I’ve been searching for the ideal way to do secure (encrypted) backups to my Amazon S3 buckets.
I’ve heard good things about Jungle Disk, but this is a subscription service. I have no problem paying for good software (it doesn’t have to be free) but I do have a problem with subscription software. I want to own my backup software. Regardless of EULA’s, I want to control the program and use of it on my computer. I don’t want to be at the mercy of a company to do whatever they want with a service I am going to rely on, if I don’t have to go that route. Or have to worry about it may disappear if they go out of business. It’s my understanding that at one time Jungle Disk was a “normal” piece of software that you paid for and used. So I missed out on that option it seems.
I have read good things about an Open Source backup program called Bonkey, for Backup Monkey. The normal complaints I’ve read about it have been regarding it’s name and having a confusing interface. So I decided to give it a try, as that didn’t sound so bad to me.
In my personal experience, I had more problems that that. I was using the Window’s version 3.4.1. Not only is the user interface not user friendly (as I had been pre-warned) but I had the following issues:
You seem to have to create a blank log file manually before it allows you to activate the use of a log file. It gave me errors turning log files on, until I realized this. That’s not that big a deal. I figured that out. But far from user friendly.
I was completely unable to get the email notifications to work, no matter what I tried. It gave me error messages, regardless if I used authentication or not, and no matter what formats I set the email addresses in, or if I used domain name or IP address for my mail server, or if I used port 25 or 465 for secure or unsecure connections. So after considerable trial and error I gave up on this.
I was unable to get encryption to work on the saving of files to my S3 bucket, even though I selected the option. It simply didn’t happen. The files did upload, and it did upload with and without being in ZIP format. But I was unable to get it to encrypt the files.
And once you create a backup profile, I wasn’t able to figure out how to edit that profile to make changes easily. It appears you have to remove it and create a new one to make changes.
And worst of all, I was unable to find the developer’s name or contact info, or any means of support, not even a user forum.
So it baffles me that all the reviews I read were positive other than GUI complaints. This software has the feel of a beta, not a finished product with a point release this high. I hope anyone that might read this has better luck than I did. I’m back on my search and evaluations for a “good” S3 backup program.