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Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated![[franconi]](/webx/?30@@1) franconi (apparently) - 03:25am Sep 15, 2008 PSTvia emailHi,
I wonder why Unison < http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/> is
not considered in the online appendix. This is my main backup/sync
utility I am using daily since 5 years. It has all the relevant
features you can imagine (see below), but the ability of creating
bootable duplicates (I am using SuperDuper for that once a month).
Most of my friends and colleagues are using it as well.
Unison is a file-synchronization tool. It allows two replicas of a
collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts
(or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then
brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the
other.
* Unison runs on both Windows and many flavors of Unix (Solaris,
Linux, OS X, etc.) systems. Moreover, Unison works across platforms,
allowing you to synchronize a Windows laptop with a Unix server, for
example.
* Unlike simple mirroring or backup utilities, Unison can deal
with updates to both replicas of a distributed directory structure.
Updates that do not conflict are propagated automatically. Conflicting
updates are detected and displayed.
* Unlike a distributed filesystem, Unison is a user-level
program: there is no need to modify the kernel or to have superuser
privileges on either host.
* Unison works between any pair of machines connected to the
internet, communicating over either a direct socket link or tunneling
over an encrypted ssh connection. It is careful with network
bandwidth, and runs well over slow links such as PPP connections.
Transfers of small updates to large files are optimized using a
compression protocol similar to rsync.
* Unison is resilient to failure. It is careful to leave the
replicas and its own private structures in a sensible state at all
times, even in case of abnormal termination or communication failures.
* Unison has a clear and precise specification.
* Unison is free; full source code is available under the GNU
Public License.
cheers
--e.
Joe Kissell
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Sep 15, 2008 3:32 am
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I wonder why Unison <http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/> is not considered in the online appendix. The appendix lists only GUI software. (You'll note that it doesn't include rsync, psync, cp, ditto, etc. either.) In the PDF/print version of the book, I do have a brief appendix about using command-line tools, but my goal is to make backups as easy as possible for the widest possible audience, and most people aren't going to be willing to mess around in Terminal to perform, monitor, and restore their backups. Cheers, Joe
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franconi (apparently)
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Sep 15, 2008 2:28 pm
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
On 15 Sep 2008, at 20:32, Joe Kissell wrote:
> I wonder why Unison < http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/> is not
> considered in the online appendix.
>
> The appendix lists only GUI software. (You'll note that it doesn't
> include rsync, psync, cp, ditto, etc. either.) In the PDF/print
> version of the book, I do have a brief appendix about using command-
> line tools, but my goal is to make backups as easy as possible for
> the widest possible audience, and most people aren't going to be
> willing to mess around in Terminal to perform, monitor, and restore
> their backups.
Unison has a wonderful native macosx (and windows, and unix) gui - you
may have missed it.
--e.
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Joe Kissell
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Sep 15, 2008 2:29 pm
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Unison has a wonderful native macosx (and windows, and unix) gui - you may have missed it. Aha! So I did. I'll check it out. Thanks! Joe
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alsulliv
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Sep 16, 2008 1:50 am
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
Speaking of being in sync, there's been a shareware newsreader called "Unison" for quite some time.
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Nik
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Sep 16, 2008 12:32 pm
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
I was particularly excited to learn about QRecall, which appears to be the first real contender for a professional backup program on the Mac other than Retrospect. It's a shame it plays fast and loose with Mac metadata (per Backup Bouncer tests), because in all other respects, it seems excellent.
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Nik
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Sep 16, 2008 12:32 pm
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
I'm still looking for a program that will let me back up encrypted rolling archives online without having to sign up for yet another storage service. I have 50 gigs SFTP space from Dreamhost, and 20 gigs on my iDisk, and I'd rather use that space! But I'm quite afraid of storing plain/unencrypted copies of my files on someone else's servers. JungleDisk does everything I want, but then I'm paying $5/month or so for Amazon S3, when I already have plenty of storage elsewhere. I've also tried MacFUSE with it's SFTP FS module, but it appears to replace whole files in a rather massively bandwidth-intensive way. Not sure that's going to do it for me. Anyone have ideas about this? --
Nik nik  inik.net | http://inik.net | http://notions.inik.net
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barefootguru (apparently)
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Sep 17, 2008 6:10 am
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
On 2008-09-17, at 07:32, Nik wrote:
> I'm still looking for a program that will let me back up encrypted
> rolling archives online without having to sign up for yet another
> storage service. I have 50 gigs SFTP space from Dreamhost, and 20
> gigs on my iDisk, and I'd rather use that space! But I'm quite
> afraid of storing plain/unencrypted copies of my files on someone
> else's servers.
