caneypuggies team mailing list archive

[Tim Black <tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Diana,

You asked if I've used Dropbox (I think), and I recommended Wuala, which
I'm using primarily to backup my files automatically online, but I also
occasionally use it to send large files to clients, and might use it to
access files remotely someday.  It also allows you to sync files between
two computers, but I'm not using it for that.  Wuala allows you to get
free backup space calculated as a percentage of the unused space on your
hard drive that you offer for others to use for free.  If that backup
space is not enough for you, you can pay for more space.  So far I'm
pleased with how Wuala works in general, but I have also found that my
wireless network connection is just not fast enough to allow it to
backup my 150 GB or so of files quickly enough--I started backing up in
August, and it's only backed up 37 GB of my files so far.  So I might
try buying a network-attached storage (NAS) drive or
datastorageunit.com, each of which would allow me to use the Linux
command-line tool called rsync, which might make the backup go faster. 
Both Wuala and rsync only re-backup/re-upload the files that changed. 
But the reason rsync might be faster is that Wuala encrypts each file
before uploading it, so when a file changes, it has to re-upload the
whole file.  By contrast, rsync doesn't encrypt the file (though it does
send it over a secure encrypted connection), so it only uploads the
parts of the file that changed.  This makes rsync much faster over
network connections than are simple file copy operations.

My cost comparison of a number of file backup services is attached in
case it's useful to you.  You can enter your own figures into it to see
what service might be cheapest for you.  I decided Wuala and
datastorageunit.com were probably the best for me to use.  If you decide
to use rsync, let me know and I'll be glad to help you figure out how to
get it working.

If I recall correctly, though, your purpose was not to backup files, but
rather to sync between two computers.  In that case, Wuala might be
best, or if both computers are running Ubuntu, there are some sync
programs that might work just as well--Ubuntu One is built-in (but costs
money if you need more than 2 GB), and Conduit
<http://www.ubuntugeek.com/conduit-synchronize-your-data-in-easy-way.html>
is quite good, too (and is best if the two computers are on the same
home network).

Tim

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