flickr (I pay for the yearly pro subscription); copies of poetry and essays have been migrating to Google Docs; I've started using Celtx for scriptwriting; and I have seven years worth of emails backed up and searchable. I only buy music from eMusic anymore, which keeps records and allows me to download any tracks I've bought any time to any computer.
Anybody got equivalents of Photoshop/Gimp, Illustrator, garageband, rebirth, soundedit, and imovie out in a cloud somewhere? Soon, it will matter very little how old my Mac is.
So is this a plug for or an indictment of Jungle Disk? Neither I guess --I'm very attracted to a cloud-based backup and I was willing to put up with the shit of using our home net pipe to get what I wanted. I don't have to maintain any hardware, it's offsite and certainly fireproof. Probably bomb proof! That really makes me feel good. I have some files I really value and I've been meaning to get them somewhere safe for a long time. Some of my writing has been backed up to google docs, sure; but what about songs in progress or projects I've laid aside but want to come back to? It's nice to have it outside of the realm of backup media questions or hard drive failure. Yes, cloud computing isn't perfect, but this is huge.
In fact, I did this with the free download version, which means I could decide to not buy the software at all: my data is there, and the cost to me is now only thru AWS. I'll probably buy the software because I like convenience. I can use it to backup any other machines to any of my S3 buckets...
I also set up gmail IMAP and moved all of my emails off my hard drive into gmail labels (all of the mail files backed up to JD as well), set up to check and send from all my accounts thru Gmail, and dumped everything off the hard drive.
So how about you guys? I'm getting there—moving big chunks of my digital life online, I mean. All photos get uploaded to flickr (I pay for the yearly pro subscription); copies of poetry and essays have been migrating to Google Docs; I've started using Celtx for scriptwriting; and I have seven years worth of emails backed up and searchable. I only buy music from eMusic anymore, which keeps records and allows me to download any tracks I've bought any time to any computer.
Anybody got equivalents of Photoshop/Gimp, Illustrator, garageband, rebirth, soundedit, and imovie out in a cloud somewhere? Soon, it will matter very little how old my Mac is.
