

How do you back up large amounts of data? - mixmax

Referencing this post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=417762 how do you go about backing up data?<p>How do you do it if you have lots of dynamic and usergenerated content, and have to do it from a live server? How often should it be done?<p>Any experiences?
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cperciva
I use tarsnap. :-)

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mixmax
Looking at the e-mail adress on the website I strongly presume you're the guy
behind tarsnap :-)

It seems like a great service, and judging by your comments here I'm sure it's
a rock solid solution. But I think you need a pretty serious
design/usability/marketing effort before it will take off.

Btw this isn't meant to be degrading in any way, just a suggestion from a
fellow HN'er ;-)

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cperciva
Tarsnap isn't very flashy yet, but I decided to start with the core
functionality -- secure efficient backups -- and work out from there rather
than starting with style and having substance languish on a to-do list.

If you haven't used tarsnap, you haven't seen the worst of the lacking web
design -- the tarsnap web management interface (aka. accounting interface) is
minimalist to an extreme. But I think this is the right way to go -- I could
be making the web interface look nice right now, but instead I'm writing code
for automatically processing incoming payments... and at the end of the day,
being able to sign up, send in some money, download the tarsnap code, and
start storing backups in a matter of minutes is probably preferable to signing
up, sending in some money, and then looking at a beautifully designed website
for the 0-10 hours before I'm next awake and able to process the payment.

Making things look nice can happen later -- for now I'd prefer to have the
most solid system I can produce so that everybody who uses tarsnap can
enthusiastically recommend it to their friends.

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mixmax
It's the right decision.

Just wanted to point it out :-)

Ping me if you ever want some help with usability.

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cperciva
The nice thing about having enthusiastic users is that I'm already getting
lots of advice about how to make tarsnap better (and more usable). But if you
want to give me some more advice, I'm always happy to listen -- and even
better if you sign up for tarsnap and try it out first. :-)

