Online back-up recommendations

[VPA-NI]

Hi all - I am currently using Knowhow Cloud but would like to see if there is something better out there as I find it extremely slow.

I have been looking at Crashplan, IDrive and SOS - but some of the reviews are not very favourable.

Can anyone recommend a fast, reliable, easy to use online back-up provider?

I do not want to 'work' in the cloud, I just want to back data/photos/video etc.

Thanks.

 

[andygambles]

Highly recommend BackBlaze.

 

[Alan]

Out of interest what are your issues with 'working' in the cloud?

 

[arnydnxluk]

I've deployed CrashPlan for a few people and never had an issue, highly configurable and restoring files is painless. If you're happy with less configuration options and a simpler interface look at BackBlaze. Both have mobiles clients which is nice, means you can pull an important document which was stored on your computer from anywhere in the world (assuming its been backed up).

 

[Quest Cloud Solutions Ltd]

Most of the solutions you mention are US-hosted, so you will always be battling against performance issues.
Our questBackup solution is very fast, reliable and UK based/supported - please message me if you would like to find out more.

 

[VPA-NI]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions - I will certainly look at those.

Re working in the cloud - I just don't like the idea of having to log on to the internet every time I want to work.

I do have Dropbox and use it with several of my clients - but we use this more as a file sharing service.

 

[Alan]

Re working in the cloud - I just don't like the idea of having to log on to the internet every time I want to work.

Can I understand that better - do you have to physically dial in to the internet, is your computer not connected all the time (in which case backups to the cloud wont work )?

Working in the cloud itselfs requires no more logging in and out than you do to your computer already ( I hope, for security sake )

Also certain cloud apps work online & offline (and sync up when connected) so if your internet drops you still can work.

If at some point you want more information about cloud working feel free to drop me a PM.

 

[VPA-NI]

Sorry Alan - that was a poor choice of words on my part. Of course I am connected to the internet, it is just more the fact that I prefer to work on documents which are stored on my hard drive and then I just carry out two back-ups - one to an external hard drive and the other to an on-line service.

 

[NuBlue]

Personally, I use OneDrive with a home office subscription which provides 1TB of storage and I was very surprised at the upload speed. I have a fibre connection at home and it was uploading about 9GB per hour, so fast it was noticeably slowing down smartphone browsing.

Although it's intended to sync files between PC and Onedrive, it's easy to use it as a backup/archive as long as you have enough space on the PC for a temporary copy of whatever you want to backup. Copy the files to a unique folder name within your Onedrive folder, let it sync with the server then go into the Onedrive settings and tell it not to sync that folder. It doesn't seem to delete it from the server, just leaves it there, even when you delete the folder from your local Onedrive folder.

You also get to work on local files which automatically sync to the server.

 

[Dawn Lane]

Sorry Alan - that was a poor choice of words on my part. Of course I am connected to the internet, it is just more the fact that I prefer to work on documents which are stored on my hard drive and then I just carry out two back-ups - one to an external hard drive and the other to an on-line service.

Hi Heather

Like you I used to keep everything on my hard drive and then backed up to external drive. However, both 'died' on me very early on in my self employed career and I lost the lot! I had very few clients at the time so not much lost there but a very big lesson learned.

I don't keep any work on my hard drive now and work solely from Dropbox with both clients and my own work, and also use their Ratpack system (which keeps deleted files so that I can drag back files if needed). I back up to iDrive which backs up automatically and is so easy to sync over laptop and PC - I back up Dropbox to this too.

By keeping everything on Dropbox, I do find it a lot easier to handle client files - I've been able to answer emails from my phone when out and about and attach files from Dropbox, which I wouldn't have been able to do if work was saved to my hard drive.

 

[marble_pars]

We used to use dedicated online backup service but quickly replaced that when Google Drive became so cheap. Now we have a NAS backup that keeps a constant incremental backup of all machines and each machine also has an external harddrive attached that keeps another hourly backup. All company files are then stored on Google Drive, these are just synced as they are changed. Benefit is they can be accessed anywhere, downside is large files take a while to upload and there is always the security factor but with 2 stage logins and monthly password changes it's pretty secure.

 

[RichardfromOquile]

I would suggest looking at Amazon Glacier. It is very cheap but that is balanced by the speed of data access. It is definitely worth looking at to see if the service they provide suit your need.

 

[arnydnxluk]

I would suggest looking at Amazon Glacier. It is very cheap but that is balanced by the speed of data access. It is definitely worth looking at to see if the service they provide suit your need.

I'm not sure Amazon Glacier is really what the OP is looking for. However if anyone is going down the route of Amazon Glacier, it's also worth looking at Backblaze B2 (very cheap but one datacenter) and Google Cloud Storage. The "gsutil" CLI tool for Google Cloud Storage is excellent, Google Cloud Storage would be my recommendation.

 

[VPA-NI]

Thanks very much everyone - still looking at all your suggestions.

 

[Leandros21]

Dropbox, no1 just because it deserves it, highly recommended ! ! !

