Comments on: Taking The Plunge: Jungle Disk 2

By: Relequestual

Relequestual — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:19:37 +0000

@Mark, 1TB of photos? Your paying $150 a month just to host it? sounds a tad crazy to me! Or have I missed something here?
Im currently looking for a backup solution with faster than 1MB upload speed, as I can go up to 10MB now.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:03:43 +0000

For me, a professional photographer with > 1TB of photos to be backed up, JD is the hands down winner. I have a 20MB up/down connection and JD and S3 is capable of using all of it. I was backed up in a couple days where as other solutions required months, yes months, to get my first backup online. In this respect JD is a generation ahead of all other solutions I’ve tried, and I’ve tried ‘em all.

By: Kenny Kant

Kenny Kant — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:47:26 +0000

I will echo the comments on using your hosting provider/webhost for personal backup. I subscribe to http://www.bluehost.com and they offer unlimited storage so naturally I thought I could back up my 15 + gigs of data.. NOPE. Once I exceeded 15 gig they asked about the content and then disabled my account referencing the TOS which does state not backups of any sort.

By: VizualGraphix

VizualGraphix — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:01:33 +0000

@David — I agree with Digitarius that you should NOT use your webhost to store your personal files. It’s true that they give you a lot of space (not really “unlimited”) for cheap, but they don’t guarantee the safety of these files… these companies take the liberty to free up drive space at their will…no warning to you.

Amazon S3 is the safest solution currently. Why? Because Amazon has the most (and the largest) servers in the world! I’m not sure why David thinks Amazon doesn’t have backups….they do, hundreds (maybe thousands) of them! So if there’s a fire or earthquake or flood at the Amazon S3 headquarters in California, no problem! Your uploaded files are distributed in the cloud…meaning there are backups of your data all over the world on their other servers… Europe, Asia, etc. You can rest assured that your data is safe and backed up.

I use several steps for backup of my personal and business files. Heck, I have over 6TB of storage in my photography studio, between my PowerMac G4, Mac Pro, and external drive cases. Not all of that is backed up online because not all of it is that important. But the most crucial things are backed up in the cloud. Here’s a list of my backup strategy:
1. Master files on internal hard drives
2. External RAID-1 (2bay) FW800 drive enclosures; double backup of internal master drives. I use SuperDuper! as my #1 Mac backup (similar to Carbon Copy Cloner), it’s only $28 and you can schedule it to do “smart updates” or incremental backups of only files that have changed…similar to how JD Plus works.
3. Online (Cloud) Storage… still trying several options:
• Amazon S3 via Jungle Disk
• Mozy.com
• Crash Plan Pro
I like Crash Plan because it conquers both the local and remote storage issue. You can backup to an external hard drive next to your computer, as well as to an internal or external hard drive at a friend or relatives house (in town or far away), and also backup to places online like Amazon S3. Even though I already have SuperDuper! I’m still leaning this direction. But Jungle Disk does seem very simple to use….

Anyway, the important lesson is to backup your data in at least two different locations. As they say, “having one copy of something is like not having it at all.”

By: Amit

Amit — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:37:09 +0000

Just thought I’d point out to Paulius that NAS is not an alternative to OFF SITE backup. Jungle Disk gets your data OFF SITE - because -what if you (God Forbid) have a break-in, Fire, Earthquake, Flood….. and loose that NAS. I think JD is a great solution. Hopefully, Amazon will be around for a long time and all of us can sleep easy.

By: Digitarius

Digitarius — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:48:35 +0000

@David - Read the EULA for your webhost very carefully. Most include language that says you shouldn’t be using them for personal backup storage, and they’re not liable if they delete such files (or, in general, lose files) on the server to make extra room. I imagine they might take notice when you break 15+ Gigs like I do with Jungle Disk. You do pay for storage on S3, though. And you’re using the exact some service that Pownce.com is using, among other very large sites.

I’ve been distrustful of webhosts since I’ve lost data on Hosting plans with two very reputable hosts. You should always have a backup of what’s on a shared server.

JD’s on-the-fly encryption is the best selling point. It allows you to enter keys that only you will have for encryption, as well as change said key and add the old ones to a key library.

By: Paulius

Paulius — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:54:58 +0000

I recommend you to get ReadyNas NV+ and you will sleep better.
It works with Mac, Linux or PC. Easy to setup and its easy to upgrade. You will need to get few hard drives that’s fits your data if you have in future more data files than you only need is to get extra hard drives.

In my opinion External drives are good when you moving with your laptop. But if you have desktop than time to think in big.

By: Apple Briefs | Welcome to the Jungle (Disk)

Apple Briefs | Welcome to the Jungle (Disk) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:03:50 +0000

[...] Apple Blog reviewed Jungle Disk 2 today. Jungle Disk is an online backup system built on top of the Amazon S3 Storage Service. [...]

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:59:35 +0000

I’m using S3 for some time now using several tools. Currently using Cyberduck for lagre file backup. I’ve got a script installed, much like rsync, to make a daily sync/backup of the important stuff. It’s called s3sync and is a small ruby program. I’ve documented my efforts on my blog for everyone to read here: http://diymacserver.com/backup-using-s3-from-amazon-on-leopard/

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:58:39 +0000

The new interface is greatly improved! The old method was much more challenging to determine just what was going to be backed up. To the point about HW failure above, according to the S3 design information, it was setup to avoid single-point of failure scenarios so any loss due to HW fault should be extremely rare.

By: carl

carl — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:38:43 +0000

I use Jungle Disk along with external drives. Seems that JD is a lot less problematic than what I’ve read about Time Machine.

By: SimpleLife

SimpleLife — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:51:20 +0000

The Jungle Disk software and S3 service is a good option too. Decisions, decisions. I just wish my upload speed wasn’t so slow.

By: SimpleLife

SimpleLife — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:42:47 +0000

@David:

Thanks for the comment. I may try your method with HostMonster or something similar. I’ll look more into webdav stuff.

By: David

David — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:35:48 +0000

I have choosen to go to someone like HostMonster who gives me unlimited storage for $7.00 a month and then setup a webdav.

All jungle is doing is a webdav connection also. While there is no monthly hosting with Amazon S3 it is also not guartuneed. What happens if they have a hardware failure. At least with using a hosting provider, they are backing up the server with they backup solution, and they guaruntee that backup.

I like Jungle, and use it for some things, but in the end my backup is three fold. 1. Local HD with TimeMachine, 2. Local HD with CarbonCloner (for bootable backup weekly). 3. Backup to external webdav location. I have already had a crash on my MBP and it was nice that my WD Passport (which dropped in water) was not my only backup… I reloaded with discs, and pulled evertyhing down via FTP from my webdav server and done. PERFECT!