Way, Way, Way OT: Your favorite cloud backup services
I'm always a bit skeptical when my students miss a deadline because of a computer crash. But this week I had a pretty big scare with my MacBook crashing and, to make matters worse, I hadn’t backed up in over two weeks. Right now I use an external hard drive (Seagate 2TB) and I’m really bad about connecting it and backing up, so I’m currently in the market for an automatic cloud backup service.
From what I can see, IDrive has a plan for 10TB backup (plenty for what I need) for $4/first year and $80/year after. It also holds previous backups for 30 days, which is nice in case I discover that I accidentally deleted something that I need. But before I pull the trigger I was wondering what others on the board had to say, if they have any favorites, what they like about their choice, etc. It could be useful for others on the board as well.
Feel free to share any nightmare stories/close calls with data loss.
April 28th, 2023 at 10:48 AM ^
Ironic, as I'm currently entirely on the cloud, and just decided to change back to hardware. I still have more questions than answers, but I did get a 2tb SSD drive for now. I want to see how this thread goes.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:01 AM ^
Interesting. Would you mind sharing why you want to change back?
Honestly, for a few reasons.
I am changing from Android to Iphone, and I don't want to migrate to yet another cloud storage platform. I don't like the idea that all my data is on a subscription basis. If I could pay for a lifetime for my data and guarantee that some policy won't change, or that the company won't get bought out or go under, then I might reconsider. Google has been changing their policies so often lately that I feel if I accidentally replace my credit card on file, I may someday miss a payment and somehow lose all of my data. Those risks are real, even if not very likely for giants like Google or Apple.
That and, hear me out here, in the very unlikely event that if I ever die, my kids won't even bother, or may not ever know to go through all of our photos and videos on a cloud. There is something real about finding a physical drive and following instructions on paper. A few well labelled SSD drives that I replace every 3-5 years, will, I hope, have the same effect that my mom's boxes of photographs and undeveloped media reels had on me when she passed away. SSD probably isn't the right media for the job, but as of last week, that's where I'm beginning (better than the old HHDs I still have lying around from the last 20 years)
So, tl;dr, I want our family story to be accessible and inspire their nostalgia.
Have you looked into a Synology NAS? I use that and they have cloud software that you can install to backup files. I have messed around with it a bit to backup my photos on my phone while not using a subscription service.
Thanks Steve. I haven't heard of them before but I will look into it.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:05 AM ^
You need both a local and cloud backup. Redundancy and covering your bases is worth it because you just never know when that crash is going to happen (or your laptop gets stolen). I use CrashPlan and I'm happy with it. It'll handle both your local and cloud backup. I haven't price shopped in awhile but I imagine it's competitive with whatever else is out there.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:09 AM ^
I've used Carbonite in the past and found it to be fine; I never had to recover from it fully but I did wind up using it to find a couple of lost files and the interface was easy enough to use but I've heard it can be really slow to download a ton of files. They also appear to be running a special now where everything is 30% off so that's a deal.
My general experience is that any solution will be better than nothing and if you ID the files you can't to lose vs. stuff you don't want to lose (i.e. tax documents vs. photos stored on your iCloud account) the performance issues become less important.
Good luck.
I use Carbonite also as well as iDrive for Cloud storage. I also have a couple of hardware backups in the form of large hard drives.
The cost is less than two hundred bucks for a year of Cloud storage plus the hardware which is inexpensive these days. I also use a workstation at home which has redundancy via a RAID system.
Being cheap with valuable data makes no sense. In my world where I bill by the hour, it is important to get up and running ASAP. I have my back up hard drives configured so they can be swapped into my workstation and I can be up and running in less than 15 minutes even with a catastrophic hard drive failure/virus.
Totally. If your use case is needing quick recovery for business critical data then absolutely don't use basically any consumer grade backup offering alone; have an onsite solution and probably two of them if we're being honest (I once used an old laptop connected to my router in the basement as an emergency backup to go along with a 4TB Seagate connected to my desktop). But my point is for most people they don't have that need for hot swap recovery.
I also am of the opinion that if you have really important documents print them out and keep them at home or somewhere secure. Home safes aren't great for security but as a redundancy they work fine.
The problem with paper is that in a large firm, storage is not inexpensive and law firms generate very significant amounts of documents. We digitized almost everything we could and made damn well sure there were backups of backups including multiple copies of each days new or modified files stored off-site in fireproof safes. Short of a nuclear war or the mother of all mass coronal ejection events, we were probably safe from everything but viruses.
Don't know what is going to happen when quantum computing becomes more mainstream and passwords become meaningless.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:14 AM ^
I've used dropbox for a while. I wouldn't trust a single hard drive as backup. If I wanted to do it locally, I'd probably set up a NAS with a raid array, but the cost of that is several years of subscription to a service like dropbox, which is why I stick with a service instead.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:33 AM ^
Backblaze.
Inexpensive, effective and easy.
https://www.backblaze.com/
April 28th, 2023 at 11:50 AM ^
Seconded. I back up devices to my server, and my server backs up to there. Very cheap and pretty simple to use, though I wish it had more powerful configuration options.
It is also pretty slick at migrating backups to other machines. I have done several rebuilds of the server and storage and BackBlaze easily picks up where the last backup left off.
