4 ms·

Tarsnap is amazing for Unix systems. Flat out, one of the coolest services I've ever used, and one of the cheapest. I'm backing up my VPS with it, and I can't r

Tarsnap is amazing for Unix systems. Flat out, one of the coolest services I've ever used, and one of the cheapest. I'm backing up my VPS with it, and I can't recommend it enough. I have a friend that strongly recommends CrashPlan, but I haven't tried it out yet on my Mac. I'm curious to though.

guygurari 14y ago
I use CrashPlan both on Mac and on Windows. On the Mac it works very well. On Windows it is okay, though it needs some hand holding -- sometimes the service gets stuck and needs to be restarted manually. Overall I find that it is better than Mozy (a competing service).
- mc32 14y ago
  If the service tends to hang, you might need to assign it more than the 512MB RAM it defaults to. The setting is controlled thru the CrashPlanService.ini file.
- jwr 14y ago
  Seconded. I switched from Mozy and would not go back.
rdl 14y ago
I love Crashplan -- especially because with essentially the same client, you can do backups to a public service, a hosted business service (multiple machines, centrally managed keys, etc.) or an enterprise hosted-by-yourself service.
bitcartel 14y ago
Doesn't Tarsnap store your data on their S3 account, rather than your own? If so, if how do you get your data back from Amazon if Tarsnap vanished tomorrow?
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  This isn't really a concern for me, but I'd probably email Colin and ask for it. The tarsnap program is open-source, presumably if he stopped hosting it the server-side component could be replaced. The client does all the work.
  - forensic 14y ago
    What if Colin is dead? It's a backup system for the truly paranoid so this is a legit question.
    - fusiongyro 14y ago
      The truly paranoid use multiple backups. The encryption ensures that without the keys, nobody else could make use of the data anyway.
- acabal 14y ago
  You can say that about any service--what if Crashplan's data center caught fire tomorrow? Tarsnap might be run by a single guy (I think?) but saying S3 is "more" or "less" reliable than any other private company isn't a great comparison. In any case a massive company like Amazon is the most likely to be reliable in these cases, I imagine.
  - bitcartel 14y ago
    That's why I cobbled together a poor man's cloud RAID :-) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4689238 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4689238 My earlier point was that I think data is stored on Colin Percival's S3 account (he is the creator of Tarsnap) and therefore you might lose access to the data (if he couldn't pay the bills or got hit by a bus) even though S3 itself is fine.
  - ZoFreX 14y ago
    I use Arq to backup files on my MacBook - it saves them to my S3 bucket, so even if everyone working on Arq dies (I sincerely hope they don't!) and their servers all explode, my backups are still intact on S3 - which is less likely to go down permanently and lose all my files than Tarsnap (not that that is particularly likely either!).

guygurari 14y ago

I use CrashPlan both on Mac and on Windows. On the Mac it works very well. On Windows it is okay, though it needs some hand holding -- sometimes the service gets stuck and needs to be restarted manually. Overall I find that it is better than Mozy (a competing service).

mc32 14y ago
If the service tends to hang, you might need to assign it more than the 512MB RAM it defaults to. The setting is controlled thru the CrashPlanService.ini file.
jwr 14y ago
Seconded. I switched from Mozy and would not go back.

rdl 14y ago

I love Crashplan -- especially because with essentially the same client, you can do backups to a public service, a hosted business service (multiple machines, centrally managed keys, etc.) or an enterprise hosted-by-yourself service.

bitcartel 14y ago

Doesn't Tarsnap store your data on their S3 account, rather than your own? If so, if how do you get your data back from Amazon if Tarsnap vanished tomorrow?

fusiongyro 14y ago
This isn't really a concern for me, but I'd probably email Colin and ask for it. The tarsnap program is open-source, presumably if he stopped hosting it the server-side component could be replaced. The client does all the work.
- forensic 14y ago
  What if Colin is dead? It's a backup system for the truly paranoid so this is a legit question.
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    The truly paranoid use multiple backups. The encryption ensures that without the keys, nobody else could make use of the data anyway.
acabal 14y ago
You can say that about any service--what if Crashplan's data center caught fire tomorrow? Tarsnap might be run by a single guy (I think?) but saying S3 is "more" or "less" reliable than any other private company isn't a great comparison. In any case a massive company like Amazon is the most likely to be reliable in these cases, I imagine.
- bitcartel 14y ago
  That's why I cobbled together a poor man's cloud RAID :-) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4689238 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4689238 My earlier point was that I think data is stored on Colin Percival's S3 account (he is the creator of Tarsnap) and therefore you might lose access to the data (if he couldn't pay the bills or got hit by a bus) even though S3 itself is fine.
- ZoFreX 14y ago
  I use Arq to backup files on my MacBook - it saves them to my S3 bucket, so even if everyone working on Arq dies (I sincerely hope they don't!) and their servers all explode, my backups are still intact on S3 - which is less likely to go down permanently and lose all my files than Tarsnap (not that that is particularly likely either!).