Apple’s Time Machine backups are a great way to make sure you’re protected from system failures, but what happens if something goes wrong with the Time Machine backup? That’s where Pro Softnet Corp.’s IDrive online backup service comes into play – it can automatically back up your Time Machine content to the “cloud.”
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]Pro Softnet has announced a new release of its IDrive Mac software – 1.4.2 – and with it, the ability to back up your latest Time Machine data online. If your local Time Machine backup becomes lost or corrupted, you can restore the entire backup, or just individual files and folders, using IDrive.
Pro Softnet has also introduced a new “Rapid Serve” program to help users recover large IDrive restores. The service ships you a 320GB portable USB-based hard drive (which you purchase for $69.95); it comes loaded with your most recent Time Machine backup, saving you from having to download from the cloud. It arrives ready to go as a system restore using Apple’s Migration Assistant software.
IDrive is available ranging from 5GB to unlimited storage. The 5GB account is free.
I don’t think my Internet upload speed would be able to keep up with my Time Machine backups. I’ve been using a Drobo as my TIme Machine backup device. I can have two drives fail simultaneously and not lose data. Theoretically, at least…
I’ve been eyeing Drobos for a few months, considering the one with eSATA. Which model are you using? How’s it been for restores?
I’m using the 5-bay Drobo FS with three 1.5Tb and two 2Tb drives connected through Ethernet. I haven’t done any full Time Machine restores yet, but I have restored individual files and it has worked fine. It has a feature where it will email you when there’s an issue. When I added the two 2TB drives and switched from single- to dual-drive protection, I got status emails keeping me informed of its progress.
I’ve read reviews that say it’s slow but since I only use it for backups and not “live” data, that isn’t an issue for me. Now that 2Tb drives are relatively cheap the Drobo makes a lot of sense to me. And it got a firmware update to make it compatible with 3Tb drives.
Thanks for the response. One more question: how bad is the noise coming from the thing?
I keep it in our tiny downstairs spare bedroom which is basically an oversized data closet/store room. It shares the room with a Linux machine and a Time Capsule, so there are plenty of fans making noise. I wouldn’t want to have it in my bedroom or any other room I spend a lot of time in.
Understood. Thanks!
Does this work with a time capsule? I would love for something that made my time machine/time capsule backups offsite without interaction.
Right now I do a manual backup of the time capsule to a hard drive about once a month and very infrequent manual backups to an online backup. I need something more automatic and more up to date. The online services that I’ve tried have very intrusive software with too many CPU cycles used when the software should be idle. So far I haven’t found anything that I’m willing to use.