Filed under: Software, First Look
Dare to be Creative announces Parachute backup utility for Mac OS X
If there's one thing you've probably learned over the years from reading TUAW, it's that backups are important. Many of the bloggers here are obsessive about backups, doing Time Machine backups, SuperDuper! bootable backups, and using services like BackBlaze for offsite backups -- and that's all for one Mac!With the importance of viable and easy-to-create backups for your Mac, it's not surprising that Belgium development firm Dare to be Creative has just announced a new backup utility, Parachute [US$39.00]. The application is Snow Leopard-ready, and can be used to back up your Mac's data to your primary hard disk (definitely not recommended by our team), external disks, FTP or SFTP servers, USB drives, network volumes, and even your iDisk.
Parachute has many features that are found on other backup utilities. For example, you can schedule backups to run hourly, daily, weekly, or manually. The application also does incremental backups after the initial full backup, so subsequent backups take much less time. There is one feature that does appear to be unique to Parachute, and that's the ability to create multiple backup tasks for different files and folders on your Mac, and use a variety of destinations for each task.
There's a 15-day full-functioning trial available for download here. While you are in your tryptophan-induced coma after tomorrow's Thanksgiving Day feast, you can set up some Parachute backups and rest assured that your data is safe.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
CHRiS said 11:35AM on 11-25-2009
Out of all of them, I still prefer crashplan - they have a free version that will let you backup to other computers in your household, or even to a friend over the internet, or to their servers for a few dollars a month.
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austrium said 11:38AM on 11-25-2009
You need to buy a globe. Austria is nowhere near Belgium.
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austin said 11:50AM on 11-25-2009
why again is time machine not good enough? (sry for n00b question)
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kiel.holliday said 12:15PM on 11-25-2009
Time Machine is directly connected to the backup machine. You want to have multiples and off-site backup.
JP said 12:13PM on 11-25-2009
Looks like decent software, except that I've attempted several test backups, using WebDAV, and it hangs on "Cleaning up". I did a simple test using only one folder with 1 test file in it. Clicking the stop button does nothing too. So it hangs, forcing me to close the app.
It seems to work ok with SFTP. So at least that's good.
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oshawapilot said 12:27PM on 11-25-2009
Ugh, why didn't this come along a few weeks ago before I purchased Twin (www.app4mac.com) which has turned out to be broken beyond belief for offsite FTP backups. To add insult to injury I paid nearly $80 for Twin.
They promise that a new version arriving Dec 1'st should fix the issues I'm having, but I certainly would have gave Parachute a shot for half the price, that's for sure. Perhaps it would have actually worked out of the gate, as well.
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Joe said 2:22PM on 11-25-2009
I hope this works well with iDisk.
Ive tried other backups that supposedly work with idisk, but none seem to cut it.
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robogobo said 2:01PM on 11-25-2009
Is that a 1 megaton bomb on the end of that parachute?
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cpabster said 5:01PM on 11-25-2009
Problem with iDisk is storage space. And their storage prices are absurd to begin with.
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Ashley Grayson said 7:15PM on 11-25-2009
Clicking on the Parachute website links for more information opens pages for their other App iArchiver. I can't tell if it is a web error or if Parachute includes iArchiver.
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Shunnabunich said 8:04PM on 11-25-2009
Ghk...that...is not how you do...reflections! o_O
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zendiz said 9:36PM on 11-25-2009
They are Austrian firm not Belgian. As far i could notice on their website
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oL said 7:12AM on 1-24-2010
I followed your recommendation.... I bought the app....
and I suffer ever since!
Parachute Backup doesn't work!
NON of the scheduled tasks take ever place correctly!
The tasks start always as due but the app quites each time "unexpectedly".
In the beginning I sent Feedbacks of the crash to Creative, with details of what I was trying to do when the crash occurred (trying to backup, what else?)
Than I sent a mail tu their "support" service. Two weeks have passed, I'm still waiting to an answer.
I'm still backing up manually.....
I'll let you know if there was any evolution......
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