CloudBerry Lab releases Online Backup 2.6

by Chris Ratner on December 24, 2011 · 8 comments

in News

CloudBerry Lab has released version 2.6 of their popular Online Backup for Windows Home Server (original and 2011). Version 2.5 released back in November and added the ability to perform block level backups which shortened the backup time of changes to existing files. The latest release adds continuous backup for near real-time protection. Rather than scheduling a backup plan with an explicit start and end time, the real-time backup feature will collect changes as they happen and cache them for backup to the cloud every 10 minutes.

To learn more, check out the recent blog post at CloudBerry Lab for more details.

Advance to the Schedule page and change the backup schedule to real-time backup.

To take advantage of real-time backup protection, download the latest CloudBerry Online Backup add-in to the \\Software\Add-ins folder on your WHS. You’ll need to uninstall the prior version of Online Backup before installing the latest version. Once installed, simply open an existing backup plan and change it to real-time protection by advancing the wizard  (by clicking Next several times) to the Schedule page and selecting Real-time backup. Click Next a few more times, Finish the wizard and click Run (if the plan is not already running) to turn it on. That’s all there is to it.

Keep in mind that your server will be continuously scanning all the folders selected in the backup plan. Expect this feature to increase server processor and disk utilization depending on the complexity of your backup plan. Unless you’re changing large volumes of data frequently or adding thousands of new files to your backup plan, I suspect this will be of minimal impact to the overall performance with the advantage that your data is backed-up to the cloud sooner and with less effort and bandwidth than would normally be consumed during a set block of time.

No more waiting until the middle of the night to backup your precious data. With the 2.6 release of CloudBerry Online Backup, you can rest assured knowing your new or recently changed data is safe in the cloud in near real-time.

I’ve just started to look at this feature in more depth to see how the real-time protection affects my network and server utilization, so I don’t have any performance benchmarks to share as of yet. I’ll have some time over the holiday to do some analysis. In meantime, let us know if you are using the real-time backup feature and share your experience in the comments below.

Happy Holidays!


Article by

I'm a technology enthusiast who loves to tinker on the weekends. My house is filled with tech, including a WHS v1 used for general file storage and DVD/BD streaming to the various XBOX and Windows 7 receivers around my home. I also play around with home automation using an ISY 99i and various Smarthome Insteon plugs and switches. There never seems to be enough time on the weekends to get to everything on my list. :-)


{ 8 comments }

Andy, CloudBerry Lab December 24, 2011 at 11:19 am

Thank you for featuring CloudBerry Backup! Just one note, Real-time backup has nearly zero impact on system performance as we are using low level operation system calls to find out modified files. There is no scan at all.

Thanks
Andy

All4Fun (Richard) January 2, 2012 at 7:58 am

I’ve been using CloudBerry WHS backup for several versions now and it keeps improving with each version. I use it to backup my critical Amazon S3 storage. I receive a nightly email notification when the backup is complete and I couldn’t be more happier with the product.

My only “complaint” is that I would like to use any client tool in Advanced Mode and take advantage of some additional features available there.

Andy, CloudBerry Lab January 3, 2012 at 11:32 am

Richard,

Thank you for your feedback! are you saying you would like to be able to access the data backed up using the advanced mode using other Amazon S3 clients? Unfortunately this is not going to be possible as this is what “advanced mode” is. Other clients simply can’t handle encryption, versioning and differential updates and we can’t convince every single client to support it (we compete with most of them)

Thanks
Andy

All4Fun (Richard) January 4, 2012 at 2:40 pm

Hi Andy. Thanks for replying.

Yes, that was my request. My concern is if my WHS server has a catastrophic failure and I need access to my offlline Amazon S3 data from another computer, how would I do so?

Damian January 4, 2012 at 5:46 pm

Hey, who is this guy??? I remember a guy with a similar User Name who used to be a rising star on mss.net ;)

All4Fun (Richard) January 4, 2012 at 5:54 pm

Happy New Year Damian! I was hoping to fly under the radar but, unsurprisingly, you noticed. :) Hope you had a great holiday season.

You might see me make a cameo now and then given that my EX470 is demonstrating its age and having some odd ball failures that is making me nervous. Of course, less nervous with Cloudberry Backup in place.

May roll my own server but I’ve been saying that for some time now. Hopefully, I can get it done before I suffer a total failure of my EX470.

Lesson learned though. No more proprietary hardware. Only readily available hardware for me.

All the best for 2012 Damian. Seems like you are keeping things interesting here.

Damian January 5, 2012 at 8:16 am

Hey Richard,

Of course I am always on the lookout for an All4Fun sighting!!! You have had a gone run with the EX470, what is it, going on nearly 3 years?

Happy New Year to you and your family :D

Cheers
Damian

Andy, CloudBerry Lab January 4, 2012 at 11:50 pm

To access your data from another computer you can just install the trial version of CloudBerry Backup Desktop Edition, connect to an Amazon S3 bucket and you can get all your data back.

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