So, over the last week, I have been backing up my photos to Amazon S3 using S3Backup. The problems with S3Backup are 1: its not easily scriptable (I can kick off a backup job, but I cant say just backup this directory…) 2: it syncs Whole file changes. So, I make a small touch up to a photo, which, on disk only changes a few bytes (working a lot of DNG files), S3Back will upload the whole 8mb+ file… and finally, its only relatively stable… Its crashed a few times.

So, it got me thinking: there must be an easier way. I found a post over at “Clic!Dev, ‘Tate and many more projects!” (what a name for a blog!)  which talks about Cheap Server Backup with Amazon S3. In the tutorial, they use RSync. they use a Linux box for running the RSync server, and I don’t have one. all my machines are running various versions of Windows… I suppose I could run it in a Virtual Machine, but things gets complicated if the machine reboots…

Anyway, after a bit more looking I found S3RSync. Its a service which has some Amazon EC2 machines running, and you connect to them, which in turn connects to S3 and backs up your data. probably in a similar manner as the first option… I have requested more info, but as of yet have heard nothing. not sure which way they charge for usage either… once I get more info I will post it.

finally, for future reference, check out this article over at Gaztronics.net, explaining how to setup and use RSync on Windows. they go into detail on setting up Windows as both the Client and Server, and setting up a Linux server also. Pretty handy stuff.