Author Topic: For those with a CrashPlan... (Read 84,351 times)

mouser · « **Reply #25 on:** November 11, 2017, 07:06 PM »

Someone may have mentioned this already, but backblaze limits versioned backups saved to 30 days. Versions older than that are lost forever. I consider that to be a serious deficiency.

mouser · « **Reply #26 on:** November 11, 2017, 07:08 PM »

Some good reviews:
https://www.cloudwards.net/review/backblaze/
https://www.cloudwards.net/review/spideroak/
https://www.cloudwards.net/review/carbonite/

mouser · « **Reply #27 on:** November 11, 2017, 07:28 PM »

Im checking out SpiderOak now. The limitation of 1tb but ulimited pcs might better match my use case, where I don't really need to backup everything. I can live with only having good frequent versioned backups of my active documents protected in case of a crash or unexpected loss.

mouser · « **Reply #28 on:** November 11, 2017, 08:38 PM »

I haven't tried the others yet, but SpiderOak seems reasonable to me.. Relatively straightforward and gives you control over what it's doing. Seems to be a fair match with my use case -- selectively identifying which files/folders I want backed up, rather than defaulting to backing up everything. And by default keeping all versions.

wraith808 · « **Reply #29 on:** November 11, 2017, 10:26 PM »

Quote from: mouser on November 11, 2017, 08:38 PM

I haven't tried the others yet, but SpiderOak seems reasonable to me.. Relatively straightforward and gives you control over what it's doing. Seems to be a fair match with my use case -- selectively identifying which files/folders I want backed up, rather than defaulting to backing up everything. And by default keeping all versions.

How's the speed? Thats the reason I went with OneDrive instead of SpiderOak. And the fact that Microsoft isnt going anywhere.

mouser · « **Reply #30 on:** November 11, 2017, 10:33 PM »

no idea.. i can't say speed is all that important to me.. but i will try looking around at what the reviews say about speed..

wraith808 · « **Reply #31 on:** November 11, 2017, 10:51 PM »

Quote from: mouser on November 11, 2017, 10:33 PM

no idea.. i can't say speed is all that important to me.. but i will try looking around at what the reviews say about speed..

It's important to me because I use the syncing functions too. That's one of the reasons I don't really need all that much space; I have a few directories that I sync that according to OneDrive come out to less that 250GB; I sync those to several computers. I have some other secure/needed things that I backup to two S3 areas. I also use Bitbucket for my dev stuff. All of those I also back up to my synology NAS using Synology Cloud station.

The last time I actually looked into it was a while ago, so perhaps their engine has become better.

What I look for in my service is speed, cost of storage, the ability to sync (specific folders is included in this too), security, and as of late, who's backing the storage.

tomos · « **Reply #32 on:** November 11, 2017, 10:55 PM »

How much do you need to backup mouser?

I'm currently backing up about 8GB with Spideroak.
No synching.
I can check my upload speeds if you want and let you know, but cant say I've ever noticed a problem with it.

mouser · « **Reply #33 on:** November 11, 2017, 11:46 PM »

Quote

How much do you need to backup mouser?

Well under a terrabyte with all pcs combined I should think, in terms of files i really care about.

Not that it wouldn't be nice to be able to just have the entire pcs backed up or to not have to worry about being so careful regarding how much space is used by files.

mouser · « **Reply #34 on:** November 12, 2017, 12:05 PM »

I still have 60 days left on my crashplan service, so I'll be keeping my eye open from now until then for any special deals on SpiderOak.

skwire · « **Reply #35 on:** November 12, 2017, 03:42 PM »

I just stayed with Crashplan on one PC (my server).

As before, each PC in my house still does image backups nightly to the server (using Veeam). I wrote some quick scripts to dump certain folders on each PC to the appropriate family member's user folder on the server (which Crashplan then backs up to its cloud). Plus, my previous Crashplan subscription goes until April and then I get the next year at 75% off ($2.50/month). After that, the one server will cost me $10/month ($120/year) which is $30 less than I was paying for the old family plan. Not quite as convenient, sure, but it'll do just fine. And, yes, that $10/month is for unlimited storage space.

mouser · « **Reply #36 on:** November 12, 2017, 04:54 PM »

Yeah for 1 pc, they all seem to work out to about the same.. It's only when you want to back up multiple pcs that crashplan (and some of the others) become completely unreasonable in terms of cost.

