You’ll never have to enter your Dropbox account info into a third-party app on version 1. Instead, you’ll approve access using the official Dropbox app on mobile or via the web at dropbox.com.
And this.
Version 1 adds support for apps that can only read or write to a single folder in your Dropbox.
Authentication is not sent to third party apps, and you can selectively limit access to a single folder which prevents exposing all of your Dropbox data. Hellofax is one example of this kind of integration—they offer the option of receiving faxes as PDFs that can be routed to a Dropbox folder.
AeroFS is a file syncing application, similar to Dropbox, but instead of syncing your files with their servers it runs within your own network and syncs data among your devices internally. It’s a distributed P2P (peer-to-peer) filesystem that doesn’t require a ‘middleman’ server. They offer an optional encrypted sync to their servers (cloud) if you want offsite backup as well. See their Features page for more info.
The idea is a really good one: if you already have file storage capacity in your home or business you can use it to set up automatic syncing and sharing of directories and files without going through a third party service. Many companies have security policies that don’t allow file sharing through services like Dropbox, so something like AeroFS could meet that need really well.
As of this writing they are in beta so you can sign up for an invitation and be notified when it’s ready.
Amazon just announced their Cloud Drive service. It’s not an automated file syncing service like Dropbox—it’s (currently) a manual, browser-based upload to a file share on Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3). Dropbox is built on the S3 infrastructure, though, so I wonder what Amazon will do in terms of building their own application or API for syncing. Amazon knows storage and Dropbox knows syncing, so maybe there’s an acquisition in the future here.
Pricing looks very good for what they’re offering. You get 5 GB free to start with if you have an existing Amazon account.
If you’re into digital photography and video — and you like to geek out a bit on the technical process, like I do — check out this little overview by Chase Jarvis and his team. They touch on workflow, processing, data management, and a little bit about how they take raw input from the field and work their creative output magic. It’s a really informative look at how some of the best digital creatives in the business perform their craft. His blog link to all this can be found here.
Below the video is a sketch of their digital workflow and backup methodology.
Here’s the idea: you’re away from your computer—Mac or PC—and you want to use your mobile device to access folders and files that are saved on your computer. A cloud sync service like Dropbox can fill that gap and provide quick and easy access to your files. I’ve been testing this for a while and it works great.
The way it works:
You have a Dropbox account (free 2 GB account, or pay for more space).
The Dropbox application is installed on your computer, which creates a folder called ‘Dropbox’ and syncs this folder (and every folder inside it) to your online account.
Any folders and files that you would like to be able to access on your mobile device, just move those into the Dropbox folder structure.
Install the free Dropbox app on your mobile device, enter your login information, and have access to your online account and all of the folders and files you have synced up on your computer.
It’s important to point out that this is not some ‘virtual’ folder—the Dropbox folder and its subfolders actually exist on your computer, so it’s no different than your current folder hierarchy: your data is still stored on your hard drive. The only difference is that once a file is saved locally, a copy automagically gets pushed to the cloud. This serves several purposes:
A remote backup of your files. In case your computer were stolen or damaged such that you couldn’t get to your data, you could recover your files from Dropbox. This is reason enough to do it.
Remote access for viewing up-to-date copies of all your files when you’re away from your computer.
The ability to share a file with someone else, either by using the Public folder or by emailing a link to the file directly from the Dropbox mobile app.
As of this writing Dropbox mobile apps are available for iPhone, iPad, Android, and iPod Touch—according to the Dropbox Anywhere page, Blackberry support is coming as well.
I’ve found the Dropbox service and the mobile applications to be very stable and reliable so far as I have used them on iPhone and iPad. I experimented for a while with a free 2 GB account, but recently upgrade to the 100 GB service for $20 a month.
I’ve mentioned Dropbox in several blog posts—I’m not involved with the company in any way, just a satisfied customer. They’re doing a really good job.
Online (cloud) file storage is gaining popularity with individuals and small businesses. These services are relatively inexpensive, or free in some cases for smaller storage needs. Large companies will often build out their own data centers, or use some of the major hosting providers that run data facilities around the country. For the rest of us there’s really no need to purchase and manage file servers if all we need is a remote option for storage, backup and file sharing.
Two caveats about online file storage:
Redundancy — Do not store the only copy of your data with an online service. Even the most reputable firm can make mistakes or have system failures of their own. Important data should reside in at least two places, kept in sync on a regular basis, and tested regularly to ensure that you have a good copy to restore from. Prepare for the day that one of your file storage options — local or remote — will fail.
Sensitive Data — Consider carefully what kind of information you are storing online, such as sensitive customer data (names, addresses, SSNs, account numbers), financial info, logins and passwords, etc. Anything that could expose you to legal action or otherwise seriously impact your business if it were stolen, have a separate backup location for this — a portable hard drive that you take home with you, a spare computer secured in your office, even a little flash drive that you lock in a drawer somewhere.
One of the better features of online storage is the ability to share large files with others. Email technology was originally developed to be no more than a means of sending a few lines of text, but we have come to rely on it to deliver large photos and videos as well, and sometimes it doesn’t handle these file transfers very well. Also, some companies will limit the size of email attachments that go through their corporate mail servers, so really large files may not even be allowed as attachments. This is where a shared online storage service can fill the gap.
I mentioned Dropbox in another post — it’s the only one I have used so far, and it’s very good but there are others that seem to be well-established so I thought I would cover a few of those here as well.
