I've started offering an online backup service with SFTP, rsync and more.

[meroliph]

After I got really annoyed with current services for backups, their custom programs and limitations, I've started my own 'company' offering this sort of service.

I've designed a page myself over at http://www.royalbackup.com/ where I'm offering the service. I'm not selling small allocations since it would be a hassle to deal with too many customers for a few bucks.

More info is available on the site, and you can e-mail info@royalbackup.com for a free 100mB trial account for 7 days to take it for a spin.

Any opinions or suggestions are more than welcome.

More info: Public service has only been offered since yesterday, but I've had the service running for a while. Current uptime for bishop is >60 days, though it does get taken down from time to time for regular maintenance (security updates and such).

[jgrahamc]

I'm planning to switch to using tarsnap because of the robust security involved. Do you encrypt the backup and how? Who controls the keys?

[meroliph → jgrahamc]

It seems like the guys at tarsnap have made their own application. The files are stored unencrypted, and it is the user's responsibility to encrypt them as the user sees fit, removing any limitation and not forcing the users to use only one protocol or application to store encrypted backups.

Using duplicity with a GPG key you can store your backups in an encrypted fashion.

[rphlx → meroliph]

+1 duplicity. It can backup to IMAP, meaning it can backup to gmail. Why pay $10+/mo to an online backup provider when Google provides 7GB of free storage (per captcha) inside some awesome tier1 datacenter?

[randombit → jgrahamc]

If you are interested in secure backups you may want to take a look at the Tahoe Least Authority File System (http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe), which has a much more useful security model than tarsnaps (for instance, you can share read-only access rights to a particular file with someone else). Tahoe is also entirely open source and the design is well documented, which in my view is two points up for Tahoe.

[IgorPartola]

1. The tech details are great. However, maybe not on the first page. I understood them, but do people that use for example Mozy.com know what RAID6 is? A picture is worth 1k words.

2. What are your typical upload/download speeds? What could I expect in terms of latency?

3. I would suggest that people set up their own encryption before they upload the file(s). I don't think many people have considered that as an option.

[meroliph → IgorPartola]

Added a link with more RAID6 info and a diagram.

Speeds can go up to 100mbps, but it varies based on how busy the server is, distance between your server and RB servers. You can ping bishop.royalbackup.com to get a rough idea of latency.

[rlpb]

It looks almost exactly what rsync.net provides. They're established. Why aren't you telling me why your service is better than theirs?

Your prices do appear to be cheaper but as you've said with a much larger minimum quantity. Is cost the only significant differentiating factor?

[meroliph → rlpb]

There isn't a lot to compete on, and trying to make a table that has a lot of green checks under for our features while the competitions has less checks or "limited" features seems a bit silly.

There is a larger minimum quantity, but when you look at it, you might want to have archives for your backup as well as synced up backups, so you'll need a bit more storage, and the space can get used up pretty fast.

[F_J_H]

You mention on your site that the servers are in "an N+1 redundant environment". Is it your own data center or is that outsourced?

Also, I would second jgrahamc's question re: encrypted backups.

[meroliph → F_J_H]

No, I don't own the datacenter, as I probably wouldn't bother with backup services if I had millions to throw on a datacenter, and instead I'd be selling rack space and bandwidth ;).

Regarding the encryption: the files stored are not encrypted, it is your task to encrypt them, with whatever method you choose, as I believe this removes some of the limitations I might impose if I were to forcefully encrypt everything, though I understand this can make it harder for newer users that are inexperienced.