Cloud backup solutions

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Fishrrman

"I have nothing against bootable clones... they are fantastic at what they do... but they should not be considered backup. They do not have "usable history"... which is one of the most important aspects of a backup strategy."

For the overwhelming majority of users, your advice may be useless during a "moment of extreme need".

I don't need a "usable history" for 100% of the documents I keep backed up (such as financial information, billing info, personal records, audio projects). All I need is an "openable copy" of each respective file "as it was" when I last used it.

I sense that somewhere from 90-95% of "personal computing end users" need nothing more than that, either.

The majority of postings requesting help I see here on MacRumors are:
- Person can't get computer to boot up
- Person has had a problem with computer, tried to "restore" the system, and finds he/she can't access their Time Machine backup

In both of the above cases, if the person had available a "cloned backup" of their main (startup) volume, they would be fully up-and-running in the time it takes to do a "switch boot" via the startup manager.

Once running, they can then go to work on the internal hard drive, etc.

Even if the internal drive has become so corrupted that a re-initialization and restoration is required, it's easy to do so while booted from the cloned backup -- just boot, re-initialize, and re-clone back to the internal volume.

Yes, they will lose whatever file changes had been made since the last incremental (cloned) backup. It's a small price to pay for being up and running in a few minutes. I suppose if one is that worried about work lost since the last cloned backup they can keep a TM backup as well.

NOTHING gets you back up and running as quickly or easily as a cloned, bootable backup in a "moment of extreme need". Have been there myself.

I don't think anyone was arguing against keeping an image file for disaster recovery, but the truth remains that as they are usually managed, they are of minimal use as a backup. Even you yourself admit that most people just want to get running again, 'so they can access their Time Machine backups.' It's easy to say that you just need an 'openable copy' but when you find a file is corrupted, you'll be glad to have a proper backup that lets you roll back in time in case it had unknowingly been corrupted for months and you made a new clone last week.

Clones are great at disaster recovery, but poor for backups.

[jraske]

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

The Mac Java exploits we keep seeing are related to Java in the browser and not Java apps like the Crashplan app.

----------

It is true that the exploits used browser-based vectors to compromise Macintosh computers. However, the vulnerabilities were with the Java runtime, which can also be exploited by downloaded payloads, compromised apps, etc.

Now, I am not stating that Crash Plan is in anyway compromised. Rather, I am stating that the only way to protect oneself from vulnerabilities in the java runtime is to not use java at all. Disabling java in the browser merely stops browser based attacks. And, if you have any familiarity with Windows, attackers used more thn browser-based vectors. It is only a matter of time before Java on the Mac is attacked via a non-browser based attack.

I recommend that Mac users avoid third-party runtimes (Flash, Java) if there re alternatives. In this case Backblaze is the alternative.

And, you can disagree, but certainly Apple agrees with the opinion of security professionals about the risks posed by third-party runtimes. That's why they don't exist on iOs, and do not ship with OS X.

[englishman]

Originally Posted by iMcLovin

Thanks for the tip. Think I'm gonna test out crashplan. I don't need it to be bootable. Only store large images of a total around 400 gb. I have the time capsule for bootable restore if the machine goes down. If both the machine and the time capsule goes down simultaneously ( which is very unlikely) I'm happy just to be able to restore the most important files.

If its just images why not Flickr? They do the backup - you forget it. Chump change upload and forget?

[wrosie]

I use backblaze also. Inexpensive, runs in the background.

[AnthonyCM]

Very happy with Backblaze myself. Maybe start a poll to see what everyone is using?

[iMcLovin]

Originally Posted by AnthonyCM

Very happy with Backblaze myself. Maybe start a poll to see what everyone is using?

a poll would be good

Backblaze cost almost as much as Crashplan, except it seems to me you can only choose to back up or not, hardly any options. Not that I want options, But I dont want to use cloud backup to back up the entire machine. I dont want an image files of my entire machine, I want some important files (large files though) backed up as an extra security. Doubtful I would ever need to retrieve them...but If it would back up everything it would take a lot of unnecessary time, since I do move and save a lot of large files every day.

