It took me a while but following my review of the S3 Explorer I finally got to check out the CloudBerry Online Backup software by CloudBerry Labs. As already mentioned in the past, I use the Handy Backupsoftware to backup my local files to a portable hard drive. For a long time a wanted to add another layer of backup for my most important files using Amazon S3. There are a few tools that offer this service but almost none of them give you access to the stored data with other tools. It means that you can only access your backup storage using their own client. The one tool that allows you to access the data with any client you like is CloudBerry Online Backup. You pay a one time fee of 30$ for the software and then you use your own S3 account paying for the storage space and traffic directly to Amazon.
This backup tool has the regular features of selecting source directories and target location but it does have a few advanced features:
- you can upload files larger than 5GB
- failed uploads may be resumed
- your data may be encrypted
- there is support for file versioning
- you may specify file filters for backups
- you may skip hidden or system files
- you may compress files
- there is support for RRS
- local deleted files may be kept for a defined period on the backup
- online access to the files
- differential backup
If you use the ‘Advance Mode‘ you will enjoy the full range of features but the file structure of the backup set will not resemble the local copy. I’m a simple guy and prefer the ‘Simple Mode‘ so the backup set, on the S3 bucket, looks exactly like the local structure and I can access it with any tool I want (like S3 Fox).
All and all the tool works great and very simple to install and use. It is intuitive. On my wish list I would include only a few additions:
- A tool to compare the local copy with the backup set like the one in S3 Explorer.
- A tool to estimate backup costs (already planned).
- Backup option to Google storage (still in invite stage).
To help people get started with the Amazon services, Amazon just announceda free usage tier for new users which includes 5GB of S3 storage space for one year – great deal and a great opportunity to get started with backups to the cloud.
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