If you read any of my previous articles about Remote Backup Agents (Remote Backup Agent (iDrive, BackBlaze) and Remote Backup Agent Supplement (Mozy, SugarSync)), you know that I am a big fan of offsite backups for home and small business. As I’ve mentioned before, most people don’t realize the value of their data (documents, media files, etc) until they lose it due to some unfortunate set of circumstances. I know a number of folks that use USB hard drives to back up data (check out my article on iDrive Portable), but even those can fail (or be lost/stolen).
As such, I wanted to share with you another tool called DropBox. This one has been gaining quite a bit of popularity lately, as it just recently hit its one million user mark. It’s functionality is similar to that of SugarSync, in that it allows you to sync files across multiple computers automatically. You can also share your files with other people by emailing them a link directly to the file in your Dropbox (don’t worry – your public files are not browseable or searchable by anyone without the direct link). If you’re at a computer where the sync client is not installed, you can download the files to the computer from the DropBox website. By default, Dropbox keeps up to 30 days worth of file change history, allowing you to undelete a file or revert to a previous version if there is a problem. NOTE: They also have a “pack-rat” option that allows unlimited file change history.
Dropbox works across all platforms (Linux, Mac, and Windows), and also has functionality for Mobile Phones (iPhone application, or mobile website for Blackberry/Windows Mobile). You can get a a free account (up to 2Gb of storage) if you would like to check it out. Paid accounts (50Gb and 100GB) cost $10/month and $20/month respectively.
If you need more convincing, here are some great articles I read about making the most of your DropBox subscription:
- 5 cool things to sync with DropBox on your Mac (ArsTechnica) – This one is for Mac Users
- Use DropBox for more than just File Syncing (LifeHacker) – This one is PC Based
- How DropBox ended my search for seamless sync on Linux (ArsTechnica) – Obviously for the Linux folks
- Use Dropbox to sync OneNote notebooks (LifeHacker) – Great supplement if you’ve read my article on OneNote.
Contact Me if you have any questions about DropBox, or about Online Backups in general!
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