[Imaginethe]

Originally Posted by englishman

If its just images why not Flickr? They do the backup - you forget it. Chump change upload and forget?

Flickr really isn't suited to that. Lack of raw support, organisational etc. just is not a back up service.

[jraske]

Originally Posted by iMcLovin

a poll would be good

Backblaze cost almost as much as Crashplan, except it seems to me you can only choose to back up or not, hardly any options. Not that I want options, But I dont want to use cloud backup to back up the entire machine. I dont want an image files of my entire machine, I want some important files (large files though) backed up as an extra security. Doubtful I would ever need to retrieve them...but If it would back up everything it would take a lot of unnecessary time, since I do move and save a lot of large files every day.

Backblaze allows you to backup individual files or directories. It allows you to be very granular in your decisions as to which files to backup.

[erpetao]

Just purchased 4y crashplan+ family deal.

It's backing up 50GB for my first computer, it says it will take around 1.3 days which is not too bad.

I reviewed all the options and I think this is the best one so far, and the most reputable.

[AidenL]

I just signed with Crashplan also

481 Gigs of info - says 3.3 months to upload !!!

I live in the sticks

[Divided]

I've had Crashplan for a few months and its been very good so far. You can actually get the entire first year for free if you switch from Carbonite. The best part is, you dont need to be signed up for Carbonite. Just enter you email address and you're off to a free year:

www.crashplan.com/carboniteswitcher

[thecounthahaha]

So I've been reading up on crashplan, specifically the friend backup but there's a few things I'm confused about so it would be great if anyone could help me!

So I have 2 mac of my own, my girlfriend has a mac and my parents have a mac in 3 different loacations. None of them are techie enough to run it on their own so I'd be in charge of the different machines' crashplan backups.

As they are in different locations the friend backup option seems great. I can backup locally, move hard drives around and then put them in different locations for the incrementals.

Can the friend backup be done using the same account on all computers? It would mean I have full access to all the files but I have that anyway.

Also, do both machines have to be on at the same time to do the backups? Will it wait for both sides to be on?

Are the any issues or problems I'm missing?

Thanks!

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by thecounthahaha

So I've been reading up on crashplan, specifically the friend backup but there's a few things I'm confused about so it would be great if anyone could help me!

So I have 2 mac of my own, my girlfriend has a mac and my parents have a mac in 3 different loacations. None of them are techie enough to run it on their own so I'd be in charge of the different machines' crashplan backups.

As they are in different locations the friend backup option seems great. I can backup locally, move hard drives around and then put them in different locations for the incrementals.

Can the friend backup be done using the same account on all computers? It would mean I have full access to all the files but I have that anyway.

Also, do both machines have to be on at the same time to do the backups? Will it wait for both sides to be on?

Are the any issues or problems I'm missing?

Thanks!

Personally I do not use the "friends" backup features. For $72/year I am happier using Crashplan Central for all of my computers. Our computers are typically in 3 different locations... two USA states, and one in another country. We have 8 computers being backed up every 15 minutes. Besides our house... my daughters (college students) use the same plan. Plus, we travel a lot and our laptops are backed up wherever we are in the world at the time.

To directly answer your questions... yes... if you are backing up to friends computers... then of course both computers need to be on. If either is off... then backup will be deferred until all machines are on. There is no problem with them all being on the same account... except as you correctly stated... you do have access to their data. If that ever becomes important to you... then you would want different accounts.

/Jim

[thecounthahaha]

Originally Posted by flynz4

Personally I do not use the "friends" backup features. For $72/year I am happier using Crashplan Central for all of my computers. Our computers are typically in 3 different locations... two USA states, and one in another country. We have 8 computers being backed up every 15 minutes. Besides our house... my daughters (college students) use the same plan. Plus, we travel a lot and our laptops are backed up wherever we are in the world at the time.

To directly answer your questions... yes... if you are backing up to friends computers... then of course both computers need to be on. If either is off... then backup will be deferred until all machines are on. There is no problem with them all being on the same account... except as you correctly stated... you do have access to their data. If that ever becomes important to you... then you would want different accounts.

