Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In any case, given Amazon's pricing structure for S3 storage, if you
keep more than about 50 GB of data online, other services are more
economical. As it turns out, even Amazon now offers a cheaper
service, called
Glacier
(with prices as low as $0.01 per gigabyte per
month)—but the catch is that because Glacier is intended for long-
term storage, it can take several hours to access files when you want
to restore them.
Regardless of whether you use S3 or Glacier, getting at Amazon's
online storage space requires third-party software. There are several
options to choose from; at the moment, the best tool to access your
S3 or Glacier storage space from a Mac is
Arq
($29 per computer,
not counting Amazon storage fees). Although Arq is somewhat less
powerful and less configurable than
Jungle Disk
, which I previously
recommended, as of mid-2013, Jungle Disk is not fully compatible
with Lion or Mountain Lion.
Arq supports versioning, encryption, and file-level deduplication,
and it faithfully backs up and restores
all
Mac metadata (such
as file ownership and permissions, access control lists, extended
attributes, Finder labels, and aliases)—a rare capability among
online backup tools.
•
Strongspace:
This
online storage provider
offers several plans,
starting with 15 GB for $3.99 per month, up through 200 GB for
$18.99 per month. The service offers access via SFTP (supported by
many Mac backup programs) or rsync (accessible via Terminal); the
company now provides its own free
desktop software
for Mac, too.
Internet Backup Services: Pros and Cons
On the plus side, Internet backup services keep your files safely offsite
with absolutely no effort on your part—and they do so for every
backup, not merely on a weekly (or “whenever-I-remember”) basis.
They also encrypt your files and usually make their own redundant,
offsite copies of your data. If you are unable to conveniently store
a set of backup media outside your home or office, an Internet backup
service can make that process painless. Even if you do maintain
