Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends
LaCie to provide one year online storage free with every drive sold
TUAW readers know that to keep their data safe, they need to perform regular backups. Since Time Machine hit the scene last year, most Mac users have used the OS X application and an external hard drive to perform automated backups. For some Mac users, the thought of losing both the Mac's hard drive and the external hard drive to a fire or theft is enough to keep them awake at night.Longtime Mac peripheral maker LaCie has come up with a solution to that nightmare scenario. Beginning in November, 2008, all consumer hard disk drives sold by the company will come with a one-year unlimited online backup account using Carbonite services. Carbonite is currently in the process of beta-testing Mac software for their popular online backup service.
The Carbonite software automatically backs up the LaCie drive, finding new and modified files, encrypting them twice, and then uploading them to a secure data center. The information remains encrypted while at the data center to maintain user privacy. Backups are done only during idle cycles on the Mac, so the process should not affect performance.
How do you keep your backups backed up? DVDs in the safe-deposit box? Leave us a comment below.
[via Macworld UK]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
wdbutrym said 8:14AM on 10-30-2008
Time machine and Mozy.
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Metryq said 8:19AM on 10-30-2008
LaCie offering off-site backup -- how appropriate.
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BlueIslander said 12:46AM on 10-31-2008
I'll second that! I've had two LaCie external drives bust out on me. The first one was a 500GB but when I pulled the drive out of the enclosure and mounted in the bay of the Mac Pro it works fine. The second one was (note "was") a 1TB LaCie and now the drives won't spin up, can hear them trying, but that's all they do. Sorry POS. Not buying LaCie anymore. They OUGHT to provide onlline backup, I just hope they use something like Western Digital or Seagate mechanisms to do it.
Vincent Toms said 8:38AM on 10-30-2008
I am having some real issue with mozy. Has any one seen memory issues with the client?
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wdbutrym said 8:58AM on 10-30-2008
I have not had any memory issues with mozy. I have been uploading for the last 24 hours and the MozyBackup process is using less than 125 mb of ram.
EMoShunz said 8:44AM on 10-30-2008
i am one of those who it keeps up at night. and the dvd in safe deposit box isn't far off. at least it wasn't until my iphoto library exceeded 5gb. now i am hoping for a gdrive or something from google that i can auto backup certain files to the cloud. anyone know of anything cheap and easy? i like cheap and easy... guess that's why i have 5 kids :P
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Jerry Brace said 9:17AM on 10-30-2008
You could go the dual layer DVD route which will give you close to 8GB.
EMoShunz said 9:22AM on 10-30-2008
dumb as it sounds, i didn't consider that. i pay about $0.25 per dvd, duals i can get for about $3.00, still not too bad considering. everyone seems to be touting this jungle disk, i'm gonna look into that a bit more, don't see a canadian option yet.
Jerry Brace said 9:36AM on 10-30-2008
I'm Canadian as well. You could also pick up a 1TB USB Lacie drive from FutureShop for $169 and cycle those to the safety box. At that price it's a steal and affordable to get a few of 'em. You could set SuperDuper to backup your whole Mac nightly to one of those 1TB drives and alternate between 2 drives. Bringing a 1TB drive of your whole Mac is much better than multiple DVDs which are not re-useable. SuperDuper has a "Smart Update" feature which reduces backup time by only mirroring changes since the last backup. It'll copy and delete to make both ends match.
Lerxst said 8:51AM on 10-30-2008
Time Machine in one external HD, SuperDuper in another and JungleDisk for irreplaceable stuff like family photos...but JungleDisk's UI is horrible on the Mac.
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Calvin said 8:58AM on 10-30-2008
We have a HD in the in our safe deposit box. We are also in the process of getting a flash based drive (let's hear it for no moving parts) to store some recently scanned photo albums that will join our primary off site storage in the safe deposit box.
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VH said 9:01AM on 10-30-2008
I am using Time Machine on an external HD and JungleDisk.
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Tony said 9:05AM on 10-30-2008
A backup at home and a second at work, along with various important files on MobileMe.
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djfred said 9:08AM on 10-30-2008
I just tried to activate a free Carbonite trial and received the following message.
Windows XP or Windows Vista is Required
Unfortunately we can not continue the Carbonite Backup installation.
The software requires either Windows XP or Windows Vista and your computer is currently running Unknown.
If you would like to be notified when a Unknown version is available, then please complete the form below:
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kris said 9:14AM on 10-30-2008
Carbonite is currently in the process of beta-testing Mac software for their popular online backup service.
mrtotes said 9:13AM on 10-30-2008
I'm one of the paranoid ones (mainly about digital photos):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner to save whole hard disk to a WD 3.5" MyBook Pro on the desk.
2. Home folder backed up to Formac 2.5" drive in Firesafe.
3. iPhoto library and key documents on JungleDisk (very cheap - and as it's using Amazon's servers it's in another continent)
4. xD and SD cards are so cheap now I don't delete photos off the cards unless they are really bad.
(5. Looking out for a silent bus powered drive to use with Time Machine in future.)
I welcome this move and it makes a lot of sense. I'd actually put off buying a new hard drive because of Jungle Disk so this may have swayed me had it been around sooner. I haven't worked out the whole life cost difference but actually Jungle Disk is so convienient (don't have to bother getting cables out etc) I'm not too worried.
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Kyle P. Snyder said 9:33AM on 10-30-2008
I was using CarbonCopyCloner on a nightly schedule, until I realized that the programs scheduling component was causing my system to meltdown. Not the best feature for a Backup Program. However, Mike still makes a great piece of software.
Now I'm using SuperDuper, again on a nightly incremental clone. Reason being that if I can't boot from my backup (come on Time Machine, honestly!) I find them completely useless.
Also, I'm searching for the right fireproof media safe for the DVD's and HD's laying around. No, I'm not paranoid a bit....
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Ed said 9:44AM on 10-30-2008
"Since Time Machine hit the scene last year, most Mac users have used the OS X application and an external hard drive to perform automated backups"
Is that fact, or just an assumption? I'm not trying to be smart here, I'm genuinely interested to know if that's true, as it would be quite a coup for Apple. Are there any stats on this?
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Alan said 9:58AM on 10-30-2008
No one seems to care to ask, "Why encrypt twice?" Apparently marketing got a hold of this. Now if they're using like 8-bit encryption, heck yeah, but encrypting twice with worthwhile encryption doesn't do much for you, unless you're LaCie and charge per bit and encryption adds 20%(?) more bits.
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Julian Field said 10:46AM on 10-30-2008
Shame their power supplies rarely last a year!
I have replaced at least a dozen of these in the past few months. We have stopped buying them, they are so unreliable.
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