Free Off-Site Backup Facility for Charity

angelavdavis

Hi all,

I am hoping that someone here might be able to help me with a predicament I have with a charity I assist with regard to a backup facility.

They have no backup facility currently and I am concerned that the PC that they use as their "server" may go bang one day as it is a bit elderly and that they will lose irreplaceable files.

The team at the office are technically terrified and their office visits are irregular so I can't always rely on someone to swap over CDs, etc so a backup is taken offsite, so what I was trying to do was as follows:

1) Back up the server using something like Comodo automatically at about 23:00 hrs every night.
2) Set the backup location as a Dropbox folder.
3) I have access to it even when out of the office in case of problems.

Sadly, the reality is that the backup file is over 600Mb and Dropbox seems to be having problems updating it.

I would like something fairly automated so I don't have to physically move the file elsewhere every night.

Any suggestions for a better free solution? I have seen offers such as Mozy - anyone use this functionality? They have very little if any funding and I did quite well recently to get some funding for three new PCs to replace their other ones which were failing regularly. Unfortunately our second fund application was turned down which would have meant we could have had a file server and backup solution, so I am trying to find something alternative to use until another funding stream can be found.

Thanks in advance.

Marty_J

The free version of Dropbox will allow you to store 2 GB, so it's strange that it doesn't want to work with your setup.

You could give Microsoft's Live Mesh a try.

angelavdavis

Yes I have been using Dropbox quite a bit for the two charities I work with and have had no problems up until now. I think it is the physical file size that is the problem for some reason.

davb

It looks like there is an option in Comodo backup to "split backup" and enter a max file size. It may be more stable if you could limit the size to say 200MB, which will create 3 files, and see if they upload ok.

peter_the_piper

Some isp's have free backup, worth checking them out.

angelavdavis

We are currently with BT but they are so expensive, so I am trying to wean us off them to be honest by setting up domain based email addresses, etc.

Marty_J

angelavdavis wrote: »

We are currently with BT but they are so expensive, so I am trying to wean us off them to be honest by setting up domain based email addresses, etc.

Did you try Live Mesh?

nitr02007

I gotta say I love Live Mesh - I've got my photos, documents and my keepass folders all automatically backed-up.

I recently lost a lot of photos so the first thing I do now is drop them in my sync'd Photos folder and they get backed-up automatically. 5GB of free online backup and easy syncing between PCs - all for free. :T

angelavdavis

I will look it up - thanks!