As Mat noted a couple weeks ago, the ambitious team at Xackup announced, then thought better of it and retracted, Bandwagon: an unlimited-storage service for iTunes backups to run over your Internet connection. Greedy fiends that we iTunes users are, with visions of multigigabyte libraries dancing in our heads, we apparently shocked and awed Bandwagon into the just-announced revamped pricing plan. The new plan offers iTunes backup for $1 monthly, and backup + sync between two Macs for $1.50. Cheap, no? The catch: this is BYOS -- bring your own storage. At launch the service will support backup to Amazon's S3 cloudisk service, with basic FTP and Omnidrive links to follow within a month or two. The Bandwagon blog details the changes here and explains more of the why here. Considering that Xackup is also launching Xackmail (Mail.app & Outlook backup) and Neverfuget (iCal backup/sync to Backpack) tools, this company is making a serious play for Mac home/net backup customers on all fronts.
Will Bandwagon pull you onboard? I might consider it myself, and work out a "homebrew co-lo" agreement with friends or family to put a spare drive and FTP access at their place, reciprocating with the same at my place -- or just bite the bullet and start paying Amazon for disk space.
[via UneasySilence]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-02-2007 @ 4:13PM
Steven said...
Or just use mp3tunes.com instead. 40 bucks for a year of unlimited tune storage/backup/streaming.
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3-02-2007 @ 8:43PM
Rom said...
C'mon, you do not need their services to back-up to a mounted volume on Mac OS X. You can do it for free.
Xackmail - mail back-up? I'd get MailSteward at a single purchase cost of USD50, export to SQL and upload to your mysql-enabled web hosting service. :)
Neverfuget - sync iCal with Backpack. Well, SpanningSync syncs with Google Calendar - although no pricing for it yet but it sure is promising.
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3-02-2007 @ 8:51PM
schmod said...
There's also always Hamachi, which will allow you to run Bonjour apps (such as iTunes sharing) over a WAN connection. It's secure too.
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3-02-2007 @ 9:22PM
Thijs said...
How about Bingodisk.com ? You can sync your library using rsync. I do not understand, what their product is... if it's ONLY a GUI for rsync; why pay monthly?
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3-02-2007 @ 9:48PM
Michael Rose said...
According to their blog, it's not just an rsync front end; they are doing some mojo to preserve play counts, ratings, playlist content and other XML metadata.
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3-02-2007 @ 10:39PM
Rom said...
@Michael Rose, all of these info are embedded in the iTunes XML files - which can be synced using rsync. Nothing spectacular from their end, i must say.
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3-02-2007 @ 11:01PM
brian said...
Neat idea. Not so much the service, but the idea of emailing or scp'ing purchased song files to a remote friend or family member for backup purposes.
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3-03-2007 @ 12:52AM
Thijs said...
@Rom: Exactly. That would be a two-line shell script, which you could add to your cron list in order to automate the task, or for the gui people: add to an iCal event.
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3-03-2007 @ 1:31AM
Terence Pua said...
Hello all and thanks for the feedback.
1. mp3tunes only covers music, not videos, playlists*, preferences, etc. Also, it does not preserve metadata. Restores are also a doozy. BW restores in one click and tells YOU what is missing, no manual file/folder selections.
2. XML discussions: we are going to be posting a "Bandwagon Deconstructed" series on our blog soon that better explains why we do what we do.
One thing to keep in mind, BW's mantra is "ease of use" (backup is painful enough for most people). To that end, our target customers are people who prefer not to dabble in the ITL and XML files and are willing to pay $1/month for that convenience and our other features.
However, there are some people that prefer to do things the manual way. Jeremy has a list of free tools that help you in this regard.
*We support playlists, not smart playlists.
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3-03-2007 @ 1:34AM
Terence Pua said...
The html tags were stripped so here's the link to Jeremy's list:
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/007641.html
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3-03-2007 @ 3:11AM
Rom said...
So what happens when Leopard's Time Machine comes out?
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3-03-2007 @ 5:00AM
Terence Pua said...
We actually have Leopard on one of our systems and played with Time Machine. The problem with Time Machine is that it works only with an external hdd. We haven't checked if it works on a SAN.
Ours is an offsite solution, not a local storage solution so data is protected from theft or the whoops "I just dropped my external hdd" or "spilled coffee"...
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3-03-2007 @ 6:55AM
Rom said...
I have Leopard as well - the thing is, Apple does not disclose all features until the product is released. Whilst I have not tried it myself but have you tried using a mounted drive with Time Machine?
It is off-site (which can be achieved via Michael Rose's article above) but dependent on your internet connection. No internet, no back-up. If your machine crashes, it will take you awhile to recover your library.
The "uh-oh I dropped my external HDD" and "uh-oh I spilt coffee" incidents are not common, afaik, specially with large capacity external storage devices. Heck, store the drives somewhere secure, of course.
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3-03-2007 @ 9:24AM
Michael Rose said...
Terence, thanks for taking the time to clarify the aims and features of Bandwagon. Judging by everyone's comments, it might be helpful to do a comparison matrix against other services and "true DIY" backup to make the Bandwagon advantages a bit clearer.
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3-03-2007 @ 9:24AM
Michael Rose said...
re: mp3tunes.com -- I'm testing it now and will post with my complete impressions. Not a good experience so far.
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3-03-2007 @ 12:40PM
dunk said...
could get really expensive for those of us with large libraries... i've got 220gigs worth of itunes content at S3 prices that's going to set me back $33 a month or nearly $500 for the year. for that price i could buy a terabyte hard drive NAS take it to my friends house and i'm done.
i know, because i just did it :)
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3-03-2007 @ 1:22PM
Terence Pua said...
Michael- yes, we will be doing a "Bandwagon Deconstructed" blog series where we explain features in more detail. We hope to clarify competitive issues. A matrix comparison is also a great idea.
If you like, I can give you a preview version when ready, just ping me.
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3-03-2007 @ 1:42PM
Terence Pua said...
Rom- online backup is not for everyone. If external hdd (local or at your friend's) is good enough for you, then that's cool...at least you are backing up :)
You're of the opinion (correct me if I'm wrong) that Time Machine will kill everyone in the online backup space AND the DIY backup software (ChronoSync, SuperDuper!, etc.).
I disagree. I would love to hear from players in those markets and get their opinions though.
dunk- we will be supporting web hosting companies that have ftp access. DreamHost has a 200GB plan for $69/year (you need to find the coupon) so they are much cheaper than S3.
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