A Better Backup system!
Last week, I was asked to give a speech to my community CoffeeTalk group about digital photography. One of the topics was generating much attention is the backup digital contents.
Most of the audience just rely on their computer C:/ drive and some more savvy users mentioned about using DVD, CD, External hard drive, hosted on the Internet sites, etc…Well, I then discussed more about the quesionable reliability for home made DVD, CD (average 5-6 years), the hard drive (internal, external) lifespan is even shorter, the host site might charge you more, if you want to download back at original resolution…The audience start raisng their eyebrowns!
In our family, I have my own set of photos, that I edit to my likings, my wife also has the same set on her computer, on which she adds her few touchups on, etc…so there is no way to reconcile them..It is a headach to have a single copy for your family and most importantly protected against all the disasters (crash, fire,..etc.)
For anyone that uses more than one computer, the problem of keeping data synchronized is a really big one. A typical example is using a desktop and a laptop: How do you make sure that data on both is kept up to date?
In my day job, I often present the disater recovery solutions to some of the largest companies nationwide with the most complex environments, we are not talking about business continuity or resiliency here.. But at least for home users, in my view, the most acceptable way is to satisfy the following criterias:
- Maintain mutiple copies (at least 2)
- Mirror (synchronize) them automatically in realtime
- Possible keep a off-site copy (Not real time copy)
My suggestion, fortunately is very simple, effortless and free, it does not require additional hardware and just an one-time setup:
It’s called FolderShare by Microsoft, so it’s obviously going places. It works by setting up a link between two folders on different computers that you own or you know over the Internet and then making sure they stay in sync. It does this behind the scenes using P2P network technoligies, automatically, and means that providing both computers can access the Internet, they will always reflect the changes made on either system. The really clever thing is that, if both systems are on the same network, i.e.: both connected at home, it will copy data between systems locally, without the data every leaving your network. If however you are away on business, sitting in a hotel using WiFi to connect to the Internet, then the data is dragged from one PC, over the Web and onto the other.
Recently, I was on a business trip away from home. I took few pictures and put them on my laptop. Then stay connected on the Internet..At my home computer, my wife and my children can see the same pictures I just took immediately!..without doing anything.
You’re not limited to just two computers either, you can have as many in a sync group as you like, so in my case the Main office PC, my Mac Mini, my laptop and the backup PC in the garage are all in one group, and all kept in sync.
Below is a very simple (Google-Like) interface offered by Foldershare.
There are three huge benefits to this setup, one, I can just grab whatever system is handy and work on current data, two, I have multiple backups, one is even sort of off site, and three, rebuilding a PC becomes a lot easier, Load on XP and any applications, setup FolderShare and leave it to work its magic.
Also, because it has a web based interface, it also means that you can access your data from any computer connected to the Internet, if you have forgotten a important file.
Using FolderShare and a hosted Exchange server (for your address book, calendar) means that all my data is now available from virtually anywhere I can get an Internet connection, welcome to the connected world.
My word of caution: as convenient as you can see here, with the autosync function. Any action happens on the source will carry over to the target, including erasing your contents. So beware! that was the reason I mentioned earlier, another copy (point-in-time/ non-synchronous) is a smart thing to do when ever you can.
Jason Dunn from PPCT mentioned about Foldershare in the below PodCast while ago. Listen in!
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