I used Rsync.net For quite a while, but I’ve been getting increasingly interested in Dropbox. Rsync is a commendably Open standard company. They allow access to their storage via many widely supported protocols, rsync (using ssh), scp, sftp, webdav etc. However, as a home backup network they are fairly expensive. I used a 10Gb share for a while, that’s about 11 bucks a month ($1.2 per Gb per month) but that’s not large enough to backup all my data. I used Rsync in a script that backed up a directory containing various softlinks to various important data folders scatered about my home directory. However, I’ve always been of the opinion that backup needs to be indiscriminate and completely automated. That is I’d prefer for all my Home directory to be backed up offsite rather than specific folders.

Dropbox offers 50Gb for 99 bucks. Now this is only accesible using a web interface or their admittedly cool client. Useable on Mac and Linux (windows as well but I’ve not used that). The folder is kept synched between all clients.

As a home user how can I afford to have the same storage as Dropbox but the same flexiblity as Rsync.org…..?

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