It is generally accepted that regular backups to an ‘offsite’ location are a good idea — much like regular exercise. Since you’re reading this, you probably have trouble with both regular exercise and regular backups. It is beyond my ability to help with the exercise, but with the magic of the Amazon S3 service, I can help you with regular, offsite backups.
The ‘Simple Storage Service’:
To quote the Simple Storage Service (S3) website:
Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.
Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.
In plainer language, S3 is unlimited storage space at rock bottom prices. It’s also fast. Really fast. In fact, it’s so fast that your server will probably be the limiting link in how fast you can send data. But that’s ok, because when we are done, the backup process will run in the background
The cost:
“Pretty nifty,” you say to yourself, “but how much does all this ‘computing in the cloud’ goodness cost?” An excellent question.
While the S3 rates are subject to change, at the current rates, 10 GB — yes you read that correctly, 10 Gigabytes — of monthly storage with 20 GB of monthly transfer would cost you about US$3.50 per month. Rates are slightly higher in Europe. In addition, Amazon provides a nice little calculator to help you figure out the damage.
The Set-Up:
So how do you get started backing up with the Amazon S3 service? Very simply. Simply sign up for an account and then follow one of the links below to a tutorial.
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