RE: [OT] Backups
Aha so Carbonite is another cloud backup like Mozy etc. I didn't see that one last week when I ran a search for cloud backup. It looks just like the ones I rejected because they were a sync backup and were a bit patronising. I should explain to others that I realise with clarity what I've purchased now with my Rackspace account: ... space and a REST API. That's all. I've now got the kind of assembly language SDK of the cloud. They have a C# authored API around the REST calls, and from the little bit I've seen so far it seems quite complete and well written. There is an attractive Firefox plug for a UI over the cloud files, but I don't use Firefox. There is a beautiful Mac app for free as a UI, but that's no use to me. There is a $40 shareware app for Windows http://www.cloudfilesmanager.com/ , but it looks like it was written by a 15 year old kid for a school project. So where does that leave me? ... I have to write my own apps and libraries to integrate with the Rackspace cloud files. I usually hate reinventing the wheel, but it looks like I have no choice. When my app is ready I think I'll donate it for free to the Rackspace community. Luckily, the API is really bland and simple, so the learning curve is shallow. This also explains why Rackspace have no policy on security ... we don't give a toss, it's your problem, we just give you the space. Greg
Re: [OT] Backups
Or, just start using Firefox. On 6 June 2011 16:00, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Aha so Carbonite is another cloud backup like Mozy etc. I didn't see that one last week when I ran a search for cloud backup. It looks just like the ones I rejected because they were a sync backup and were a bit patronising. I should explain to others that I realise with clarity what I've purchased now with my Rackspace account: ... space and a REST API. That's all. I've now got the kind of assembly language SDK of the cloud. They have a C# authored API around the REST calls, and from the little bit I've seen so far it seems quite complete and well written. There is an attractive Firefox plug for a UI over the cloud files, but I don't use Firefox. There is a beautiful Mac app for free as a UI, but that's no use to me. There is a $40 shareware app for Windows http://www.cloudfilesmanager.com/, but it looks like it was written by a 15 year old kid for a school project. So where does that leave me? ... I have to write my own apps and libraries to integrate with the Rackspace cloud files. I usually hate reinventing the wheel, but it looks like I have no choice. When my app is ready I think I’ll donate it for free to the Rackspace community. Luckily, the API is really bland and simple, so the learning curve is shallow. This also explains why Rackspace have no policy on security ... we don’t give a toss, it’s your problem, we just give you the space. Greg
RE: [OT] Backups
Or, just start using Firefox. Nup! It would be just more pollution on my dev machine and they'll start battling for supremacy. Actually I have Firefox on a text box, but I haven't tried the Cloud Files plugin yet, maybe after dinner - Greg
RE: [OT] Backups
There is a client for rackspace: cyberduck Silly name, but it works quite well On Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:00 +1000, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Aha so Carbonite is another cloud backup like Mozy etc. I didn't see that one last week when I ran a search for cloud backup. It looks just like the ones I rejected because they were a sync backup and were a bit patronising. I should explain to others that I realise with clarity what I've purchased now with my Rackspace account: ... space and a REST API. That's all. I've now got the kind of assembly language SDK of the cloud. They have a C# authored API around the REST calls, and from the little bit I've seen so far it seems quite complete and well written. There is an attractive Firefox plug for a UI over the cloud files, but I don't use Firefox. There is a beautiful Mac app for free as a UI, but that's no use to me. There is a $40 shareware app for Windows http://www.cloudfilesmanager.com/ , but it looks like it was written by a 15 year old kid for a school project. So where does that leave me? ... I have to write my own apps and libraries to integrate with the Rackspace cloud files. I usually hate reinventing the wheel, but it looks like I have no choice. When my app is ready I think I'll donate it for free to the Rackspace community. Luckily, the API is really bland and simple, so the learning curve is shallow. This also explains why Rackspace have no policy on security ... we don't give a toss, it's your problem, we just give you the space. Greg
RE: [OT] Backups
There is a client for rackspace: cyberduck Silly name, but it works quite well Jumpin' Jehovah, I thought that was ONLY for Macintosh OS X 10. That's what my Rackspace documentation says, with screen shots. The home page has a Windows 7 installer. I'm going to tryit out now -- Greg
Re: [OT] Backups
On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 5:10 PM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Subversion. That way I get a change history as well. *Danger Will Robinson*! A version control system is not a backup. Greg Why? It's on a server on the other side of the world. The dudes that control it run backups of the VCS... So from my perspective it's backed up, better than backed up, because I can revert to where I was... If there's a hole in my argument I need to know. -- Meski Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. Sure, you'll get it, but it's going to be rough - Adam Hills
