Backup Box: Move cloud hosted files directly between providers and servers

Backup Box: Move cloud hosted files directly between providers and servers:
Sometimes you may want to move files hosted somewhere on the Internet to another server or provider. While you could download the files to your local computer – if you do not have a local backup available – to upload them again to the new server or provider, you sometimes however may prefer to transfer files directly between servers.
A core benefit of this procedure is speed. Your home computer’s upload and download speed is usually fairly limited in comparison to the speed of Internet servers, so that it should take less time to move the files. You may however run into issues as well, with trust being one of the most important ones. If you want server to server communication, you need to trust those servers with data so that they communicate with each other.

Backup Box

And it is the same when you look at the Backup Box service. The service’s core feature are direct server to server transfers between cloud storage providers such as Box, Google Drive, SkyDrive, SugarSync or Dropbox, as well as custom servers that can be accessed via ftp or sftp. You configure Backup Box to transfer files from one server or provider to another. Why would you want to do that?

• To migrate your files to another cloud hosting provider
• To backup your websites regularly
• To backup databases
• To safe time transferring files

You do need to authorize at least two services or servers before you can start using the service. As far as cloud hosting services go, you do not have to enter your username and password on the Backup Box site. You instead authorize the site on the cloud providers website so that it can access your data, and you can naturally revoke that authorization at any time as well. Only ftp, sftp and MySQL servers need to be authorized directly by adding an authorized user account to Backup Box.
Once you have added at least two services you can configure transfers between them. You have got the option to transfer all files, or only select files or folders to the new server or service.

And instead of transferring files directly, you can alternatively schedule transfers so that they are run regularly by the application. You could for instance backup your website on a weekly basis, or transfer the files from your Dropbox account to SkyDrive once a month.
Another interesting option is the archive and timestamp feature which zips the selected files during the transfer. That’s useful if you need to make room on a server or an account.
Free account users  are limited to transferring 1 Gigabyte of data per month using a maximum of 10 transfers in that time. Pro, premium and enterprise accounts are available that raise limits and make available additional features such as incremental transfers.

It usually takes minutes before the first files start to appear on the selected server or cloud hosting account you are transferring the files to.
As far as security goes, Backup Box states that it is using 256-bit SSL encryption whenever supported to transfer files, that it wont retain files on their servers, and that Amazon S3 is used with a AES 256-bit encryption for temporary storage.
One Gigabyte per month won’t take you far, especially if you are thinking about scheduling regular backups of your websites or data that you host online.

Put.io: downloads torrents for you, lets you stream or download afterwards

Put.io: downloads torrents for you, lets you stream or download afterwards:
If you can’t run a Bittorrent application on your local computer system, either because you are not allowed to install any software on it, or maybe because your Internet Service Provider is limiting bandwidth for P2P file transfers which would make the downloading less enjoyable and slow, you may be interested in an online service that does the downloading for you.
Put.io offers to download torrent files using their servers. All you need to do is supply the service with the torrents you are interested in, wait until the files have been downloaded, to either download the files to your computer or stream media files directly.
A free account is good for 1 Gigabyte of storage space and unlimited bandwidth. If you need more, you can upgrade to pro or premium accounts that increase your storage to 50 or 100 Gigabytes for $9.90 or $19.90 per month respectively. You can refer other users to the service to get an additional 350 Megabytes of storage space up to 3 Gigabytes in total. The system works similar to Dropbox, and you can invite by email, social media or with direct links.
The whole process of adding and download or streaming files is surprisingly easy. To start, you click on add new files on your user home page, and either paste torrent file links directly into a form on the page, or upload torrents from your computer instead.

The service checks the torrent file and its storage requirements on the next page and gives you either the green light to start the transfer, or the red light if downloading the files would exceed your storage space. What’s missing is an option to select individual files that you want to download from a torrent. This is especially true for archive.org torrents which often come with multiple versions of the same file.
Put.io checks if the torrent has already been downloaded by another user of its service, and if that is the case, makes the file available to you directly after a few seconds. If the file has not been downloaded yet, you are redirected to the transfers page where you will see connection and progress information.
Once the service has downloaded files for you, you can access them from the your files menu. Options available here include zipping and downloading files to the local computer, extracting zipped files, sharing files with friends, or deleting files. When you click on a media file, you are automatically taken to a streaming video page so that you can watch the video online without downloading.

Options to stream using a local player and to download the file are present here as well. The subtitle search feature is a nice addition as well.
The operators of the site and dedicated users have created tools that improve the service’s accessibility. You find plugins and apps for XBMC, Plex and Boxee here, as well as Chrome extensions, options to map the storage to a local drive letter or instructions on how to use the mobile version of the platform for use with smartphones and other mobile devices.
Another interesting feature is that the service supports RSS subscriptions. All new torrents that get released will be automatically updated once you have added a subscription to your account, provided you have enough free storage space available for that.
Put.io works pretty well and has a lot to offer. Especially the easy to use interface, the third party tools and the option to stream media right from your account need to be mentioned in this regard.