The aging Retrospect can backup to FTP servers (not SFTP) and other
volumes appearing on your desktop. It also supports encryption.
(A new Mac version is in development <feed://retrospective.typepad.com/retrospective_on_backup/atom.xml
> )
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kevinv (apparently)
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Sep 17, 2008 6:10 am
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
--On September 16, 2008 12:32:03 PM -0700 Nik <nik inik.net> wrote:
> I'm still looking for a program that will let me back up encrypted
> rolling archives online without having to sign up for yet another storage
> service. I have 50 gigs SFTP space from Dreamhost, and 20 gigs on my
> iDisk, and I'd rather use that space! But I'm quite afraid of storing
> plain/unencrypted copies of my files on someone else's servers.
>
> Anyone have ideas about this?
You can put your files in an encrypted sparse bundle disk image and then
use MobileMe's Backup program to backup the encrypted image to your iDisk.
I do this with all my financial records.
Joe Kissell wrote an article on the benefits on using a sparse bundle
image, especially in regards to backups.
< http://db.tidbits.com/article/9673>
You can use a tool like Interarchy to maintain a copy of the sparse bundle
disk on your Dreamhost server, although you won't get multiple backups that
way without some scripting.
Kevin
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cdevers (apparently)
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Sep 18, 2008 12:36 am
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Nik wrote:
> I was particularly excited to learn about QRecall, which appears to be
> the first real contender for a professional backup program on the Mac
> other than Retrospect.
What qualifies Retrospect as "professional" ?
Being flaky?
Hard to set up?
Being unreliable?
Bizarre, confusing interface?
Being bought out by a giant software company?
The few times I've had to deal with it have never gone well. I'll
readily plead guilty to having not read the documentation, so maybe if
you roll it all out properly it goes better, but for an average
individual user (home or small company, which is the vast vast majority
of Mac users), it seems more trouble than its worth.
Just use Super Duper - it's a snap to set up and seems to work well.
--
Chris Devers
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John C. Welch (apparently)
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Sep 19, 2008 9:23 am
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
On 9/18/08 3:36 AM, "Chris Devers" <cdevers pobox.com> wrote:
>> I was particularly excited to learn about QRecall, which appears to be
>> the first real contender for a professional backup program on the Mac
>> other than Retrospect.
Um...you're missing quite a few products there. BRU, Time Navigator, et al.
> What qualifies Retrospect as "professional" ?
I've run it for years. Not counting the entire 5.X versions which were
garbage, 6.X, including the latest 6.1.whatever versions have been nicely
solid for me, however it is absolutely an RTFM product, and when they
specify hardware and firmware versions they aren't kidding.
It's harder to set up and get running than Super Duper, but there's things
it, and other higher end backup systems do that Super Duper can't do.
--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelch bynkii.com
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johnbaxterlists (apparently)
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Sep 19, 2008 9:24 am
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Re: Monster List of Mac Backup Software Updated
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 12:36 AM, Chris Devers <cdevers pobox.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Nik wrote:
>
>> I was particularly excited to learn about QRecall, which appears to be
>> the first real contender for a professional backup program on the Mac
>> other than Retrospect.
>
> What qualifies Retrospect as "professional" ?
> Just use Super Duper - it's a snap to set up and seems to work well.
SuperDuper and Retrospect do different jobs (and I run both on my
remaining Tiger machine). (Retrospect can be used to do SuperDuper's
job, rather more slowly.) Just as I run both TimeMachine and
SuperDuper on my Leopard machines--with results from both stashed
offsite as well as onsite.
If one only wants the SuperDuper job, then it's the clear choice over
Retrospect (IMHO).
--John
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