Re: [OT] Backups
On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 5:20 PM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Bec, don't rely on memory sticks. I bought a 16GB stick at the swap-meet a few weeks ago and one morning when I put it in I was asked for format it. I brushed this off as a coincidence, so I formatted and it work fine to another week before I got the same message. That $30 stick is now landfill. The cheap ones are good for sneakernet (copy from one computer to stick, copy off onto other computer) - just like floppies, really. Also, as someone mentioned here months ago: A portable drive is also fragile, and if you carry it around, say, with your laptop, then if you lose the bag you lose the lot. I'm not even sure how long CDs and DVDs are guaranteed to viable and readable these days. At least a decade I hope. Each month I run a selected backup to dual-layer DVD, verify it and put it in the toolshed. Dont leave them in the light. Some of them seem to 'fade' I'm hoping that cloud storage will simplify by manually implemented daily/monthly backup tasks. I've purchased a Rackspace 'Clound Files' account, which is just space in the cloud, which suits me fine. They have a primitive web interface to manipulate files. But as ManiacD said, it's just space so I have to work out how to best use it. Rackspace publish a REST API and a C# wrapper library and a demo WinForms app, so it looks quite easy for me to write my own simple sync facility, or even a fancy general-purpose GUI. I can't find any security statement by Rackspace. I'm not sure what their angle is on this issue. You've got spatial security (it isn't where you are) -- Meski Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. Sure, you'll get it, but it's going to be rough - Adam Hills
Re: [OT] Backups
On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: *Danger Will Robinson*! A version control system is not a backup. That seems like a strange statement. Surely it depends what you're backing up. Strange arguably, but no: who backs up the version control files? Version control is *not* a backup. I backup my SVN repositories folder on my server, do you? If they were on *my* server, I wouldn't think of them as backed up. Agreed, if they were, you'd need a backup of that folder. (or a mirror - IIRC you shouldn't backup a svn whilst it's operating) -- Meski Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. Sure, you'll get it, but it's going to be rough - Adam Hills
Re: [OT] Backups
On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 11:19 PM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: I try to keep it simple. I use the old XCopy to copy what is important to external hard drives (2 Copies) and keeping it safe. Don’t use xcopy, use robocopy. SERIOUS WARNING: My wife ran a batch file I created for her with an xcopy /S /D for almost a year to backup new/modified files to a removable HDD. By pure accident we discovered that it was failing prematurely with a weird DOS command “out of memory” kind of error (I can’t remember the exact error text) due to the path lengths being longer than 255 characters. So it turns out her backups were actually incomplete, but mercifully we didn’t suffer any ill effects. Had there been a pause command in the batch file we might have noticed, but there wasn’t. So I replaced it with robocopy /MIR and I feel a bit more confident now. Remember Murphy’s law, then remember O’Toole’s commentary on Murphy’s law. @echo off bit you. Also not checking errorlevel. But it's downright ugly handling all of that in batch files. And even robocopy doesn't handle open files. (ref to Shadow copy?) -- Meski Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. Sure, you'll get it, but it's going to be rough - Adam Hills
RE: [OT] Backups
If there's a hole in my argument I need to know. Well, it seems clear to me that a version control system is written specifically for that purpose, and a backup system for that specific purpose (unless the designers and authors of the system have made some political statement about overlapping intentions). I’m sure the version software authors try to make the version system as robust as possible, but I did experience a serious corruption of Source Safe a few years ago and we never managed to get some archived old software versions out of it. For that reason I don’t consider a version system any kind of backup at all. At that previous job they were backing up the version backing files to tape, but it was clear that they had been backing up corrupt version files for a year or so. There’s the hole. Greg
Re: [OT] Backups