 

[Alan]

I wonder what the OP went with?

 

[VPA-NI]

Still here guys. Thanks for all the suggestions. The contract is now up for renewal so I guess this is now decision time. I do back-up PC and i also back-up to external HD so its just the cloud back-up to sort. Mind you I quite like the idea of NAS.

 

[Alan]

I be tending towards (knowing I don't have any real facts) with the 'folder' replicated in realtime to the cloud concept with one of the mainstream storage systems
- Drop Box
- Google Drive
- MS One Drive (I think its called I don't know much about Microsoft products)

I know a lot about Google Drive (being a Google Partner) and I know its cheap and it would do the job excellently for your data files, including deletion (as nothing get deleted from the bin unless you empty it ), however if you are especially paranoid, for another £30 a year there are products that created real backups of Google believe or not onto Amazon. (There is a similar backup available for MS One Drive )

I don't know how many users you are or how much data but if you 1 user
- Google Drive - 1TB of data - £66 a year plus another £30 if you want belt and braces to add to your belt and braces.
- DropBox Pro 1TB data 1 user £95.88 per year
- One Drive 1TB data £71.88, plus another £36 if you want belt and braces to add to your belt and braces.

Comparison here http://www.alphr.com/dropbox/7034/o...e-best-cloud-storage-service-of-2015/page/0/1

See page 2 for paid versions

Their conclusion "So if you have deep pockets and need 1TB+ of storage, Google Drive is the obvious choice. However, if you don't need to upload more than 200GB to the cloud, and you're a Windows user, we’d recommend OneDrive."

 

[marble_pars]

What would you recommend to backup Google Drive?

 

[ffox]

What would you recommend to backup Google Drive?

I use a simple command line script to copy locally replicated files to a detachable HDD, the backup set can be stored in time/date stamped folder for incremental backup. The script can be triggered manually or on a schedule and I keep the detachable HDD disconnected when not being written to or read from. This ensures that you have a clean backup even if you get hit with something like a ransomware attack.
This will work with Google Drive, MS OneDrive Live and Dropbox.
PM me if you want a free sample script.

 

[Alan]

That is a sufficient solution as long as you don't use Google Docs / Google Sheets / Google Slides as these are stored as references to the cloud instance even on your locally replicated folder rather than data. The script also has to be smart in terms of date modified, as obviously if you have 500gb of data a years worth of back ups (without modified dates) is going to be some 150 TB.

You can use Google Takeout (free) to extract all your data (email, drive etc etc) and it converts into MS formats for you. But this is a manual process - but something you may want to do once in a while.

The backup solution I resell is called Spanning, It backups Drive / Gmail / Calendar / Contact ( to Amazon ) and has a really neat interface. Google Dive is pretty secure unless you or someone accidentally or malicious destroys data. This week I have been recovering files for one of my clients (where I provide managed support) where their admin deleted the user (someone left) and they didn't think they had anything useful so didn't select 'transfer data' - famous last words, several employees found that imposrtant documents were owned by and shared from that user.

Please note there are other backup solutions available, and I am a reseller of both Spanning & Google Apps - I resell products that work for my clients.

@ffox spanning works for O365 too - worth a look if you are interested in solutions.

 

[ffox]

@ffox spanning works for O365 too - worth a look if you are interested in solutions.

Thanks Alan. I looked at spanning some time ago. At the time it didn't fit the client's need as it was cloud-to-cloud and we wanted cloud to local HDD. The script I eventually used on a dedicated PC incorporated persistent mapped drive to the cloud storage and XCOPY (or Robocopy, can't remember which) to ensure that new and modified files are dragged down to a replicated set on the PC on a real-time basis. A scheduled or manual backup of the local replicated files to a detachable HDD finishes the job making the final backup incremental. A straight copy of files in the cloud space can be used, but this would copy everything and would be impossibly slow.
It should be noted that this is not a replacement for true replication, where file changes made in the cloud are replicated to the local device and vice versa.
Now that Microsoft have introduced the 'new gen' One Drive for Business (onedrive.exe) straight replication to a (or many) local device(s) seems to be more reliable. Having said that I still don't recommend 'across the board' replication as it creates a much larger data footprint than working directly with files in-the-cloud and is, consequently, less secure.

If the client is happy with a 'paid for' solution, the Layer2 offering is very good and very extensive in range as it will also replicate cloud data with local databases. Office 365 does this already, but the DB link has to be managed via Microsoft Access.
I'll take another look at spanning to see if there have been any changes.

 

[VPA-NI]

Hi all - just a quick update for you - I finally bit the bullet and cancelled my Knowhow subscription My PC is already running quicker!

I remembered I had set up an Idrive 'free' account many many years ago so I am now using that to back up my most important files too. I also have just been allocated 500gb storage from my broadband provider so I am also using that to store everything else and then I also store a copy on my external hard drive. Overkill or what??

Thanks again to everybody for their suggestions.

 

[Rakesh Yadav]

Heroku is also good