Nov 8 10:00 am
I want to centralize storage at our office so that media (large quantities of photos, occasionally video) aren’t strewn across multiple people’s computers. In the past, we’ve used JungleDisk, an S3 desktop client, but the software is buggy and hard to love. Our needs: Centralized storage, at least 100-200GB Remote access Fast access at the office (it’s no fun uploading large video files over DSL) Automatic data backup I prefer the remote access to be as a mountable drive, for setup for everyone to be simple and use as little add-on software as possible, and for the whole thing to be set-up-and-forget-it. Based on my research and suggestions from others, I looked at JungleDisk, an Airport Extreme with USB drive, Expandrive, PogoPlug, a Mac set up as a server, and Zumodrive. The results are here. What’s surprising is that there’s no clear-cut best option. If Airport Extreme had cloud backup, it’d probably win as in most other respects it’s the simplest and best option. As it stands, I’m left to choose between Pogoplug with cloud backup via one of our desktops or a Mac I setup just to share drives. Neither’s ideal. What I’d really like is a simple device that shares a drive on my local network, backs up the data to the cloud, and makes it available remotely. How can it not exist? UPDATE: Dropbox won’t work because all of our computers are laptops and don’t have drives large enough for a complete local mirror of all the files. A mac with dropbox also won’t work because accessing a dropbox shared directory copies all those files to your computer. What should I buy?

I want to centralize storage at our office so that media (large quantities of photos, occasionally video) aren’t strewn across multiple people’s computers. In the past, we’ve used JungleDisk, an S3 desktop client, but the software is buggy and hard to love.

Our needs:

  • Centralized storage, at least 100-200GB
  • Remote access
  • Fast access at the office (it’s no fun uploading large video files over DSL)
  • Automatic data backup

I prefer the remote access to be as a mountable drive, for setup for everyone to be simple and use as little add-on software as possible, and for the whole thing to be set-up-and-forget-it.

Based on my research and suggestions from others, I looked at JungleDisk, an Airport Extreme with USB drive, Expandrive, PogoPlug, a Mac set up as a server, and Zumodrive.

The results are here.

What’s surprising is that there’s no clear-cut best option. If Airport Extreme had cloud backup, it’d probably win as in most other respects it’s the simplest and best option.

As it stands, I’m left to choose between Pogoplug with cloud backup via one of our desktops or a Mac I setup just to share drives. Neither’s ideal.

What I’d really like is a simple device that shares a drive on my local network, backs up the data to the cloud, and makes it available remotely. How can it not exist?

UPDATE: Dropbox won’t work because all of our computers are laptops and don’t have drives large enough for a complete local mirror of all the files. A mac with dropbox also won’t work because accessing a dropbox shared directory copies all those files to your computer.

What should I buy?

21 notes

  1. raja answered: Why do you need a secondary computer to backup to s3 with the pogoplug+usb drive combination. The pogoplug is an open linux device.
  2. edabot answered: We use Mozy and that’s worked out fine.
  3. darrellsilver answered: What about a mac mini with a big local drive that’s shared on your network and uses dropbox?
  4. willw answered: Dropbox. Dropbox. Dropbox. Seriously.
  5. erikpukinskis answered: Why not a Mac Mini?
  6. 6ixpassions answered: Look for iDrive… Cloud backup service that can backup can be accessed by multiple computer and with descent speed. Far better than S3.
  7. benbrown answered: You should look into Macfuse - it allows you to mount FTP directories and other filesystems as local drives.
  8. debbipete answered: if you find a solution, please post the result. We have this same problem where I work, but no real IT dept. to deal with it.
  9. gtmcknight answered: I use Dropbox everyday, backs up and syncs: getdropbox.com
  10. daryn answered: Since pogoplug runs linux, you could probably easily setup a cronjob to sync it up to S3 or somewhere else in the cloud.
  11. jratlee answered: Drobo?
  12. funemployed answered: not an elegant solution for tons of storage, but would dropbox work?
  13. superamit posted this
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