On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: If there's a hole in my argument I need to know. Well, it seems clear to me that a version control system is written specifically for that purpose, and a backup system for that specific purpose (unless the designers and authors of the system have made some political statement about overlapping intentions). Well, a VCS is supposed to be a superset of a backup. I’m sure the version software authors try to make the version system as robust as possible, but I did experience a serious corruption of Source Safe a few years ago and we never managed to get some archived old software versions out of it. For that reason I don’t consider a version system any kind of backup at all. At that previous job they were backing up the version backing files to tape, but it was clear that they had been backing up corrupt version files for a year or so. There’s the hole. That's a hole in SourceSafe. I acknowledge that sourcesafe isn't safe. (and I think MS do, as well, for large implementations) Another 'hole' is that files that SVN don't 'understand' get a complete new file for every revision, rather than a diff. -- Meski Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. Sure, you'll get it, but it's going to be rough - Adam Hills
Re: [OT] Backups
Yeah I wouldn't use source control for backups. I remember some years ago I was using svn for my graphics... Some of the photoshop files were a few hundred meg in size (some as much as a gig) and I discovered svn hides all this stuff in hidden .svn folders. I ran out of space so fast I abandoned this idea. On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 11:33 AM, mike smith meski...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: If there's a hole in my argument I need to know. Well, it seems clear to me that a version control system is written specifically for that purpose, and a backup system for that specific purpose (unless the designers and authors of the system have made some political statement about overlapping intentions). Well, a VCS is supposed to be a superset of a backup. I’m sure the version software authors try to make the version system as robust as possible, but I did experience a serious corruption of Source Safe a few years ago and we never managed to get some archived old software versions out of it. For that reason I don’t consider a version system any kind of backup at all. At that previous job they were backing up the version backing files to tape, but it was clear that they had been backing up corrupt version files for a year or so. There’s the hole. That's a hole in SourceSafe. I acknowledge that sourcesafe isn't safe. (and I think MS do, as well, for large implementations) Another 'hole' is that files that SVN don't 'understand' get a complete new file for every revision, rather than a diff. -- Meski Going to Starbucks for coffee is like going to prison for sex. Sure, you'll get it, but it's going to be rough - Adam Hills
Re: [OT] Backups
I try to keep it simple. I use the old XCopy to copy what is important to external hard drives (2 Copies) and keeping it safe. This ensures the accessibility of data and also I can keep one copy offsite just in case my one copy is damaged. Also I can backup my SVN repository using the XCOPY that will keep the versions of important documents intact as well. Cheers *Samir* On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 20:32, Mark Ryall mark.ry...@gmail.com wrote: That seems like a strange statement. Surely it depends what you're backing up. It seems adequate to me to have code backed up on github/bitbucket or some other external source hosting service (private repositories if necessary) but I wouldn't consider putting my photos there. My backup strategy: Documents and other- dropbox Code - usually github Photos - flickr (using a syncing script - it's tedious to upload to manually) Videos - local syncing between machines (various tools can do this well - rsync is probably the easiest) Music - as for videos What does everyone do for external backup of very large files (such as videos)? When you have kids you very quickly end up with terabytes of data that you'd rather not lose. It seems that anything (S3, dropbox, live) would get very expensive for massive storage. On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 5:10 PM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: Subversion. That way I get a change history as well. *Danger Will Robinson*! A version control system is not a backup. Greg
RE: [OT] Backups
Danger Will Robinson! A version control system is not a backup. That seems like a strange statement. Surely it depends what you're backing up. Strange arguably, but no: who backs up the version control files? Version control is not a backup. I backup my SVN repositories folder on my server, do you? Greg
RE: [OT] Backups
I try to keep it simple. I use the old XCopy to copy what is important to external hard drives (2 Copies) and keeping it safe. Don't use xcopy, use robocopy. SERIOUS WARNING: My wife ran a batch file I created for her with an xcopy /S /D for almost a year to backup new/modified files to a removable HDD. By pure accident we discovered that it was failing prematurely with a weird DOS command out of memory kind of error (I can't remember the exact error text) due to the path lengths being longer than 255 characters. So it turns out her backups were actually incomplete, but mercifully we didn't suffer any ill effects. Had there been a pause command in the batch file we might have noticed, but there wasn't. So I replaced it with robocopy /MIR and I feel a bit more confident now. Remember Murphy's law, then remember O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's law. Greg
Re: [OT] Backups
