IT Softwares And Tools

The latest buzz word in backup – “Social Backup”

We all want to take backup of our valuable digital files. There are plenty of backup solutions, out there  in market, both open source and commercial.  Also considering backup types, the most safest is a Remote backup. This will ensure that our files are backed up and is safe to restore it in case of some disaster like fire, as the data is backed up outside your site. There are lot of  remote online backup options available like, dropbox, Mozy etc. All these uses their server to store data and can be retrieved when ever you want. Most of the services are free only for a limited capacity of storage. If you need more, then you need to buy the Pro version.

So this has two main disadvantages,  you don’t know where they save the files, and you need to pay if you want to save more data. Today , I came across a site which offers a  new idea of backup, “Social Backup”. Social Backup, is friends and family helping each other keep their irreplaceable digital memories safe and secure.

Cucku Backup is the complete solution that lets friends and families help each other out with off site backups.  Unlike other backup services, that stores your data in their servers, with Cucku, you store copies of your files on friends’ or family members’ computers. The backup copy is safely off site giving you the best protection if your PC is corrupted, damaged, lost or stolen.Backup export allows you to start your remote backup quickly by sending an external hard drive, USB memory drive or DVD to your backup partner. You only need to send new and changed files over the Internet!

Cucku uses Skype to send your backup to a friend. You can use Cucku without Skype but you will only be able to backup and restore locally.

Before writing this post, I wanted to test Cucku Backup myself. So I contacted my best buddy Sreekumar, to help me. We both installed Cucku backup and skype to test it.

As you can see in the above picture, once I start cucku, I am getting an option to select my “Backup Partner” from my skype contact list. I selected Sree, as my backup partner. Also you can set  the partner quota and where he can store his backup in my HDD. Once you select the partner and click Next, You can specify which files you want to backup. This includes common documents, pictures, music etc. but Cucku doesn’t stops  you there. You can even add custom files and folders in your backup list

The best part I liked in Cucku is, it allows you to customize the way you want to take backup. While selecting the files you want to backup, if you click on Backup settings, you get more options like, scheduling, statistics etc.

Cucku_Advanced

So once you select what you want to backup, you can simply click on backup to start your first backup. And you can see that your files are safely backed up to your friends machine easily 🙂

With the same ease of backup, we can restore the files too. If you want to restore files, you can click on Restore option in Cucku and it will ask you if you want to restore from a local copy or from you partner. Just select partner and then the location and file you want to restore.

And yes, it starts restoring all your files back from your friend’s machine to you, just like a restore from a local backup. 🙂

I really love this program. Your files are safely encrypted so your backup partners can’t access them or even see the filenames. Because you’re backing up to friends there’s no central datacenter that could get hacked, lose your files or go out of business. This is completely free for single users, and if you want to use it with multiple partners then you need to get the Pro version, but keep in mind, the free version does not limit the capacity of files that can be bcaked up. Believe me, its worth a try. 🙂

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Ambi