Toby Atkin-Wright

When Microsoft SkyDrive and Google Drive launched their syncing apps last year, I installed them and gave them a go. I’ve been using Dropbox for years, and it was clear that Microsoft and Google were offering some serious competition, even if they didn’t have the polish or all of the features of Dropbox. I decided that I’d let my annual Dropbox subscription lapse, and when it did, I’d start using SkyDrive and/or Google Drive in anger.

My paid Dropbox subscription came to an end yesterday; I’m now down to the 7.1GB that they provide to me for free. SkyDrive give me 25GB for free, and Google Drive 5GB. Should I need more space, both Microsoft and Google are significantly cheaper than Dropbox.

Having evaluated the client software on OS X and on iOS, I think I’ll try using SkyDrive as my main file storage system for the next while. Google Drive has too many rough edges for me to feel confident in it. I’ll continue using Dropbox for some documents that need to be in their shared folders, and with some applications and web sites that integrate with it.

It’ll be interesting to see whether SkyDrive matches up to Dropbox in day-to-day use. Dropbox has been consistently reliable, and hasn’t caused me any hassles.

How to back up data?

I use my iPad as my primary computer; I create and edit documents, manage photos, take notes, and otherwise fill it with important data. I rely on it backing itself up to iCloud, but also the photos, notes, and so on will sync to my Macs. Similarly for my iPhone; it backs up to the cloud, but the important data that I originate on the phone syncs to my other devices.

My main Mac Mini (called Haloumi) has a Drobo attached which I use for data storage, offering single-drive redundancy. Most of my documents are stored in a folder that is synchronised with Dropbox, so the content is available from all of my devices. The Drobo also contains my master store of photos (managed by Aperture), and media (managed by iTunes).

All of this content is backed up to an Apple Time Capsule in another room. The Drobo is also rsynced nightly to a local USB hard drive, and does a daily ZFS snapshot, retaining the last ninety snapshots. I also rsync my photos to a Strongspace account.

I log into the second Mac Mini (called Stilton) once a week or so, and make sure that it has synced down a copy of my Dropbox, so I always have a recent working copy should I need it.

And I still worry about my data being recoverable.

During the next year I have a plan to move to a RAIDZ2 instead of the Drobo, and to make backups of my data to similarly-specced storage along at qidane’s house by replicating incremental ZFS snapshots — it will be a lot more efficient than using rsync. We ought to be making more use of our wireless link down the street.

I bought a refurbished 2TB Time Capsule this week. It will add to my existing backup strategy, and Time Machine provides the most usable interface to backups that I’ve come across. We’ll have four Macs backing up to the Time Capsule; my ageing MacBook Pro, Kate’s MacBook Air, Beth’s Mac Mini, and Andrew’s MacBook Pro. It should have plenty of capacity for our data.

This will add to my existing backup strategy of storing my documents in Dropbox (and thereby syncing them to all the other computers I use), rsyncing to my Drobo, and occasional rsyncs to Strongspace (although the last time I did one was some time ago). I’ve tried a couple of online backup services, but gave up on them — Mozy kept resetting my backup and needed repeated full backups, and Carbonite seemed to suck the life out of my computer.

The Time Capsule also gives us 802.11n networking for the first time, which will be a welcome performance boost for Kate and Andrew.

I bought a refurbished 2TB Time Capsule this week. It will add to my existing backup strategy, and Time Machine provides the most usable interface to backups that I’ve come across. We’ll have four Macs backing up to the Time Capsule; my ageing MacBook Pro, Kate’s MacBook Air, Beth’s Mac Mini, and Andrew’s MacBook Pro. It should have plenty of capacity for our data.

This will add to my existing backup strategy of storing my documents in Dropbox (and thereby syncing them to all the other computers I use), rsyncing to my Drobo, and occasional rsyncs to Strongspace (although the last time I did one was some time ago). I’ve tried a couple of online backup services, but gave up on them — Mozy kept resetting my backup and needed repeated full backups, and Carbonite seemed to suck the life out of my computer.

The Time Capsule also gives us 802.11n networking for the first time, which will be a welcome performance boost for Kate and Andrew.