[l008com]

Any suggestions?

What I want:
An easy way to do offsite backups of a few folders of some very important documents. We already use time machine, this is going to be a last resort, 'in case the building burns down' backup plan.

We're probably going to use mobileme since there's only 700 MB or so of data. I checked out the Backup app that comes with mobileme. I like the way you can set up backup jobs and automate them. BUT. I need the backups to be regular disk images, not some crazy custom format. And this is a law office with important documents, so 128bit encryption on the disk images is a must, 256bit would be even better.

Carbon Copy Cloner gets the job done. But you can't automate the task if it creates the backup on an encrypted disk image. And it's a bit complicated to use (I'm not going to be the one using it).

Shell scripts are an option... my own server uses a weekly shell script to make compressed, encrypted backups of all it's important files. But I'd much rather use something with an easy, basic, GUI like Apple's Backup app.

[mduell]

As long as they'll only be edited in once place, encrypted disk images in Dropbox.

[besson3c]

For an offsite backup I would go with something quite reliable, namely rsync.

[cgc]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

For an offsite backup I would go with something quite reliable, namely rsync.

Do DropBox, Carbonite, SugarSync, Mozy, Amazon S3, etc. use rsync or is it all propriety? Are they less reliable in terms of backup and verification of valid backup? Does rsync require an FTP server or can it be used with anything else?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by cgc 

Do DropBox, Carbonite, SugarSync, Mozy, Amazon S3, etc. use rsync or is it all propriety? Are they less reliable in terms of backup and verification of valid backup? Does rsync require an FTP server or can it be used with anything else?

rsync is simply a little application that uses SSH to sync files between two machines, the only requirement is that these machines have SSH running and rsync installed. There is an actual rsync protocol, but few people use it these days, it's pretty much all about SSH. rsync is completely agnostic about the underlying disk - just point it at a machine/directory whether this is remote or local and it will do its thing. Its overhead is very low making it great for transferring massive amounts of files and setting up rsync cronjobs, which also makes it useful for processing very large amounts of data. I like rsync over GUI backup tools because there are far fewer moving parts, and as a Unix tool its behavior is predictable which is useful for scripting (e.g. output can be redirected, logged to a file, paths can be piped to it, problems can be emailed to me, etc.)

The others are all storage solutions with their own transport mechanisms. Dropbox uses Amazon S3, which provides its own protocol for interaction. I'm not familiar enough with the others to know how they work but my sense is that they provide their own clients and don't really want you to interact with their backend outside of these clients, all of this is obfuscated.

[Moderator]

You could easily backup yourself to a mac at any second location..whether that's another office or a buddies place. Would just need to do some port forwarding for afp (port: 548). From there you would just need any ordinary backup utility.

[tightsocks]

SpiderOak.com is quite secure. Can handle native file or put them in an encrypted dmg for added security and just backup the dmg.
Your 700mb would be covered under the 2gb free plan.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Moderator 

You could easily backup yourself to a mac at any second location..whether that's another office or a buddies place. Would just need to do some port forwarding for afp (port: 548). From there you would just need any ordinary backup utility.

As long as there is absolutely no sensitive information involved or you create an encrypted tunnel using SSH.

[turtle777]

Twin does it all, except, it's not free.

It DOES provide true incremental backups like Time Machine.

Have a look at this thread: http://forums.macnn.com/92/networkin...d/#post4048913

Edit: oops, posted wrong link. Fixed now.

-t

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by l008com 

I checked out the Backup app that comes with mobileme. I like the way you can set up backup jobs and automate them. BUT. I need the backups to be regular disk images, not some crazy custom format.

Apple Backup's backups are regular disk images.