/Jim

Thanks for the reply.

My issue with the cloud service, which seems great, is that I'm looking to backup about 8-10tb of data spread across the 4 computers and their external hard drives. I'm sure it works well with smaller amounts, but it seems unfeasable at the quantity I want without being able to do the backups myself first and moving them to the other locations to incramentally backup.

My family are all reasonably close, which I know wouldn't help if there's a localised disaster, but it's still pretty useful!

So, would I need to create different accounts for each computer or can I use the same account and choose an off site computer under the same account?

Thanks!

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by thecounthahaha

Thanks for the reply.

My issue with the cloud service, which seems great, is that I'm looking to backup about 8-10tb of data spread across the 4 computers and their external hard drives. I'm sure it works well with smaller amounts, but it seems unfeasable at the quantity I want without being able to do the backups myself first and moving them to the other locations to incramentally backup.

My family are all reasonably close, which I know wouldn't help if there's a localised disaster, but it's still pretty useful!

So, would I need to create different accounts for each computer or can I use the same account and choose an off site computer under the same account?

Thanks!

You are correct that if you "seed" the backups... by backing up locally to a USB attached drive... then you can move that drive to your "destination backup machine" and you will never have had to move all of that data over the network. You will not only need to move the incremental backup (things that have changed since the last backup)... which is typically minimal.

Your backup will work irrespective if they are all on the same account... or if they are all on different accounts. The advantage of different accounts is data security. If you back up a computer to a friend who is on a different account... he has no access to your data. All he has access to is your 448b encrypted data... which he will never be able to crack in the sequential lifetimes of several people.

Personally... I am the only person (plus my wife) that has the primary and secondary passwords to Crashplan. So if my daughter's ever needed to restore... or change their Crashplan settings... then I would personally need to do it. I do not trust my passwords in the hands of my daughters. They do not personally take the same care with security that I do.

One problem you may have is having a backup destination large enough for your computers. As far as I know... you cannot span volumes on your destination. So... you would need a 10TB volume. You are no longer in "cheap USB drive" space anymore. However... if each computer is only backing up a few TB's of data... then you will be fine because the destination drive only needs to be large enough for the computer that is getting backed up.

Personally... my largest computer backup is about 1.5 TB. If each computer is only backing up that much... then you could just let each computer backup the data to Crashplan Central. The backup will finish. This solves the problem of each computer needing to be on all the time... and more importantly... it allows you to restore from backup even if the destination machine is turned off. Crashplan Central is never turned off.


/Jim

[marc11]

Personally I feel one back up solution is not enough, I employ three:

1) Time machine - History of changes, it is built into OSX and works in the back ground seemlessly. Set it and forget it; but you should not rely just on Time Machine, it does fail.

2) Online back ups - Access from anywhere, works in the back ground, automatically updates my files as they change on my computer, ability to back up external drives and restore to any computer or new hard drive. I use Backblaze, it was cheap, unlimited, allows for external drives and its OSX client is seemless, unintrusive and I can throttle the bandwidth, pause the sync or schedule it to sync during off hours to preserve bandwidth during the peak times.

3) Clone drives - I clone once a month or before any major install or upgrade. Allows me to boot my computer or many other computers into my own enviroment, clone back to a bootable drive for installation into my computer in case of HDD total failure, gives me a "moment in time" snapshot and allows me access to my other back ups for single file access.

IMHO by themselves none of the above or safe if back ups are important, each and every one can fail or fail to be available when you need it to restore a file or system, therefore you should not trust just one method. You should have redundancies in your back up plan no matter what it is.

I also employ Dropbox for some back up as well and even perform some internal back up, for example, I back up my Aperture library to my second HDD inside my MBP for a quick and easy restore if needed and then the back up plus the primary libraries are cloned, backed up to Time Machine and to Backblaze. Overkill? Maybe, but its only 30 GB and what is that in the grand scheme of things when it is 12 years of pictures of my kids I am keeping???

I also have 400 gigs of video, all cloned and backed up to Backblaze.