April 28th, 2023 at 12:16 PM ^
Also a happy backblaze user here.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:36 AM ^
I have been using Sync.com for the past 3-4 years. Can install on multiple machines and stores up to 2 TB. Cost is $96 a year. Create a Sync folder on your computer and put everything in it. Backs it up right away to the cloud. Also has a vault feature where you can upload other content that is not in your Sync folder. I have been very pleased. I only pay $50 a year as I am grandfathered in, but also only get 500 GB of storage.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:45 AM ^
I've use iDrive for years. Seamless, works in the background, no issues. I have never had a need to recover an entire drive, thankfully, but I have recovered individual files with no problems. Very easy to use.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:51 AM ^
Before I can give a recommendation, I really need to know what you’re backing up. On a scale from 1-10, where 1=“Mike Pence” and 10=“Jared from Subway,” how sketchy are the contents of your laptop???
April 28th, 2023 at 12:14 PM ^
But seriously, I wouldn't be worried about what the FBI would find if they subpoenaed my files.
April 28th, 2023 at 11:56 AM ^
I use iDrive because it can back up both our personal computers and our on-site backup NAS.
It's mostly good. The local backups do seem to konk out from time to time and I have to reset some Windows services to get them going again, but for the most part it just does it's thing every night. And it is inexpensive if you have several devices to deal with.
April 28th, 2023 at 12:10 PM ^
I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said, "There is no cloud. It's just someone else's computer."
April 28th, 2023 at 12:57 PM ^
I currently pay for iCloud, in part because of my spouse's preference for all our devices on the same cloud, but am curious what you learn on iDrive as it would say some money for sure.
April 28th, 2023 at 12:57 PM ^
I currently pay for iCloud, in part because of my spouse's preference for all our devices on the same cloud, but am curious what you learn on iDrive as it would say some money for sure.
User stevedez inside one of the other comments mentions a Synology. Elaborating here in a separate comments thread:
I have a multi-drive Synology NAS (Network Attached Storage) plugged into my home network. What are the advantages and how does it work for me?
- Multiple drives allow for RAID (extra security)
- Drives are hot-swappable so if one fails, it can be replaced and doesn't impact your backups
- Multiple computers can back up to the Synology -- all the computers in my house separately connect to the Synology and back up in real time; each user has an account and can recover their computer; laptops update when at home and on the network, desktops back up continuously
- Synology can also be a media server:
- Movies are ripped and saved to the Synology, able to be accessed locally and remotely through Plex
- Audio files are ripped and accessible via multiple devices
- Cloud options and remote backup are also options
- Many other apps can be installed on the Synology including maintaining/archiving security camera footage
There are many different NAS options on the market. I happen to use and know Synology. I've had great luck with mine including restoring full backups. My current DS412+ is definitely an older model, but is still supported by the company. When it fails or falls off the support/update track, I will happily buy another.
I also have an Office 365 family subscription which gives every user a Terabyte of cloud storage. My home desktop data files are backed up on the Synology but also synced with the cloud via OneDrive. That gives me access to all that information on my iPhone and iPad when I need it.
Finally, twice per year, I go get the external drive I keep in a safe deposit box and add all the family's digital photos from the previous six months so there is yet another physical location for all the photos which are some of the family's most precious possessions.
I’ve used SugarSync for many years. It provides continuous back-up and sync with sharing for all of your devices…Windows, IOS, MacOS all supported. I use SugarSync a lot to access data from my PC via my iPad or iPhone.
I don't have that much stuff to store, and I use mostly Google services, so once I ticked over the free storage that comes with having a Google account I just started paying for the 100gb plan. I'm using 20gb now. They just included VPN and a couple other features with the 100gb level, so I'm happy.
To be quite honest, I don't think I have anything stored that would be disastrous if it disappeared. I love having all my photos stored but I'm not overly sentimental about them (that'll probably change if I have kids someday.) At some point I'll probably start backing stuff up somewhere else, but if Google goes away all at once with no warning and time to get out, the world probably has bigger problems.
It seems your main issue has been not connecting your external hard drive to back up. I’d recommend a wireless network area storage device and have your computer set to back up to that daily or as often as realistically needed. That way you don’t have to rely on a cloud service and you don’t have to go to the trouble of plugging a cable into your computer.
I use a locking safe.
I just have to remember where I put the key.
I cannot say enough bad about idrive. The tech is ok but billing and customer service are terrible. They kept saying i had stored 2-3x my limit which was well larger than my total drive capacity. Now 2 years after i canceled the charged me again like last year had to fight to get a refund. Good thing i kept the cancelation email and screen shot. Next move it to get a new credit card number.
Backblaze is my current cloud backup. They are great and customer service has been helpful. I was even able to store a 4.5TB veeam backup of a proir pc for 10 months. But that is only part of the plan. The whole plan is below:
1-I backup nightly to a 5 bay synology nas using free veeam backup software (has nice bare metal recovery which i have used).
2-backblaze runs in continuous mode
3‐all photos are synced to amazon which is free with prime. I only do this sync once per month because even idle the app is a cpu hog and to keep the backup off line.
4‐all data excluding photos and videos are synced to onedrive
5-i have a 16tb usb drive i hook up monthy which is encrypted. I use teracopy to make a verfified backup of the last 2 weeks veeam backups and take the drive to my office.
I would like to have raid on my workstation but i have 9TB of m.2 storage of which 6 is used. When the 8TB m.2 drives drop in price i will look at it again.
Overkill maybe but I had a couple of scares a few years back.
April 29th, 2023 at 12:43 PM ^
I keep all my files in folders inside a dropbox folder. It's super easy, and I can access them from a separate laptop (at home) and desktop (at work). They are then always synced. An O/S is easy to reinstall if everything really crashes.