Good Secure Backups Developers at Home [closed]

Answer 1

Scott Hanselman recommends Windows Home Server in his aptly titled post The Case of the Failing Disk Drive or Windows Home Server Saved My Marriage.

Answer 2

I prefer http://www.jungledisk.com/ . It's based on Amazon S3, cheap, multiplatform, multiple machines with a single license.

Answer 3

I have the following backup scenarios and use rsync scripts to store on USB and network shares.

1. (weekly) Windows backup for "bare metal" recovery
   Content of System drive C:\ using Windows Backup for quick recovery after physical disk failure, as I don't want to reinstall Windows and applications from scratch. This is configured to run automatically using Windows Backup schedule.

2. (daily and conditional) Active content backup using rsync
   Rsync takes care of all changed files from laptop, phone, other devices. I backup laptop every night and after significant changes in content, like import of the recent photo RAWs from SD card to laptop.

I've created a bash script that I run from Cygwin on Windows to start rsync: https://github.com/paravz/windows-rsync-backup

Answer 4

I'm a big fan of Acronis Trueimage.Make sure you rotate through a few backup HDDs to you have a few generations to go back to, or if one of the backups goes bang. If it's a major milestone I snail-mail a set of DVDs to Mum and she files em for me. She lives in a different state so it should cover most disasters of less-than-biblical proportions.

EDIT: Acronis has encryption via a password. I also find the bandwidth of snailmail to be somewhat infinite - 10GB overnight = 115 kb/s, give or take. Never been throttled by Australia Post.

Answer 5

Get an external hard drive with a network port so you can keep your backups in another room which provides a little security against fire in addition to being a simple solution you can do yourself at home.

The next step is to get storage space in some remote location (there are very cheap monthly prices for servers for example) or to have several external hard drives and periodically switch between the one at home and a remote location. If you use encryption, this can be anywhere such as a friend's or parents' place or work.

Answer 6

If you feel like syncing to the cloud and don't mind the initial, beta, 2GB cap, I've fallen in love with Dropbox.

It has versions for Windows, OSX, and Linux, works effortlessly, keeps files versioned, and works entirely in the background based on when the files changed (not a daily schedule or manual activations).

Ars Technica and Joel Spolsky have both fallen in love (though the love seems strong with Spolsky, but lets pretend!) with the service if the word of a random internet geek is not enough.