[Tfug] Slightly OT: Cheap on-line backup

[Jeff Breadner]

>> Subject line says it all - anyone know of a cheap, reliable online backup
>> company?
>
> Roll your own.   rsync over ssh or a SCM tool like subversion or git
> can help get your data in more than one place.
>

I use DreamHost (dreamhost.com), so they provide web hosting, email
(which can optionally be mapped to GMail using your own domain, which
I recommend).  They provide unlimited disk usage and traffic in the
neighbourhood of 2TB/month I think, along with a real SSH account on a
Debian box.

I use rsync over SSH in a cron job to automatically back up specific
directories on my file server overnight, it's always worked well for
me.  I think I have a few tens of gigs backed up, but as I mentioned
they literally offer unlimited disk space, whatever you can push up to
them.

The drawback is that their connection speeds are low and their servers
are somewhat overloaded; I think I can push to them at about 200kB/s,
and I've seen their CPU load averages hit the 10's and 20's before.
Still, you can write your own cron jobs on their server and host as
many domains as you want, all for around $10/month.  There's a
kickback for referrals, if you're interested let me know off-list and
I can give you a code that will split the kickback with you, about $50
off.

cheers
  Jeff