Configure and Backup to Amazon S3 Storage
The Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is a personal cloud storage service that is a scalable, high-speed, low-cost Web-based service designed for online backup and archiving of data. With Amazon S3, you can store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.
With the arrival of ChronoSync v4.7, to connect and backup to Amazon S3 storage is quick and easy. This guide will provide all the steps necessary to get you set up with an Amazon S3 account and get your important data backed up to your own personal cloud.
SIGN UP FOR AN AMAZON S3 ACCOUNT
If you already have an Amazon S3 account, you can begin with the next step, CREATE A BUCKET. Follow these steps to sign up for an Amazon S3 account:
- Go to the Amazon Web Services website and click on “Get started with Amazon S3.” At the time of this writing, Amazon will give you 5 GB of Standard storage, 20,000 GET requests, and 2,000 PUT, COPY, POST or LIST Requests; and 15GB of Data Transfer Out each month for one year.
- Sign in using your Amazon.com account credentials. (If you don’t have an Amazon.com account, be sure to select “Create a new AWS account”).
- Complete the ‘Contact’ and ‘Payment’ information forms. On the payment form, you must provide your credit card/banking information. You will not be charged unless you exceed your free tier limits.
- Continue to verify your identity. You will receive a phone call from Amazon and you will need to key in a 4-digit PIN supplied to you via your browser.
- Continue to select support plan.
- Continue to the confirmation page.
CREATE A BUCKET
If you already have buckets defined that you wish to backup to, you can skip to the next section, RETRIEVING ACCESS KEYS.
A ‘Bucket’ is a container for objects stored in Amazon S3. You can create as many buckets as you’d like. In ChronoSync, once connected to the S3 service, you’ll select one of your buckets to backup to.
To create a bucket:
- Click on the ‘Service’ menu at the top of the page. You’ll be presented with a lot of services. Click on ‘S3’ under ‘Storage.’
- Click on ‘Create bucket.’
- Provide a Bucket Name.
Amazon recommends that all bucket names comply with DNS naming conventions and need to be unique. It is not recommended to use periods in the name. We recommend using hyphens, e.g. “smith-fred-pics-graduation”. Amazon bucket creation and naming.
- Select a Region. Make sure to make a note of the region you choose.
- Click on ‘Next.’
- Set ‘properties’ and ‘permissions’, if you wish.
- Review your settings.
- If all looks good, click on ‘Create bucket.’
- You’ll now see your newly created bucket in the list.
RETRIEVING ACCESS KEYS
To make a connection to Amazon S3, ChronoSync needs your access key credentials in order to access the buckets under your account. ChronoSync requires two keys: the ‘Access Key ID’ and the ‘Secret Access Key.’ Follow these instructions to enable your access keys:
- Click on your account name in the top right to activate the menu.
- Choose ‘My Security Credentials.’
- On the popup, choose ‘Continue to Security Credentials.’
- Expand the ‘Access keys (access key ID and secret access key)’ menu.
- Click on “Create New Access Key.”
- Keys are successfully created. Click on ‘Show Access Key’ to see keys.
- Save this information in a secure location. Amazon recommends that you change your access keys every 90 days.
Note: If there will be other users accessing the buckets under your Amazon account, you may want to consider setting up multiple users in the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) console. Using IAM allows you to grant other people permission to administer and use resources in your Amazon account without having to share your password or access key.
SET UP CONNECTION PROFILE
Now that you have everything set up in Amazon, you can move over to ChronoSync and set things up so you can begin backing up to the S3 service. Follow the steps below to set up an Amazon S3 connection profile. Once this is done, you can select Amazon S3 as one of your targets and then back up to it.
- Open Preferences in ChronoSync.
- Go to Connections Preferences.
- Click on the plus sign to add a new connection profile.
- Provide a name.
- Choose “Amazon S3” for Connection Type.
- For endpoint, choose the endpoint that matches the region you chose above.
- Provide the Access Key and Secret you received in the Amazon S3 Dashboard.
- “Test” the connection.
- If valid, click on “Next” to set up the Advanced connection profile features.
- Set whichever Advanced options you’d like. For a thorough explanation of them, click on the Help button to visit the ChronoSync help.
- When finished, click on “Save” to save the profile.
- Now you’re ready to connect and backup to it.
BACKUP TO AMAZON S3
To connect and backup to Amazon S3, you set up your targets just like you would with any task. Follow these steps to set up a Left-to-right Backup of a local folder to an Amazon S3 bucket:
- Select your Source target by clicking on “Choose…” in the Setup panel’s Source pane.
- On the Destination pane, choose the Amazon S3 connection you just created from the “Connect to:” menu.
- Click “Choose…” to select a bucket from your Amazon S3 account.
- Click on “Select” to close the sheet.
At this point, your backup is ready to run. If you wish to set rules or options, visit the respective panel.
- Click the big right arrow in the middle of the Setup panel (or choose ‘Synchronize’ from the toolbar) to perform the backup.
That’s it! You have now backed up files to an Amazon S3 bucket!
WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
For most people, the above steps will work flawlessly for setting up an Amazon S3 account, connecting and backing up to it. However, we live in an imperfect world and sometimes things just don’t work out as expected. If you encounter any problems following this tutorial, here’s some tips that may help you get back on track:
Amazon S3 Help
The Amazon S3 website has documentation and forums in case you run into any problems with your S3 account.
ChronoSync Help
From the “Help” menu in ChronoSync, you can try some of the following search terms (minus the quotes):
- “Connections”
- “Profiles”
- “Amazon S3”
- “Targets”
Video and Text Guides
Check out the following guides that may help you when configuring connection profiles:
- Remote Bootable Backups (Configuring a connection profile starts at the 1:06 mark)
Technical Support
Contact our technical support team and just ask! We don’t mind — we’re here to help!