Yes - I always back up your svn repositories On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Greg Keogh g...@mira.net wrote: *Danger Will Robinson*! A version control system is not a backup. That seems like a strange statement. Surely it depends what you're backing up. Strange arguably, but no: who backs up the version control files? Version control is *not* a backup. I backup my SVN repositories folder on my server, do you? Greg
[OT] Backups
All this talk of SSDs and HDDs failing has got me a little scared to lose my data. I just have one main folder with everything in there on my laptop and copy this thing to my USB drive as backup - I manually do this i'm starting to realise this is not enough. How do you all do your backups? Cheers Bec
RE: [OT] Backups
Windows Home Server for me. There's also a thread on cloud backup that you might want to read :) Cheers Ken -Original Message- From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Bec Carter Sent: Friday, 3 June 2011 2:06 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: [OT] Backups All this talk of SSDs and HDDs failing has got me a little scared to lose my data. I just have one main folder with everything in there on my laptop and copy this thing to my USB drive as backup - I manually do this i'm starting to realise this is not enough. How do you all do your backups? Cheers Bec
RE: [OT] Backups
I've been using fairly conventional backups, but recently bought a small HP Proliant to run Windows Home Server 2011. I had a WHS1 system last year, but decided to revert to Windows 7 backups to big cheap SATA drives instead, while awaiting the release of WHS v2. Now, I'm waiting for the release of the drive pooling add-in for WHS that DataCore have in beta (though I think it will be expensive)- DriveHarmony http://www.datacore.com/DriveHarmonyWebHelp/about_driveharmony__software.ht m - it allows addition and subtraction of HDDs (with a little attention to the RAID status = what they call protected or unprotected disks). Ian Thomas Victoria Park, Western Australia -Original Message- From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Bec Carter Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 2:06 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: [OT] Backups All this talk of SSDs and HDDs failing has got me a little scared to lose my data. I just have one main folder with everything in there on my laptop and copy this thing to my USB drive as backup - I manually do this i'm starting to realise this is not enough. How do you all do your backups? Cheers Bec
RE: [OT] Backups
Subversion. That way I get a change history as well. Danger Will Robinson! A version control system is not a backup. Greg
RE: [OT] Backups
You can back up to a central location in your house, and then back that central point up to the cloud. That can help protect you against a disaster (e.g. lightning strike, fire etc.) affecting your house. -Original Message- From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Bec Carter Sent: Friday, 3 June 2011 2:17 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: Re: [OT] Backups Oops I forgot to say I don't want to backup to the cloud. I won't always have net access anyways. I shall look into Windows Home Server. Thanks On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Ken Schaefer k...@adopenstatic.com wrote: Windows Home Server for me. There's also a thread on cloud backup that you might want to read :) Cheers Ken -Original Message- From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Bec Carter Sent: Friday, 3 June 2011 2:06 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: [OT] Backups All this talk of SSDs and HDDs failing has got me a little scared to lose my data. I just have one main folder with everything in there on my laptop and copy this thing to my USB drive as backup - I manually do this i'm starting to realise this is not enough. How do you all do your backups? Cheers Bec
RE: [OT] Backups
Ken You're using WHS (v1 or 2011 - ?), so what Cloud service do you use that does allow you to backup a server? Most cheaper ones preclude server backups (eg, iiNet's Vault is specific about that). Ian Thomas Victoria Park, Western Australia
Re: [OT] Backups
I've decided to go old school.. I just bought 10,000 floppy disks a USB FDD.. (Got nothing else on this weekend anyway !! ) :-D On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Ian Thomas il.tho...@iinet.net.au wrote: Ken You’re using WHS (v1 or 2011 - ?), so what Cloud service do you use that * does* allow you to backup a server? Most cheaper ones preclude server backups (eg, iiNet’s Vault is specific about that). Ian Thomas Victoria Park, Western Australia
Re: [OT] Backups
I backed up to the cloud today. I grabbed a balloon and tied a memory stick to it and then released it... Question if I may..how do i get it back down? --- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.riagenic.com On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Grant Molloy graken...@gmail.com wrote: I've decided to go old school.. I just bought 10,000 floppy disks a USB FDD.. (Got nothing else on this weekend anyway !! ) :-D On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Ian Thomas il.tho...@iinet.net.au wrote: Ken You’re using WHS (v1 or 2011 - ?), so what Cloud service do you use that *does* allow you to backup a server? Most cheaper ones preclude server backups (eg, iiNet’s Vault is specific about that). Ian Thomas Victoria Park, Western Australia
