Cloud as third backup point

alaios

Hi,

I would like to finalize this week my back up plan.

That includes two cloned hard disks at home and I need a third points just outside my office to make sure that the photos would be safe even if my hard disks at home would have trouble.



1. I just wonder which of the available cloud computing are cost efficient. Of course you never get a guarantee that a company would not go bankrupt

2. I was also wondering if there is a company that can given your terabytes burn your files to blue ray discks or dvds and post them to you. I can just then these files simply to be sent to a relatives home.



Regards

Alex

denisegoldberg

alaios wrote: »

1. I just wonder which of the available cloud computing are cost efficient. Of course you never get a guarantee that a company would not go bankrupt

I use CrashPlan - http://www.code42.com/crashplan/. I think their annual fees are quite reasonable.

They do have an option to deliver backed up files on a hard drive in the event that you need to restore everything. That service is available for an additional fee; restoring from the cloud is included in your subscription fee.

--- Denise

mercphoto

I'll second CrashPlan. I was introduced to them when I started working at Apple, who uses their software to backup corporate laptops. Denise is referring to their "seed" option. They will send you a USB hard disk and you can make your initial backup image that way, and ship the drive back. Makes it MUCH FASTER to get that original backup going. Then, if disaster strikes, you can pay to have a drive shipped back with your latest backup image so that restores are faster. The fee both times is quite reasonable.

To me the fatal flaw in most cloud based backup companies is that most do not offer this seed capability. In a country where Internet speeds are so pathetically slow (wait, isn't competition and the free market system supposed to make things better and cheaper for us?????) the ability to seed with a hard disk is priceless.

cmason

+1 on Crashplan. A critical feature they offer is unlimited support for external hard drives. Other cloud backup services support external drives, but if they are disconnected for 30 days or more, they will delete the backups of those drives in the cloud. Crashplan will maintain backups of external drives forever. They do not disturb the data regardless of how long they are offline.

I have many external drives, but they are not always connected to my laptop, or even powered. For example, I have a hard drive dedicated to video work. When I am not doing any video activities, that drive is unplugged. Crashplan simply does a backup of those disks when they are connected, and maintains the data when they are not. If I used say Backblaze, then I would be forced to connect that drive every 30 days, to ensure that its data does not get deleted from Backblaze.

Crashplan's app is Java based, so its a real pain to use on Mac, but its a great service, and despite the Java, it works well. Hopefully they will develop native clients to make it easier to use.

denisegoldberg

cmason wrote: »

+1 on Crashplan. A critical feature they offer is unlimited support for external hard drives. Other cloud backup services support external drives, but if they are disconnected for 30 days or more, they will delete the backups of those drives in the cloud. Crashplan will maintain backups of external drives forever. They do not disturb the data regardless of how long they are offline.

The support for disconnected drives was the feature that drove me to CrashPlan in the first place. It is a true backup as opposed to a mirror of only connected drives.

--- Denise

alaios

the problem with the online services is that the company one day can go bankrupt. I have heard one good idea from a colleague. Rent slot in a bank and once of the three hard synced hard disks there. More reliable than an online company but then more hassle.

mercphoto

Its a big hassle to do that with safe deposit boxes. And yes, companies go bankrupt. But that's why an online company is NEVER your only backup solution. On-site is my primary backup, period. Crashplan is "disaster" backup. In other words, if the house burns down and takes my main computer and the backup drives down at the same time. (or severe lightning strike, you get the idea).

But skip the bank altogether. Keep that hard drive at work. Much less hassle that way. If I had to go to a bank to update my backup it just simply would never happen.

denisegoldberg

alaios wrote: »

the problem with the online services is that the company one day can go bankrupt. I have heard one good idea from a colleague. Rent slot in a bank and once of the three hard synced hard disks there. More reliable than an online company but then more hassle.

I'm curious, how did you go from asking about cloud backup services to deciding that online services companies are not reliable?

Do your research into the company; look at their financial data if it is available. Look at their press releases and other recognition.

--- Denise

alaios

Well mostly I look first on the market for every single option. Then I make a table with prons and cons to take the decision. By the way financial data can not reveal some times real problems. If long backup is the point one should understand limitations of companies and their "guarantees" (that typically do not exist)
A

P.S Btw I know a guy that has three disks that get synced periodically and once per month he swaps disks from the bank (so the old bank hard disk would get synched once back at home)

denisegoldberg

alaios wrote: »

P.S Btw I know a guy that has three disks that get synced periodically and once per month he swaps disks from the bank (so the old bank hard disk would get synched once back at home)

Once a month - that could result in a lot of lost photos if there was a disaster at home.
Keep in mind that if you use a tool like CrashPlan the backup is immediate.

