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Update Available For The Cloudberry Backup WHS Add In

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:34:03 +0000

A quick and short alert post:

I told you about Cloudberry’s Backup Add In ages ago and how much i love it both here and here.

Well the add in just received a new update bringing it to version 1.3.3. I am still using it and it faithfully backs up my important stuff daily.

Here are the new features available:

Full support for Drive Extender
Backup Window
Better support for Volume Shadow Service
Other issues

It also gets a sexier new options screen:

Head over to Cloudberry and get the latest Add In. Uninstall old version first!!

If you forget what to do here.. Just remember this – Go to WHS console, Settings, Add Ins and highlight the currently installed add in and click uninstall.

Dont worry, you won’t lose your settings or backups.

Copy the new MSI file to your Server> Software > Add Ins folder and head back to your freshly opened console. The repeat above but choose available add ins.

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Update On Cloudberry Backup For Windows Home Server – New Features and Price

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:00:35 +0000

A few weeks ago, I ran an article on Cloudberry’s Backup Service for WHS. I have been using it every day since. And, I have not had a single problem. Its really reliable. Anyway, there’s good news about the service. Version 1.3.82 has just been released and brings with it some nice features and an even nicer price. The first notable feature that I really like is remote notification via email. You can set each backup two ways. First, notify me of every event – good or bad. Second notify of a failure in the backup process. This is fantastic, because instead of waiting till a disaster happens and find out the backups haven’t been running, you know instantly and fix it before a problem occurs. Unlike the story we ran on Microsoft losing all the Sidekick data. One thing I wanted to know was when I updated the software, what would happen to my backup plans already configured. Well, nothing.. they were fine and in tact. One note though, if you want the email notification on existing backup plans, click edit plan and keep clicking next till you get to this screen:

The price has been dropped to a very affordable $29.99. Now you have absolutely no excuse when explaining to your wife why only half the honeymoon pictures are there and that you can’t get em back! Here are the other features and fixes:

GUI issues with high DPI fixed
Purging options work correctly.
C# API – an ability to get backup plan statistics programatically *
Issue with Overview panel is fixed and other minor fixes

The C# API is interesting when explained in plain English. “Snowdin” from snowdins.wordpress.com has been developing a kick-ass add in for Windows Home Server called P80. Because Cloudberry Backup developed the API, Cloudberry Backup stats will now be integrated into it. So you get a webpage with your backup stats live!!!. When the time comes, I will do a full review on the add in. Interesting to note is some of the planned features from their website:

Block level backup and restore – backup only modified portions of files
Virtual Disk – expose Amazon S3 storage as a local disk on your computer
Storage costs estimates using http://cloudsplit.com/
Web interface access your backup storage everywhere
FTP support
Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network support
Microsoft Azure Blob Storage support
Sun Cloud Storage Service support

Head over to Cloudberry Backup to download the new version or read my full run down on how to configure and use Cloudberry Backup. Did you enjoy this update? Please let me know in the comments. You opinion matters more than the post.

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http://blog.cloudberrylab.com/2009/11/how-to-setup-cloudberry-s3-backup.html

CloudBerry – Backs Up Your Files To The Amazon Cloud

Konrad Walsh-(admin) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:28:02 +0000

I have recently received an invite to the beta version of Cloudberrys’ Windows Home Server add in. Simply put, Cloudberry allows you to select files/folders or entire drives and have them backed up to the cloud on Amazons Servers. I have been waiting for something like this to come along since Jungle-Disk stopped developing for Windows Home Server. Whilst this review centres around the WHS version, there is a version available for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. And it has pretty much the same functionality from what I can see on their very well designed website. So this review is for anyone interested in some online backup satisfaction. Review: Cloudberry Online Backup for WHS Needed: Copy of software, Windows Home Server or XP, Vista or 7, Amazon S3 Service Account Level: Beginner Experience

Installation

This is straight forward if you have installed a WHS add in before. Drop the MSI file into \\server\software\addins. Head to your WHS console and go to add ins under the settings menu. Head to the available tab and click install. You will then be greet with this:

You then choose Setup Backup Plan… The first time this will bring you to a setup dialog box. Here you will need to enter your API and Secret keys. Don’t panic. You will get them by heading over to the Amazon link above and setup an account. Here is a step by step on how to do that.

Point to bear in mind: I setup an Amazon account and for some reason, it would not activate the s3 service. Cloudberry kept replying with an error. If you’ve followed the step-by-step article on this above, then I suggest you do what I did. Create a fresh Amazon S3 account.

Once you’ve completed these steps, then enter the information into the Cloudberry interface. Create a bucket list by clicking on retrieve buckets. This is just a name of the place on Amazon’s servers where your data is stored. Click ok and close this box.

Now you get to set up the actual backup details. Again, this is simple and self explanatory. Just click on the drives listed to expand them and then tick the boxes for any drive, folder or file you want backed up. Set the frequency options and away you go.

You can then manually run the first back up if you want to see it in action. I did. I chose to backup my websites and some personal folders.

My backup took around 7 minutes to backup 13 megabytes. Earlier i backed up 350 megs in about 2 hours. Once you’ve your first complete backup done, all others will be quicker. Point to bear in mind: This is automatically set to upload at maximum speed. Which is great but will slow down other traffic on the network whilst this is happening. I chose to use half my bandwidth/upload speed. This means my backups took longer than necessary. See here:

Restore Options

Again, using a wizard, it guides you thru the restore process. No backup software or setup is any good to you unless you test its ability to restore. Armed with this understanding, i set out to do a restore and it was seemless. You can choose a single file or folder or again, an entire drive. Choose to restore it to the original location or a new location. And wham.. files restored! Very simple and reassuring. If you chose to encrypt your backups, it will request the backup password before allowing the restore to happen.

Support

A short note on support. I ran into an issue with the S3 service. Andy from Cloudberry was helpful and responded extremely quick when I asked for help. So I give five stars on responsivness and helpfulness.

Costs

I have revised this paragraph from my original post. I wasnt happy with the way i wrote it, as I didnt get across my point in a clear manner. Thats what happens when you write your blog at 1 am. This is the area that interests me most. See, Cloudberry, in my opinion, have really only picked up where Jungle Disk left off. Now that’s a good thing. Cloudberry polished this product everywhere and actually finished its development. It costs $34.99. plus your Amazon costs. The price on something like this is never an easy thing. You’ve got to decided how much your personal or business data is worth. When put into that light, $34.99 isnt much. It’s also not much when compared to how well the software works. But you need to factor in the cost of the amazon disk space cost. In my experience, this is never going to cost much. I backed up all my photos(2500+) and music(3500+) and my monthly bill from amazon was always around 7 dollars mark. For me, Cloudberry is worth this amount, as I have felt the pain of losing pictures and files on more then one occassion – and thats with a Windows Home Server. I would like to see Cloudberry around the 19.99 mark. I think this because your yearly total because more palatable. Here is a breakdown of Amazon’s costs:

Europe

Storage

$0.180 per GB – first 50 TB / month of storage used

$0.170 per GB – next 50 TB / month of storage used

$0.160 per GB – next 400 TB / month of storage used

$0.150 per GB – storage used / month over 500 TB

Data Transfer

$0.100 per GB – all data transfer in

$0.170 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out

$0.130 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out

$0.110 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out

$0.100 per GB – data transfer out / month over 150 TB

Summary

In summary, I think the software is well designed, intuitive and simple. I think its an absolute MUST for anyone. You can never, ever have enough backups!!! I feel the price is a little prohibitive, but what price do you put on all your photos and music, etc… Overall, its very good.