Since I have separate backup solution for full drives, I'm much more interested in having something that is very frequently backing up versions of documents (text, data, code) that I am working on, and I'd like to be able to use it for a few pcs at once. In reality I almost never use anything but my desktop pc, so I might get by with only using online backup for my main pc, but it irks me to not have the option to add other pcs for a reasonable cost.

mouser · « **Reply #37 on:** December 02, 2017, 07:22 AM »

Im a week into SpiderOak.. Despite a very slow initial backup and some slow responsiveness, all seems to be working reasonably well..

Deozaan · « **Reply #38 on:** December 05, 2017, 05:23 PM »

Be careful with SpiderOak. I had an experience with them many years ago where somehow a folder that wasn't supposed to be included in my backups got included, and it put me just barely over my storage limit.

They essentially locked me out of my account until I got below the limit. But without having access to my files, I couldn't remove anything to get below the limit. Seemingly, the only option available to me was to pay for a plan with more storage. I didn't actually need more storage; without the accidentally added folder I was using something like half the limit.

I contacted support and told them as much. They were kind enough to (permanently!) increase my limit by 1GB to bring my storage usage back under the limit and allow me access to my account/files again. But they also warned me that there was no way to manage your files while being above your limit.

I never understood why it would happily let me go over my limit but not allow me to remove files to get it back under the limit, and while I was otherwise satisfied with SpiderOak in every other regard, that experience left a bad taste in my mouth.

But as I said, that was many years ago. Maybe things have changed in that regard. I haven't been using SpiderOak for a long time.

wraith808 · « **Reply #39 on:** March 28, 2018, 09:11 PM »

Quote from: skwire on November 12, 2017, 03:42 PM

I just stayed with Crashplan on one PC (my server).

As before, each PC in my house still does image backups nightly to the server (using Veeam). I wrote some quick scripts to dump certain folders on each PC to the appropriate family member's user folder on the server (which Crashplan then backs up to its cloud). Plus, my previous Crashplan subscription goes until April and then I get the next year at 75% off ($2.50/month). After that, the one server will cost me $10/month ($120/year) which is $30 less than I was paying for the old family plan. Not quite as convenient, sure, but it'll do just fine. And, yes, that $10/month is for unlimited storage space.

Well, we're getting close to expiration, I think. Are you going to expire this fall? Or were you somehow grandfathered in?

What is everyone using these days? The terms and conditions and trust of the different services has me in analysis paralysis mode.

mouser · « **Reply #40 on:** March 28, 2018, 10:14 PM »

SpiderOak for me.

wraith808 · « **Reply #41 on:** March 29, 2018, 02:36 AM »

Quote from: mouser on March 28, 2018, 10:14 PM

SpiderOak for me.

What kind of plan did you get? And what do they mean by one user, unlimited machines? Is that only for access to the backups?

What I've been thinking about doing is creating images with Acronis and putting them on my NAS, then using iDrive or SpiderOak to contain my offsite backups of the images.

I also like the iDrive express, where you can get a physical copy of your backups once per year.

mouser · « **Reply #42 on:** March 29, 2018, 03:20 AM »

I really think drive images are a completely independent separate thing than what one should mainly be using the online spideroak/crashplan backups for.
In my opinion the full drive images can be done once a month (week or whatever) and just stored on removable/external drives. Don't need online thing for those.

What the online backup services like spideroak, crashplan, etc. are uniquely good at is making immediate versioned backups constantly of your working documents. So that if you pc crashes after an hour of work, you have a backup, or 10 different back ups so you can rewind and go back to an older version.

I have the smallest spideroak plan -- because i just backup my document directories to it not my whole computer.

wraith808 · « **Reply #43 on:** March 29, 2018, 04:24 AM »

Quote from: mouser on March 29, 2018, 03:20 AM

I really think drive images are a completely independent separate thing than what one should mainly be using the online spideroak/crashplan backups for.
In my opinion the full drive images can be done once a month (week or whatever) and just stored on removable/external drives. Don't need online thing for those.

What the online backup services like spideroak, crashplan, etc. are uniquely good at is making immediate versioned backups constantly of your working documents. So that if you pc crashes after an hour of work, you have a backup, or 10 different back ups so you can rewind and go back to an older version.

I have the smallest spideroak plan -- because i just backup my document directories to it not my whole computer.

