Macgasm

If you’ve been around for awhile you might know that we take our backup schemes pretty seriously around here. Both Grant and I are super anal when it comes to ensuring our data’s integrity is intact, and being backed up to multiple locations. For me, I use SuperDuper, Time Machine, and Clone my drives.

Well I now have another options that helps me take my backups one step further. Parachute lets me automate some offsite backups. They also let me run multiple local backups. It’s pretty handy if you’re looking into backing up just now. You get a free 15 day trial, and if you’re sold on it’s backup prowess then you’ll pay about 40.00USD.

Some Pluses

They give you the ability to backup over sftp, ftp, WebDav, and MobileMe, all of which is extremely handy. If you want to get your data out of your house and on to some server somewhere else then this is a great place to start.

It’s pretty simple to set up, which is an obvious plus. All you have to do is create a new task, select the local folder you’d like to backup, then chose the destination, schedule, and click backup now. That’s it, and that’s all.

Some Limitations

There are some limitation with the software that make this an application that should be used in conjunction with other options. First, it doesn’t let you do full drive, bootable backups. That makes it pretty difficult to rely on the application to clone a drive. It also doesn’t zip up archive, which isn’t a deal breaker, but it’d be a nice little perk. If none of these things are a concern then you’ll want to try this program out.

On thing I’d love to see implemented is a reverse remote backup. It would be amazing if we could connect to an FTP server and backup the files there locally. It’d certainly help with the small web hosting business I run, and it would also make backing up Macgasm.net less of a chore.

Contact the author