Backup best practice, backup software reviews, and cloud backup provider reviews

all good stuff Tim!

I suggest addressing the 1TB limit in your CloudBerry review. There's a huge difference between a $30 (< 1TB) and $300 (no limit) license. It looked interesting until that point.

pat.kane wrote in post #18371147
I suggest addressing the 1TB limit in your CloudBerry review. There's a huge difference between a $30 (< 1TB) and $300 (no limit) license. It looked interesting until that point.

The CloudBerry website is out of date, according to CloudBerry support. They tell me it's "5 TB for cloud storage data, 5 TB for Glacier data, unlimited storage for local backups", so a total of 10TB online and unlimited to local or external disks. I've pointed it out but they don't seem to want to update the website. I'll update the review to point this out.

I have CloudBerry Desktop, paid. I have six main backup sets, backing up three sets of files to three destinations. Two are 450GB, two are 250GB, two others are 850GB. That's a total of 3.1TB in management, more actually since I have others a bit smaller as well.

I received notice a few days ago CrashPlan is exiting the home market to focus on business accounts. They're honoring existing service contracts and fortunately mine lasts through August next year.

mike_d wrote in post #18367836
This is why I recommend Crashplan as a primary backup for most people. It's as close to "set and forget" as you can get. Well, until they ignore the emails begging for renewal. Sigh.

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1485376

PhotosGuy wrote in post #18436310
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1485376

I'm already in that thread and will likely continue to use Crashplan on at least a couple computers even at the new price.

Tim,

I'm looking at Cloudberry and Backblaze B2 as an alternative to Crashplan in certain cases.

How often do you recommend having Cloudberry do a full backup to a cloud storage provider? Does this actually re-upload an additional copy of everything? That would take a while and consume a lot of storage. Can Cloudberry instead do a file verification or would that take just as long since they don't control the server and can't generate hashes for comparison server-side.

The 30 day version limit Tally referred to on Backblaze could be a serious problem. I'm assuming CloudBerry+B2 would get around that since the backup logic is all handled by Cloudberry. B2 is a lot cheaper than S3. Maybe too cheap?

I wish something like Cloudberry existed for Synology. Most of my data is there and while I do use Synology Cloud Sync with Amazon Drive (still on the unlimited for $60/yr plan) the application itself is very limited and doesn't appear to support versioning, deleted file recovery, etc. I also backup the Synology to Crashplan via symbolic directory links on my main PC which provides the features missing in Cloud Sync, but its one more potential point of failure.

mike_d wrote in post #18436360
I'm looking at Cloudberry and Backblaze B2 as an alternative to Crashplan in certain cases.

How often do you recommend having Cloudberry do a full backup to a cloud storage provider? Does this actually re-upload an additional copy of everything? That would take a while and consume a lot of storage. Can Cloudberry instead do a file verification or would that take just as long since they don't control the server and can't generate hashes for comparison server-side.

The 30 day version limit Tally referred to on Backblaze could be a serious problem. I'm assuming CloudBerry+B2 would get around that since the backup logic is all handled by Cloudberry. B2 is a lot cheaper than S3. Maybe too cheap?

I wish something like Cloudberry existed for Synology. Most of my data is there and while I do use Synology Cloud Sync with Amazon Drive (still on the unlimited for $60/yr plan) the application itself is very limited and doesn't appear to support versioning, deleted file recovery, etc. I also backup the Synology to Crashplan via symbolic directory links on my main PC which provides the features missing in Cloud Sync, but its one more potential point of failure.

I just use the defaults for full backups. I think that does them when you add heaps to the backup, or at some regular interval. Yes it might do a full upload, but you probably don't want "incremental forever".

I'm actually going to change some of my backups to be a sync to the cloud, in my case AWS S3. I'll have S3 do the encryption and versions, rather than CloudBerry. Reason is I want to spread my risk - one of my on site backups will still use CloudBerry encryption and versioning, one won't.

Not sure what you mean with the 30 day limit.

B2 is fine, good company, and replicated within the same data center. The advantage of S3 is it's replicated to three data centers. Use IA class, it's not much more expensive that B2. AWS is much more complex though.

tim wrote in post #18436390
Not sure what you mean with the 30 day limit.

Backblaze only keeps prior versions of files for 30 days.

https://help.backblaze​.com …at-does-Backblaze-Backup-

Crashplan keeps daily versions of files for 90 days and monthly versions from previous years by default.

mike_d wrote in post #18436397
Backblaze only keeps prior versions of files for 30 days.

https://help.backblaze​.com …at-does-Backblaze-Backup-

Crashplan keeps daily versions of files for 90 days and monthly versions from previous years by default.

Ah yeah, I know that, but the way you put it was difficult to understand. Yes CloudBerry plus B2 gives you full control. In AWS S3 you could do a plain sync and enable versioning on the bucket, then restore the files as at any date with one command.

The other way around that is to run backup software that keeps incremental backups, store the repository for that program locally, and back the repo up to BB.

If you let S3 handle the versioning, how do you restore a folder from a specific date? Is it only command line or is there a web interface?

mike_d wrote in post #18437009
If you let S3 handle the versioning, how do you restore a folder from a specific date? Is it only command line or is there a web interface?

You use this tool, which is command line. You can retrieve using the web interface one file at a time.