Online Backup Services

Hardware and technical stuff
21

So I’ve been looking into cloud back up services (primarily Crash Plan and Backblaze, but I’ve read reviews of them all, including Glacier), and I can’t figure out a scenario where someone who has several TB of data to backup would benefit more from cloud backup than multiple external hard drives. But maybe one of you can point out the flaw in my logic.

Offsite storage, presumably. I mean, technically you can do that with hard drives too, but that’s obviously the main benefit of online backup in the first place.

22

I use Crashplan to back up my wife’s external drive that is crammed full of photos and stuff from her theatre company. I know I could backup to a local drive and swap it around and carry one to my office and… it’s already gotten too much of a pain in the ass to contemplate. Turn on the cloud backup, set what you want backed up and you’re done! Yeah, it takes a while to get the initial backup done but once that’s finished, incremental backups are painless. And it’s one less thing I have to think about… giving me more free time for gaming!

23

I’m still using Carbonite all these years later.

Still fast enough, reliable enough, and cheap enough for me! And it’s saved my ass on more than one occasion.

24

Crashplan works, had to battle test it myself.

It does use a large chunk of memory if you are backing up more than a few terabytes of info though. I had to increase the limit on my server before it would finish the backup and that was kind of a pain. So their java client is powerful, easy to use, but kind of a resource hog.

25

Glad to hear it, since I’ve heard some six month to a year horror stories. But if it took a couple a weeks, I assume you have no data caps from your provider?

This is actually what I do now–disc image and file backup with Macrium–but it’s all local. Now that I know two people who recently lost everything when their homes burned down, I’m suddenly rethinking that strategy.

But I’m defining “catastrophic” as having no local image. If I have a local image, I have a local file back up, so I don’t need Crashplan. But even if I work out some redundancy with the image and just let Crashplan handle all my file backups, it’s time prohibitive. Restoring my 3TB of data (most of which I consider “essential”) would take at least a year given my 250GB monthly data cap from my provider. And that’s if I devoted my entire allotment to restoring rather than to any of the activities I currently use it for.

I hear you, but the swapping pain in the ass seems the lesser evil compared to trying to do either a significant or full restore. Have you had to do that yet?

Same question.

I’ve heard that, too. How much RAM do you have? I only have 6GB. And same question about restoring to you.

26

I have not had to do restores from Crashplan so maybe the backup is all theoretical!

I will say that I do a combination of her Time Machine backup for the internal drive + Crashplan for the external drive, so the times we’ve needed to restore have been from the Time Machine backup (and yeah, I realize only having a local backup is bad but all of the ‘irreplacable’ files are on the external drive).

27

Right, I have no data cap, which is great because I have at times transferred over 1.4TB/month.

If you have 3TB of data you consider essential, well, you definitely want that offsite, right? Even if it’ll take 6+ months to get it back, you can pick and choose which files you want to restore from crashplan.

28

And if you are really in a hurry you can pay for an option to ship you a hard drive with your data on it. It’s not exactly cheap but at least it’s an option.

29

You both make good points, but it comes out to be more of a hassle to restore and more expensive than if I just buy a second hard drive up front to swap and store at work.

Let’s say that I buy a 4TB HGST external drive (which is said to be one of the more reliable ones out there) for around $160. And let’s assume they only last their warrantied life of two years.

I need two for both of my computers so: $160 x 4 = $640.
[ul]
[li]Pros: Instant significant or full restore.[/li][li]Cons: Weekly inconvenience of swapping of drives with off site copy. Back up only goes back a maximum of two weeks. Incremental back ups are on a daily basis rather than continuous like Crashplan.[/li][/ul]

If I do Crashplan, I still need two drives for my local backups: $160 x 2 = $320.
Plus $150 per year for the family plan (I could save $50 by setting up two accounts, but Crashplan is supposed to be convenient, right?): $150 x 2 = 300.
$320 + 300 = $620.
[ul]
[li]Pros: More convenient to back up. Every file version saved with continuous back up as files change. Slightly cheaper in two year time frame.[/li][li]Cons: Much less convenient to do a significant restore, unless I want to tack on an additional $300 (~50%!) to have up to 3.5TB of my data shipped to me on a drive I have to return and might take several weeks to arrive.[/li][/ul]

Of course, if the drives last longer than 2 years, the cost advantage goes to the four hard drive option, getting more significant with each year that goes by. Past drives have lasted me at least four years, which means $640 vs. $920+maybe $300 for one catastrophic failure.

Even if I have to replace all drives after four years, an eight year cost looks like this*:

Multiple hard drives
($640 + 640) = $1280
Total: $1280

Hard drive/Crashplan
($320 + 320) = $640 for drives
($600 + $600) = $1200 annually for Crashplan
Total: $1840+maybe $300 for one catastrophic failure

For me, an easier, quicker restore and less expense in the long run trump the inconvenience of swapping drives. But we’ll see how I feel after a year of trying it. Or once my kids get a computer of their own.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Feel free to add more if I’ve still got it wrong. :)

*Assuming 4TB HDD prices don’t drop (unlikely in that time frame) or I decide to buy larger drives for around the same cost.

30

Unfortunately Crashplan is getting out of the home backup service business.

https://www.crashplan.com/en-us/consumer/nextsteps/

I switched to using Duplicati to backup to an unlimited storage Google Drive account. Duplicati supports strong encryption and it basically works fine.

Many businesses and schools give away free unlimited Google Drive accounts to their members. If not, you can get one for $10/month by getting a cheap domain name and signing up for GSuite for Business. Note it says you need 5 users to get unlimited storage but they do provide unlimited with only a single user.

31

I use Arq backup client and formerly backed up to Amazon Cloud Drive when they were “unlimited” now I have to find a different provider.

32

Yeah Arq is supposed to be pretty good too. Not free, though.

Get an unlimited google drive. Frankly I’m surprised you don’t have one already.

33

Arq is $50/user though lifetime client cost per user. So I can use it across multiple machines.

34

Do you have any views on the provider Crashplan recommended?

My subscription doesn’t expire for almost a full year, so I probably won’t switch until next summer anyway.

35

Is Carbonite the one that advertises on right-wing networks and Rush Limbaugh? I don’t want to support that sort of thing.

36

It’s a lifetime license for that version of Arq. When Arq 6 comes out next year they’ll get another $30 or whatever out of you. Not such a terrible thing, just sayin’.

The Wirecutter recommends Backblaze. If you’re sticking with an online backup service, as opposed to rolling your own with Arq or Duplicati, I would follow their recommendation. Backblaze is $50/year/computer, which is much more expensive than Carbonite’s first year with the 50% off coupon for migrating from Crashplan, but I’d still go with whatever the Wirecutter says.

Note it is critically important to add your own encryption passphase or Backblaze will have the ability to decrypt your backups. This isn’t a problem, Crashplan works the same way.

If you only have one computer to backup, that makes a certain amount of sense. But once you hit two, remember an unlimited GDrive is $120/year, and you can backup every computer you own and use it as a cloud drive too.

37

How do I get unlimited Drive?

38

Get a cheap domain name then sign up for GSuite for Business. Costs $10/month.

39

Doesn’t it require 5 users?

40

Nope.