Anyone have experience with Amazon S3?

[Jumpem]

How secure is it?

I like the idea of a reliable offsite backup, but I don't like the idea of my data being in the cloud.

How does it work? Does it automatically try to backup everything on your PC, or do you copy specific sets of files to it?

It does seem pricey though. At $.15 per GB, it would cost $150 monthly just for the storage!!

 

[nickbits]

You need 3rd party software to use it by itself it does nothing. Make sure whatever software you use does encryption then there is no risk to your data.

I wrote my own software to use it but I only store a few GB on there so it costs me like $1 per month.

You might want to take a look at MozyHome or something.

 

[zerogear]

JungleBackup does nicely, but for me, I use SyncBack to back up to my own FTP considering I already pay for it, just one more way to use the space.

 

[elconejito]

I use JungleDisk (which uses Amazon S3). By default they ask you for a password which they use to encrypt your data *before* upload to S3. You have to manually configure it not to use encryption if for some reason you wanted to. You configure it to backup only those folders you want, and you can setup a schedule for backup or just do it manually.

Cost is reasonable (IMO) at $0.15/GB storage.

If you are a good programmer, you can write your own program to use S3 service, otherwise you need to find someone like JungleDisk (~$20 one time fee) who already has something set up.

I've found it to be reliable, and relatively quick from an upload speed perspective.

There are others like Carbonite, Mozy, and Skydrive from Microsoft.