--- Denise

ian408

The only comment I have is that I would not keep a set of disks that were backups for my business at work. If you are asked to leave (or you leave), your employer might just have questions that keep you from leaving with them.

pathfinder

I went to CrashPlan's website and am quite impressed.

Unlimited storage for a family with up to 10 computers for $9 bucks a month - about the same as Netflix, and their customer list includes Adobe, SanDisk, Los Alamos National Lab, National Geographic, Harvard University, Groupon, SalesForce, Getty Images, Texas University, Sony Pictures, among others. Pretty impressive customer list...

I think I will sign up with CrashPlan myself. It seems much more user friendly than Carbonite or Back Blaze, or even Amazon S3. Now to find the time to get this organized.

NikonsandVstroms

A bump to this thread. Some friends recommended Backblaze and I would have the drives always attached so that isn't much of a worry. But VS Crashplan does anyone know how they compare in CPU usage? I'm getting to the end of the life of my workstation so the smaller chunk of resources this takes up the better.

The computer being backed up is on Windows 7.

cmason

Never used Backblaze, I use Crashplan. The downside of Crashplan is that it is Java based. Makes UI a bit wonky. Performance wise it can sometimes be a hit, but mostly on the network side, when you are doing your initial backup, as it can consume lots of bandwidth. This can, and should be adjusted. CPU usage can be adjusted as well, and think it defaults to 20%, when it detects you using it.)

I have Crashplan on a 2006 Core2Duo iMac with 3GB memory (meaning old). Crashplan runs for regular backup, and whenever I put new images on my external photo hard drive. I work in Lightroom and Photoshop while Crashplan does backups of the photos, and I notice no appreciable impact. That being said, the performance of this machine is not the best, so I have a bit of patience anyway.

I also have Crashplan running on my daughters 2014 Macbook Air, basically the latest and greatest. She uses this at school, and it backs up continuously. She has no idea that it is running or on the machine...never noticed. (I previously gave her a hard drive for Time Machine, but she never plugged the dang thing in, for a whole semester!. Crashplan is my stealth method of saving her bacon, which she will eventually appreciate)

ian408

NikonsandVstroms wrote: »

A bump to this thread. Some friends recommended Backblaze and I would have the drives always attached so that isn't much of a worry. But VS Crashplan does anyone know how they compare in CPU usage? I'm getting to the end of the life of my workstation so the smaller chunk of resources this takes up the better.

The computer being backed up is on Windows 7.

The answer is "it depends". Wholesale change will require more resources to calculate what needs to be backed up and how much bandwidth it will take. If you're just starting out, then you should expect bandwidth and CPU usage to be high. Since these tools encrypt the data first, you'll see some CPU cycles devoted to that and the larger the key, the longer it takes. As far as which is better is hard to say-all else being equal, Backblaze uses a larger key.

I don't think I would let resources be a gating item. If you want easy to use, Backblaze. If you want control, then Crashplan.

denisegoldberg

NikonsandVstroms wrote: »

A bump to this thread. Some friends recommended Backblaze and I would have the drives always attached so that isn't much of a worry. But VS Crashplan does anyone know how they compare in CPU usage? I'm getting to the end of the life of my workstation so the smaller chunk of resources this takes up the better.

The computer being backed up is on Windows 7.

I use Crashplan, running on Windows 8.1. The initial backup took a long time but I think that is to be expected. There is an option to seed the initial backup with a drive that the vendor sends you; I chose to simply let the initial backup run.

When I add chunks of photos to the drive that is backed up triggering Crashplan to run I do not notice any drain on the computer. Yes, it is doing extra work in the background - but I can happily continue using the computer without a slowdown of any sort. If at some point I felt that the backup was getting in my way I would simply pause it and let it run again when I am not actively using the computer. The need to do that hasn't happened so far. I've been using crashplan for a couple of years now.

--- Denise

jonh68

For important client pics the proof gallery is my cloud storage. For onsite I buy external drives each year since they get bigger and cheaper. I roll over the previous years into the new drive and take one of them to my parents house. The other I will use as a daily backup as well having previous photographs.

This way I have immediate cloud backup of my clients photographs, I have a historical backup of all my photographs from previous years off location, and I have daily backups and access to all historical photos at my house.

For some of the redundant external drives I will erase them and use those as a second backup.

It helps archiving if you create yearly folders and then subfolders.