A couple of comments on the previous post made me take another look at the existing online backup solutions. This is far form a comprehensive review (here's one if you want), but I do have some additional thoughs on the subject.
Most backup providers simplify matters for the user (which is generally good) - you sign-up once, and pay a fixed price, often starting as low as 5$ a month for unlimited storage. This is regardless of whether they manage their own storage, or just present a layer on top of Amazon Web Services - the user never knows (or cares).
JungleDisk on the other hand are very transparent regarding their reliance on Amazon. The user has to set up his own account with Amazon (in addition to JungleDisk account), and estimating the monthly costs is a little harder for a non technical person. This however provides a very important ability, unique to JungleDisk - I can access my own data on my own Amazon S3 account if I want. This gives me the assurance that even if JungleDisk dissapeared (even though they are doing quite well), I could still retrieve my data (they even provide a sample code for this very purpose).
So, if you don't mind an extra sign-up step, appreciate the variety of features, and want that extra assurance that you can always access your data - JungleDisk is a good choice. Yet when storing above 30 Gb (which costs 5$ a month on the S3 service), you may prefer some other service with a fixed price and unlimited storage.
I'm now considering a hybrid approach - storing 10-20Gb of critical documents and photos through JungleDisk, and 100Gb+ of music and video files elsewere.
Most backup providers simplify matters for the user (which is generally good) - you sign-up once, and pay a fixed price, often starting as low as 5$ a month for unlimited storage. This is regardless of whether they manage their own storage, or just present a layer on top of Amazon Web Services - the user never knows (or cares).
JungleDisk on the other hand are very transparent regarding their reliance on Amazon. The user has to set up his own account with Amazon (in addition to JungleDisk account), and estimating the monthly costs is a little harder for a non technical person. This however provides a very important ability, unique to JungleDisk - I can access my own data on my own Amazon S3 account if I want. This gives me the assurance that even if JungleDisk dissapeared (even though they are doing quite well), I could still retrieve my data (they even provide a sample code for this very purpose).
So, if you don't mind an extra sign-up step, appreciate the variety of features, and want that extra assurance that you can always access your data - JungleDisk is a good choice. Yet when storing above 30 Gb (which costs 5$ a month on the S3 service), you may prefer some other service with a fixed price and unlimited storage.
I'm now considering a hybrid approach - storing 10-20Gb of critical documents and photos through JungleDisk, and 100Gb+ of music and video files elsewere.
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