I just heard one of my favorite podcasts this morning, in this they talked about Carbonite and how they have actually changed their crypto policy lately. Before you had to rely on their crypto keys, which meant that although all your data was encrypted both during transport and storage it could basically be decrypted by Carbonite employees (yes yes, court order and all I know, but still I like my data to be 10000% private), however now you can set your own AES key (256bit as I recall) and thus data is 100% private..
This does make Carbonite an interesting player once again… I may just have to give them a spin to see how it works.
Yet another player came to my attention, I have not heard about this before nor do I know much more than stated on their website; www.backblaze.com
So to summarize;
Idrive (I use this myself, but am considering Carbonite to get more space)
Pros;Cheap (around 55$ a year), versioning of files, good gui with tons of tweaking, scheduled backup
Cons;“only” 150gb storage, gui could do with an update lots of options but not pretty
Review; http://online-data-backup-review.toptenreviews.com/idrive-review.html
Review; http://www.dansdata.com/idrive.htm
Carbonite (I have not tested this myself and thus know only little about it)
Pros; Cheap (around 55$ a year), UNLIMITED storage
Cons;no versioning of files (only the latest version is backed up)
Review; http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/carbonite
Backblaze (I have not tested this myself and thus know only little about it)
Pros; Cheap
Cons;No versioning of files
Review; http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/backblaze
http://mozy.com/
Just learned about it, don’t know much about it.
http://www.sosonlinebackup.com/
Just learned about it, don’t know much about it. (I was warned it should be very costly).
https://spideroak.com/
Just learned about it, don’t know much about it.
KeepIT.com
Don’t even think about it 🙂
https://readmydamnblog.com/?p=80If you are a sysadmin, then you know the problem with services of vital equipment that keep failing every now and again!? So what do you do? Wait for the users to start calling, buy an expensive monitoring solution or just do some simple scripting?
Well I’ll just give you a quick brief on how to setup the cheap (free) scripted solution that will help keep your users happy and the services running.
I was inspired by an article at; http://www.intelliadmin.com/index.php/2010/01/get-notified-when-a-service-fails/
which was quite cool except he rely on a third party utility for mailing AND he does not relaunch the service.. I have chosen to create a VBS script that will E-Mail AND re-launch the failed service in one sweep.
Ok here goes.
- First of all log on to the server/workstation in question (the machine where the service is running).
- Download my vbs script here (you may need to rightclick and choose save as)
- Modify this part of the script in notepad with your details (smtp server, email address etc)
- Save the file to somewhere on the C drive (I usually use “c:\windows\schedule”)
- Now enter “Computer management” (right click on My Computer and choose “Manage”)
- Select the service you wish to modify/monitor and double click it
- Modify the service as follows (you will need to modify this if you use another location for the script)
You will note that I set the script to run at the “second fail” not the first, you can set it to run at the “first fail” if you like – to avoid being bombarded I just choose first to be informed the second time a service fail. - The service name (described in the script) is NOT the displayname, it is the REAL name of the service, you can find this here;
And viola you are done, from now on you will get an E-Mail every time a service has failed twice (or the first time if you prefer).. It’s all very basic but neat.
I just spend a few hours browsing around Ebay for interesting gadgets, and actually found a few;
First up, I actually ordered one of these – a SATA HDD docking station;
Now this is clever, now I got both a card reader AND a HDD cradle, what need do you have for a HDD cradle you say? Well now you can buy cheap SATA HDD’s and easily copy data to them for storage (no need for bulky cases and power supplies).. Quite easy and simple.. and cheap as well I got this for about £ 17,-
WiFi;
Having problems with reception or just going war-driving? Well this gadget/wifi reciever claim up to 1000 feet coverage. Not something I need, but interesting never the less.
Hand size wireless keyboard for Media Centers, PS3, XBox 360 etc.
A cool small keyboard for your PS3 or mediacenter.. If I ever get around to either I would consider one of these for sure 🙂