OT Calling All MAC Daddy's & Mommies

[1happygirl]

All you Mac/Apple users:

Hey, what service/company do you use for off-site backup? Which one works better and seamlessly integrates with your computer? Does it seem safe?
Anybody use Dropbox or Carbonite, etc. ?



Thanks in advance.

[Bob Loblaw]

Not really on topic, but I just use Time Machine and a local drive. Offsite adds a measure of additional data insurance, but Time Machine is really awesome (as you probably already know) and drives are cheap.

[1happygirl]

Bob, you're always gracious!

Yep, I need/want something off-site too as I have it backed up with CCC (carbon copy cloner) and a pocket hard drive but want another layer of security. thanks.

[jbrainin]

Drives fail too often, especially when you actually need the data on them. A proper RAID is necessary if you care about your data. Offsite backup is also important in case of household catastrophes. Dropbox or me.com work just fine.

[scrubadub]

I use multiple different layers due to paranoia.

1. I store my main documents using Dropbox giving me quick off-site backups and versioning.

2. My main machine is backed up over a network to using Time Machine.

3. All of our household machines (including my main one) are backed up over a network to an old Mac running Crashplan (and Time Machine). I also set my mother and sister's machines (who don't live with us) to backup to this server.

4. On a weekly basis, I clone the Crashplan server disk and take it off-site to my office. I have two disks and rotate so that one is always at the office.

5. Finally, I clone my main machine's laptop using SuperDuper (same as CCC) to a hard disk on a weekly basis.

I will probably combine #2-4 into a family Crashplan at some point soon since cloning the server is tedious if pretty easy. The key to backup is transparency. I think that's why Dropbox rocks as a first pass system.

[1happygirl]

I use multiple different layers due to paranoia.

1. I store my main documents using Dropbox giving me quick off-site backups and versioning.
ok. thx. Dropbox a more secure, easy integration with Mac than Carbonite?

[BillG]

I use Time Machine on local storage, which works really well, and I put a lot of important files on Dropbox as well. It makes it much easier to access them from multiple computers.

[haneriali]

In addition to TimeMachine (to a TimeCapsule) locally; MobileMe and LiveMesh for files we access remotely; our major off-site storage is via Mozy. We also use Mozy for a Windows 7 PC.

[scrubadub]

ok. thx. Dropbox a more secure, easy integration with Mac than Carbonite?

Haven't tried Carbonite but I think it's like Crashplan. Both probably run in the background. But Dropbox is in a category of its own in terms of transparency and ease of use. You just put folders in, it backs them up and syncs them to other computers. Very elegant.

[sc53]

Happy, if you have a MobileMe subscription ($99 per year) you have access to offsite backup through that service. Not sure how many GB it is, but I use that for Quicken backups and Time Machine for Quicken and everything else.

[rugbysecondrow]

Thanks for the tips, very timely Happy Girl.

Cheers