Anyone know of a backup program with versioning?

[JCROCCO]

I am possibly looking to invest in doing my own backups. I currently use an offsite service that has the ability to do versioning. They charge $2/gb and I have approx 250 gb of data, so its costing around $500/month. I figure for a years worth, $6000, i can create my own offsite VPN server with versioning. I just cant find any software that has this ability. I am not looking for free stuff. Willing to pay for it. Also could use help in whats the best way to do it, should I use SOHO devices or what hardware would be best.

 

[Mark R]

I use a cheap home package called "Oops backup" which has versioning, differential backups, shadow volume copies, backs up open files, etc. This works great for regular home PCs, and can backup to NAS, network drives, etc. (Don't know about FTP, but if you're setting up VPN, then this should still work).

The only problem is that restoration is via a rather gimmicky "time machine" type clone interface.

There is a professional version of the software designed for server use, but I've not tried it. Anyway, it has all the relevant features, plus a consumer level price tag.

As to hardware, I suppose it depends on where it's going to be hosted. However, I'd suggest that you get something that is designed to be a server - it doesn't need to be particularly high end (atom CPU would be good enough)

 

[Binky]

Look at Jungledisk if you just want a cheaper cloud solution. I think they support versioning, and the storage fees are $0.14-$0.15 per GB. I'm not sure how you're paying $2 per GB. That's very expensive.

 

[kevnich2]

The best versioning backup software I've used is a service called crashplan.com I've had this for several years and versioning works great. Another service that's similar but slightly different on pricing is called idisk Advantage of crashplan is that you can backup to your own usb hard drive or to a friends drive through the internet, creating your own private offsite backup. I have a family plan that's unlimited space for like $120/year or something. Very economical and works great. Saved my rear several times from accidentally deleted files.

As others have said - $2/gb is extremely expensive, especially with all the competition out there for cloud based backup and data storage.

 

[vbuggy]

I'm showing $1044.89 for 250Gb / year on MozyPro.

 

[PCTC2]

The best versioning backup software I've used is a service called crashplan.com I've had this for several years and versioning works great. Another service that's similar but slightly different on pricing is called idisk Advantage of crashplan is that you can backup to your own usb hard drive or to a friends drive through the internet, creating your own private offsite backup. I have a family plan that's unlimited space for like $120/year or something. Very economical and works great. Saved my rear several times from accidentally deleted files.

As others have said - $2/gb is extremely expensive, especially with all the competition out there for cloud based backup and data storage.

I use CrashPlan (except I host my own CrashPlan server). They have their kinks in their enterprise solution, but for home users it's great.

Their client software is multi-platform (Linux/Mac/Windows) and their single CrashPlan+ plan for a single computer with unlimited data works out to be $36/year if you buy 4 years. You can pay $125 to seed a backup quicker. They'll send you a 1TB drive, and when you send it back, they'll upload it to their servers. Much quicker than trying to backup over the internet.

(I have wiped my computer multiple times and have done complete recoveries with no issue).

 

[dawks]

I'd vote for crash plan too.

I run crashplan on a file server, and it sits there and watches all my files (~400,000), and backs up every 15 minutes, and will keep as many versions as I configure.
You can see its versioning settings here, http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php//recipe/backup_frequency?redirect=1

And I have mine set to 'never delete' so even if a file is deleted from the server, crashplan will always keep a copy of it. Uses strong AES encryption, and they never get the key, so they can't decrypt your data. Basically, dont loose your key.

It works really good. I have it backing up to my workstation, a server at another remote office, and the crashplan servers. I was using acronis true image but it was such a PITA. a full backup would take 14 hrs, and about 99%CPU..

 

[Skud]

Storegrid would do what you want...

I use it all the time.

Riley