Mac Backup to the Cloud
May 20, 2011
At this week’s MacTech Boot Camp conference in Boston, a recurring theme was new solutions for online backup for the Mac.
Five years ago, backing up your Mac over the internet to a server in a data center was extremely difficult. Most people had extremely slow internet (DSL or even dialup) which meant uploading data to a remote location was too time-consuming. There were also few options in terms of providers who were offering lots of data storage at a reasonable price. Last, there was not much software that had been designed for automatic backup in this manner.
Now there are multiple options for backup to a remote server in the cloud. The big names in this space are Mozy, Carbonite, and CrashPlan (although there are others too). They generally all offer the following:
- Data is sent over the internet as encrypted, and is stored encrypted
- Allow you to set automatic backup times and backup intervals (including ongoing backup)
- Flat or low monthly fees for multiple GB of storage
- Backups can resume from where they left off (if user powers down computer in the middle of a backup)
- You can decide what you want to back up, on a folder-by-folder basis
At the MacTech conference the overwhelming majority of attendees recommended and use CrashPlan for offsite backup. Here are the reasons why they prefer CrashPlan.
- Extremely robust especially on Mac
- Free version allows you to back up remotely to another computer (for example you can back up your home Mac to your office Mac and vice versa, for free)
- Flat monthly fee for home user backup to CrashPlan server
- Have option for business backup to CrashPlan server for a fee per GB
- Lots of customization possible
- Also can be set up for onsite backup, as well as offsite backup
- If only one small thing changes on a very large file (an Entourage file, a video file) then only that small thing needs to get backed up again, because it uses block-level backup (instead of file-level backup)
As a result we have begun recommending CrashPlan for offsite backup for many clients (as well as for onsite backup for some clients).
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Author: Caroline
I used Carbonite for several years and have just given up on it. It was constantly crashing and requiring me to re-install. And I think it affected my computer’s performance. At the end, a reinstall wasn’t even working. I’m trying Crashplan, but it’s initial upload time seems crazy long.
If you have slow internet at your location, that can definitely increase the initial Crashplan backup time by a lot. Can you bring your computer to a friend’s place who has FiOS, by any chance? Just for the initial backup; after that you should be ok (unless you add any huge files to your computer).