In September I got an additional web server at Softlayer.com. I originally ordered the server with external SAN storage for my backups. For whatever reason my server could not keep the connection stable and backups were failing. That had to change as I am paranoid about backups. A day without a good backup is a bad day. So, I ordered a 3rd hard drive (that server runs on 2 hard drives in a RAID 1 / mirror setup) for my backups and got rid of the SAN storage. But now all my data and backups are on the server itself and if the server were hacked I would risk losing all my data. The server is up to date with patches, hardened by a Linux system admin and runs several layers of security software, but what is secure nowadays?
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The solution for me is a remote backup. Every once in a while I download files and folders to a PC in my office. But that is a cumbersome process. On WebHostingTalk I saw a recommendation for a remote backup service provided by BQ Internet. I followed that recommendation to the website of BQ Internet. Looking at the offers it looked very affordable and so I decided to sign up for remote backup storage. I had some pre-sales questions and used the (very easy to find) email address for the sales team to send of my questions. Within a few hours I had a reply with all the information I had requested. I was satisfied and decided to give it a try. For $5 a month I ordered 10 GB of disk storage. The setup of my account took a little longer than anticipated, but that was due to the fact that it was the New Years holiday weekend. No big deal. I emailed Scott, the CEO and owner of BQ Internet asking about my account and got a reply within minutes, and my account data shortly after that, too.
Once I had the account data I started working on setting up the account for my needs and to do an initial backup of my data. The backup process itself runs via rsync, but can also be done via FTP. Rsync has the advantage that once the first backup is done only new and changed files need to be transferred. Within 10-15 minutes everything was configured and I ran a manual backup from my server. Transfer speeds were very good. I then ftp'd from my server to the remote backup and found all my data in the right place. The entire process worked right away. The provided documentation is easy to read and detailed. And if you have access to SSH on your server, copy and paste so that you can browse through the setup process really easily. I had hoped to connect with an FTP client to my storage, but that did not work (at least, it hasn’t so far). FTP from my server to the remote storage worked just fine, though. That gives me an opportunity to test the support.
The BQ Internet Web site for me as a customer is plain in design. No fancy flash stuff - just plain html, which is fine in my opinion. Almost anything I need is already available. A file/folder explorer type option would be nice, but certainly not a necessity. While there are instructions for copying the data to BQ Internet, I would like to see instructions for the less experienced user about how to bring the data back to the source server in case of disaster. Samba mount capabilities are available, but I did not see the instructions for the set-up. Anyway - for now I see how much storage I am using and that is enough. I consider the items I mentioned cosmetics, but not showstoppers.
BQ Backup provided by BQInternet.com is an easy to use service at a very affordable price. Setup and communication are very good. Customer service made a really good impression and I felt well taken care of right away. Reading other reviews on Web hosting message boards confirm my findings and my good impression. Remote backups are a critical piece in a disaster recovery strategy and BQ Internet offers a great product to fill those needs.