I already do that with OneDrive. I was just thinking that using that for the 3-2-1, i.e. having an offsite location where the images are stored. Right now, I don't back up the entire system; I just backup my important information. My dev work is in Git on Bitbucket, on my NAS, and synced to S3. My documents are in OneDrive, synced to my NAS, and on S3. I've just thought about getting into the having an image for immediate restoration, and thought I should do the same thing.

mouser · « **Reply #44 on:** March 29, 2018, 04:42 AM »

Quote

I've just thought about getting into the having an image for immediate restoration, and thought I should do the same thing.

You should. Drive images are important should you ever have to reinstall your machine from a complete hard drive crash. But you don't really need those images to be online anywhere, an external usb hard drive is good place for those.

skwire · « **Reply #45 on:** March 29, 2018, 05:56 AM »

Quote from: wraith808 on March 28, 2018, 09:11 PM

Quote from: skwire on November 12, 2017, 03:42 PM
I just stayed with Crashplan on one PC (my server).

As before, each PC in my house still does image backups nightly to the server (using Veeam). I wrote some quick scripts to dump certain folders on each PC to the appropriate family member's user folder on the server (which Crashplan then backs up to its cloud). Plus, my previous Crashplan subscription goes until April and then I get the next year at 75% off ($2.50/month). After that, the one server will cost me $10/month ($120/year) which is $30 less than I was paying for the old family plan. Not quite as convenient, sure, but it'll do just fine. And, yes, that $10/month is for unlimited storage space.

Well, we're getting close to expiration, I think. Are you going to expire this fall? Or were you somehow grandfathered in?

What is everyone using these days? The terms and conditions and trust of the different services has me in analysis paralysis mode.

I'm still with Crashplan and still running with the method described above.

wraith808 · « **Reply #46 on:** March 29, 2018, 12:17 PM »

Quote from: skwire on March 29, 2018, 05:56 AM

Quote from: wraith808 on March 28, 2018, 09:11 PM
Quote from: skwire on November 12, 2017, 03:42 PM
I just stayed with Crashplan on one PC (my server).

As before, each PC in my house still does image backups nightly to the server (using Veeam). I wrote some quick scripts to dump certain folders on each PC to the appropriate family member's user folder on the server (which Crashplan then backs up to its cloud). Plus, my previous Crashplan subscription goes until April and then I get the next year at 75% off ($2.50/month). After that, the one server will cost me $10/month ($120/year) which is $30 less than I was paying for the old family plan. Not quite as convenient, sure, but it'll do just fine. And, yes, that $10/month is for unlimited storage space.

Well, we're getting close to expiration, I think. Are you going to expire this fall? Or were you somehow grandfathered in?

What is everyone using these days? The terms and conditions and trust of the different services has me in analysis paralysis mode.

I'm still with Crashplan and still running with the method described above.

Dont they completely remove consumer access in the fall?

skwire · « **Reply #47 on:** March 29, 2018, 03:17 PM »

Quote from: wraith808 on March 29, 2018, 12:17 PM

Dont they completely remove consumer access in the fall?

Apologies. I should have clarified that I switched to the new CrashPlan for Small Business program. Basically, it's the same as CrashPlan Home used to be but you have to pay per computer now. The old Home plan used to be $150/year for up to ten computers and the new Small Business plan is $120/year for one computer. The storage is still unlimited, though. Does that help to clear things up?

wraith808 · « **Reply #48 on:** March 29, 2018, 07:50 PM »

Quote from: skwire on March 29, 2018, 03:17 PM

Quote from: wraith808 on March 29, 2018, 12:17 PM
Dont they completely remove consumer access in the fall?

Apologies. I should have clarified that I switched to the new CrashPlan for Small Business program. Basically, it's the same as CrashPlan Home used to be but you have to pay per computer now. The old Home plan used to be $150/year for up to ten computers and the new Small Business plan is $120/year for one computer. The storage is still unlimited, though. Does that help to clear things up?

Yes, definitely! Thanks for taking the time to do so! That might be something that I look into!

mouser · « **Reply #49 on:** June 04, 2018, 07:49 PM »

Hi Hemantarya,

That article looks like it is on topic with this thread, but you need to state your affiliation with the site when you post something like that -- and say whether you have financial interests in the site, wrote the article, work for the site, are an affiliate, etc.