How to backup your drive, online + off

I'm always on the search for good apps that streamline my day-to-day tasks and make things more efficient and convenient. I present to you, Cubby, a service that extends beyond an online storage solution.

I work with a lot of data (and thus, large files) on my laptop, which I bring to work everyday. There are times where I bring the work home, but instead of working on my laptop, I would much rather work on my desktop which not only is fast, but sports 30"of pixel real estate (if you're a programmer, this is really heaven! Highly recommend). While I can backup / transfer files on said laptop to my desktop via a USB drive, I dislike the inconvenience of having to physically plug in a drive in order to do so. The USB ports on my desktop tower are difficult to reach, sitting way underneath the desk, and I only have 2 USB ports on my laptop, one of which is always consumed by my Razer.

So, I was looking for a syncing solution, PC to PC. Dropbox works great if you have small files, usually the online back up storage of choice. Right-clicked my folder... BAM 77 GB. I considered paying for Dropbox, but if I already have 77 GB now, I didn't think the 100 GB solution would last me that long. While I'm willing to pay 100 bux, 200 seems just a little much. Cloud solutions are very convenient, but so pricey!

Bumped into a program called Onesync, which uses Dropbox as an intermediary solution. Hey, not bad, methinks this might be doable. As I read more about it, my hopes were crushed. No cross platform compatibility. Only works on Windows (bah!). I work on a Macbook Pro, whilst my desktop at home is rocking Windows 7. This is not going to work... still sounds like a great program though.

Somehow, someway, I found Cubby. Cross platform, check, sync to computer, check, pricing, free - god damn this is it! I quickly installed it to check it out. I think I might like it better than Dropbox, and here is why.

First, instead of dropping folders into a specific folder (like Dropbox) - you select what folders on your computer you want to be synced. This is nice if you want to keep files organized the way you want. All I did was add my work folder to Cubby and I was good to go.

Second, PC-to-PC syncing, which they call DirectSync. This is exactly what I was looking for, because this allows me to not be encumbered by the cloud space limitations that most services impose. Install the client on the two computers you wish the folder to be synced, and everything happens automatically. Requires that both computers be on at the same time, which makes sense - but really not that big an issue since if you were to transfer / backup files yourself, that is an absolute necessity.

Granted, this is only my second day using it - I guess I shouldn't rave about it so much. If the above applies to you, give it a shot - it's free anyways =oD