I’m a big fan of my Windows Home Server. Being able to access all my files located centrally on one box that I can easily access with other PCs in and out of the home, as well as having a good local backup solution has been amazing.
However, the backup system is not foolproof and it is still possible to lose files due to human error or hardware failure. Because of this for the last month or so, I have been using Jungle Disk which is an addon for Windows Home Server that automatically backs up selected files to the Amazon S3 service. The service is reasonably cost-effective at around $0.15/GB but it still means you could be facing a big bill for a large backup. I worked out that backing up my critical files would cost me around $12/mth.
Yesterday by chance I discovered KeepVault, which offers unlimited PC backups for $54/year and a unlimited Windows Home Server service for $99/year. That’s an amazing price and because the KeepVault service is unlimited I can backup my whole server, rather than just selected files. KeepVault’s Fair Use policy seems quite fair and the only restriction I could find on what you could backup was that no individual file could be larger than 5GB. This should cover most files that users will want to backup.
Once purchased, installing KeepVault was very simple. I didn’t even have to connect to my WHS box to install it. I just downloaded the installation program on my local PC and it automatically found my WHS machine and added the add-in to the correct folder on the WHS box so that I could install KeepVault. It’s the first time I’ve seen a Windows Home Server addin do this, and I hope more coders take note.
Once installed, KeepVault has very limited configuration options, which is a shame as I’m pretty sure that most WHS users are pretty demanding like me. KeepVault displays all the available folders and one click is all it takes to add a folder to a backup job. KeepVault’s default setting is to enable real-time protection. The alternative is an overnight scheduled backup job, but unfortunately you can’t customise the time for the job. The only other configuration option is an upload speed limiter.
I’m not going to complain too much, as unlimited backups for $99/year is a very good offer, but I would really like KeepVault to work on adding more features like:
- keeping multiple backup copies
- customised schedules
- better status indicators so I can see which folders are fully backup up and which aren’t
- a progress bar showing how long a full backup will take (yes, I know it will be months at my upload speed, but I’d still like to know!)
- being able to delete old files from the backup, choosing the order that files are backup up in, customisable speed schedules e.g. capped upload speeds during the day
- a way to access backup files from another PC
I’m sure some of these features will come in the future for KeepVault. And for $99/year, I’m prepared to wait!
More: KeepVault
