Kevin, I'm an ex-Strongspace customer. Also an ex-Textdrive customer. This vendor (Textdrive/Joynet/Strongspace) has a customer list that reads like the who's-who of open source heros and a some major 'chic' (coolness factor). I wanted to love this company and went out of my way to give them the benefit of every doubt. In the end this firm was too arrogant, expensive, and with Textdrive just a diaster in terms of performance and reliability. On a scale of 1-10 I would rate Textdrive a -1 and LunarPages a 9+. I never had major problems with Strongspace other than it being dog slow at times and randomly raising rates.
OK, now for some alternatives: Xdrive.com (now a division of AOL) offers 5G free, 50G for $99/year. (I use Xdrive as a secondary backup service still having been burned (twice) by their sudden changes in service or long gaps in service) ibackup.com (nice features *AND* Linux support); not cheap but reasonable and reliable (this service has been around forever) Lunarpages.com: I moved my Strongspace data here as a short term solution; I use webdrive (webdrive.com) to map my FTP account to a Window's drive letter and voila! ~50G of reliable space. My FTP account is above my http folders so its only accessible via FTP. If you're paranoid you can enable and review your LunarPage FTP usage logs to see if anyone is trying to hack in. (I haven't done this). Caution: I have intentionally not transfered any files > 30M out of a gut feel that there's some FTP file size limitations in place on LunarPage's side. This may or may not be true. A quick comment: Lunar's file system is a giant SAN RAID system that sounds like its pretty well architected. I watch the LunarForums and haven't seen anyone complain of massive data loss. And my personal experience with Lunar has been OUTSTANDING. Mozy: I've been using their free service (2G) as yet another form of protection for my My Documents folder. I've been impressed. Rsync.net: This was a recommendation by Ted Roche and its on the top of my list to look at in 2007. You pay per usage vs. random sized blocks and you have the option of redundant storage where you data is simultaneously backed up at 2 or more geographically dispersed locations. Monthly rates: $1.80/g or $3.15/g for redundant storage. Oh yeah, a Linux friendly service as well. Summary: I'm using Lunarpages (via webdrive) as my primary backup offsite backup (this is a 'temporary' solution). I use free Xdrive and Mozy accounts as level 2 and 3 backups (yes, I am paranoid). I plan on switching this motley mix of services to rysnc.net (important files) and the commercial version of mozy (workstation level backups for all my workstations) followed by Xdrive (free or commercial if I need it) as a 3rd level backup. My 'backup' for Xdrive will be ibackup. Let us know what services/strategies you end up with. And good riddance to the Strongspace/Joyent/Textdrive train wrecks! Malcolm _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