Box.net
Box.net (www.box.net) has several pricing tiers starting with a free service for up to 1 GB in storage space. They offer custom branding, file search, and accelerated upload speeds for premium accounts. Box.net is designed heavily around collaboration so this might be a good one to consider for work teams, but it does not offer client software to integrate with your Mac or PC file system like Dropbox does. This may not matter much though, and it looks like a good choice for small to medium size businesses. They have a pretty impressive list of customers so they must be doing something right.
SugarSync
SugarSync (www.sugarsync.com) offers a 2 GB account for free, and there are four more levels of pricing and storage from there. They have client installations for Mac and PC as well as mobile access options for iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices. It looks to be similar to Dropbox as a storage and synchronization service.
Mozy
Mozy (www.mozy.com) works a little differently from the others. They also have a 2 GB free option, and the next level is MozyPro for more advanced needs. MozyPro performs a block-level backup routine, which means it only updates the portion of a file that has changed rather than running a new backup of the entire file. This helps to speed things up since there is less data to copy on these incremental backups.
They claim it also works on Microsoft Outlook PST email files as well, which is a major plus for Outlook users since PST files contain the entire personal folder structure, including attachments, and this database can become huge. I know some email pack rats who keep every email and attachment they’ve received for the last several years, and their PST files can exceed 15 GB in some cases. An incremental backup of these large archives is a great asset, assuming it works as advertised — if you get a Mozy account and backup your PST files, you should run a few backups and then test an email restore from the backup. PST files are known to become corrupted and will be worthless to you if they don’t restore successfully.
That said, Mozy’s service appears to be a stronger technical offering than the basic backup and sync products, and geared to more mission-critical business needs. Desktop and server platforms are supported so you can also run your file and application server backups through here. Desktop licensing is $4 plus 50¢ per GB monthly, and server licensing is $7 plus 50¢ per GB monthly. Restoration can be done via the Mozy client, over the web or from a DVD.
ElephantDrive
ElephantDrive (www.elephantdrive.com) has a Home/Home Plus Edition and Pro/Pro Plus Edition, both of which work from a client installation on your computer. The Home Editions start at $5 per month and the Pro Editions start at $35 per month up to $100 per month for Pro Plus, which provides 2 Terabytes (2,000 GB) of storage. Files are encrypted with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) using a 256-bit key.
There are many online file sharing / storage / synchronization services showing up these days. They usually offer some limited level of service for free, and start charging for more storage space and features. Dropbox has done a great job of implementing this concept.
I like the idea of having an online option for storage and backup of selected files, and I think the best approach is to use this as a supplement to a local backup strategy. Don’t let it be your only recourse for restoring lost data.
Dropbox
I have been using Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) for a while now for simple backup and sync services. In January 2010 Dropbox announced four million users, so they seem to be doing pretty well. You can keep your files private, or share selected subfolders and files out via a web address you can invite others to. It serves as a backup in case your hard drive fails, or as a way to have access to important files when you don’t have your own computer with you. Any computer with an internet connection will give you access to your Dropbox account.
You can download Dropbox for Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and iPad. Install the application on your computer and it creates a folder that is synced with your online Dropbox account. Add a file to the Dropbox folder on your computer, and it immediately copies it up to your web account. It works really well and can provide some peace of mind knowing that you have a backup copy in case something happens to your computer.
File Synchronization
You can also set it up on multiple machines for syncing files between them; for example, create a Dropbox folder on your home computer and one on your work computer, and have both of those sync to your Dropbox account online. If you add a file to the Dropbox folder on your home computer, you will see it in the folder on your work computer as well. Or, create a shared folder with relatives and drop photos in there from time to time, or whatever you want to share.
Jason Snell of Macworld magazine has a nice five minute Dropbox introductory video that demonstrates the service.
Currently (as of June 2010) the pricing options are:
Basic Account (2 GB): free
Pro 50 Account (50 GB): $9.99/month or $99/year
Pro 100 Account (100 GB): $19.99/month or $199/year
Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR) are the kinds of things nobody really wants to work on. Planning for the unlikely seems like a waste of time, until the unlikely happens. What we’re looking at here is just the technology side of things, but there are larger business concerns as well, such as personnel, facilities and communications.
If you rely heavily on technology for work or play, it’s a good idea to spend some time thinking about—and planning—what you will do in the event of a disruption. At the bottom of this post I have provided links to some other resources that may be helpful in your planning.
BCP involves figuring out how to keep your operations running in the event of a disruptive incident: a fire, earthquake, hurricane—or even something relatively minor, like a computer hard drive failure, an extended loss of your network connection, or theft of critical equipment.
DR is a subset of BCP and deals with protecting the business in the event that all or part of its systems become unavailable for an extended period, or entirely unusable.
I have used DriveSavers Data Recovery once to recover data from a hard drive that appeared to be totally fried. They’re expensive, but very good at what they do. We spent around $2,000 for the work but every byte was recovered and returned.
I just noticed that they’ve published an iPhone app that educates users a bit about the causes of hard drive failures, and offers some data protection strategies you can use to prevent them. Pretty generous considering they make a living from people not doing these things. They also have a web-based (Flash) version of the app on their web site here. You can take a look into their ISO-5 Certified cleanroom environment where they do their work.
And if you think data recovery isn’t sometimes a very serious matter, they also have a suicide-prevention counsellor on staff. This underscores a very simple but often-neglected practice: data backups. If your data is even remotely important to you, have a backup strategy and stick to it.
I have been using Dropbox (
