I’m sure I backed it up somewhere


JungleDiskI signed up and have been trying JungleDisk. I’m thinking it’s a pretty nice (and safe) service for keeping your digital life backed up somewhere in the Cloud. Sort of sounds like the Matrix, but it’s really off-site backup, stuff that IT department guys muss about with.

Sometimes they leave with the building with backpacks on to go to these off site data depots for disaster simulations. (Scout camp for geeks?) I don’t think Amazon will be letting me do simulations in the JungleDisk, but I could buy a book.

JudglesDisk, a Georgia high tech startup, uses a small client and Amazon’s S3 servers to safely store your data for pennies on the gig. As an aside, I think Amazon has been really smart with its Web services that it’s rolled out to developers. Competitors just seem to be getting there while Amazon is building out a robust set of services.

But I’m not using its services because I’m a developer. I’m beginning to think I’m a backup freak. I use a Seagate Mirra  box that watches the two main computers in the house. Course the links on Seagate site to the promotional material go to a 404 so I’m not feeling secure about Mirra’s longterm place in Seagate’s product mix. (The existing customer support and Web access to your data site is still found.)

And it did fail once, well before the hard drives of the computers whose data it was “protecting” died (they haven’t thankfully). And then there’s that little drawback that it’s in the same house as the computers it’s backing up. What if the unthinkable happens?

I do like the Mirra product. It keep tracks of versions and runs pretty much without complaint. Restores are simple. Plus, once you buy it, there are no monthly fees.

I’m thinking of JungleDisk, which works very much like a network drive on the user’s machine, as a place to permanently archive photos, music and docs/spreadsheets. And, oh yes, the files are available from anywhere through a simple browser interface.

Anyone else have opinions on JungleDisk, Mirra, backup strategies (or the lack thereof)?