[thecounthahaha]

Originally Posted by flynz4

You are correct that if you "seed" the backups... by backing up locally to a USB attached drive... then you can move that drive to your "destination backup machine" and you will never have had to move all of that data over the network. You will not only need to move the incremental backup (things that have changed since the last backup)... which is typically minimal.

Your backup will work irrespective if they are all on the same account... or if they are all on different accounts. The advantage of different accounts is data security. If you back up a computer to a friend who is on a different account... he has no access to your data. All he has access to is your 448b encrypted data... which he will never be able to crack in the sequential lifetimes of several people.

Personally... I am the only person (plus my wife) that has the primary and secondary passwords to Crashplan. So if my daughter's ever needed to restore... or change their Crashplan settings... then I would personally need to do it. I do not trust my passwords in the hands of my daughters. They do not personally take the same care with security that I do.

One problem you may have is having a backup destination large enough for your computers. As far as I know... you cannot span volumes on your destination. So... you would need a 10TB volume. You are no longer in "cheap USB drive" space anymore. However... if each computer is only backing up a few TB's of data... then you will be fine because the destination drive only needs to be large enough for the computer that is getting backed up.

Personally... my largest computer backup is about 1.5 TB. If each computer is only backing up that much... then you could just let each computer backup the data to Crashplan Central. The backup will finish. This solves the problem of each computer needing to be on all the time... and more importantly... it allows you to restore from backup even if the destination machine is turned off. Crashplan Central is never turned off.


/Jim

Very good point re. accounts and encryption. I hadn't realised it wasn't encrypted if it was on the same account. I think it's only 128bit encryption on the free account though, which is still hopefully secure.

I did not know that each computer and it's externals need to be backed up to 1 location. So computer A is 1tb internal and 2x 1tb externals - so a 3tb drive would be ok? But computer B is 1tb internal and 3x 1tb externals so would need a 4tb drive to back up to? Not as easy to do...

I had been looking into 4 bay JBOD enclosures but that wouldn't be possible if it had to be per computer either.

I do use time machine on all devices, with clones on all of mine (cloned external HDs too) and dropbox for most of my internal files, but my externals (with most of the business work on) are lacking...!

[flynz4]

Originally Posted by thecounthahaha

Very good point re. accounts and encryption. I hadn't realised it wasn't encrypted if it was on the same account. I think it's only 128bit encryption on the free account though, which is still hopefully secure.

No... either I mis-stated, or your mis-understood: The data is always encrypted... irrespective if it is on the same account or other accounts. However... if you are the administrator of all of these backups... then you have the keys... and you can see all of their data.

If you want them to control their own backups... and restore their own data... then they need the keys. That means that they can also see your data.

Personally... nobody get the keys to my data. I do NOT let my kids have the keys to Crashplan. They cannot configure their backup. They cannot restore on their own. If they needed to restore (even in an emergency)... I still would not give them they keys. Hence... I must administer everything.

Given that you do not need a family plan (since you are going to back up to "friends"... then you can all have your own individual accounts. You can choose to have everyone's keys if they want... and you can also choose to not let others have keys to your data. Having individual accounts gives you choices.

Also... I would only use 448b encryption. It is MUCH more secure.

Originally Posted by thecounthahaha

I did not know that each computer and it's externals need to be backed up to 1 location. So computer A is 1tb internal and 2x 1tb externals - so a 3tb drive would be ok? But computer B is 1tb internal and 3x 1tb externals so would need a 4tb drive to back up to? Not as easy to do...

Crashplan+ allows you to have multiple backup sets... and to back up to multiple destinations. You can choose to back up certain data to one destination... and different data to a 2nd destination. Each of the two backup sets in this example can have overlapping data that gets backed up to both destinations.

Personally... I like to keep it simple. All of my computers have all of their user data backed up to Crashplan Central. It is simple... I do not have to worry about where my backups are... and it just works.

Originally Posted by thecounthahaha

I do use time machine on all devices, with clones on all of mine (cloned external HDs too) and dropbox for most of my internal files, but my externals (with most of the business work on) are lacking...!

I also use dropbox... but I do not consider that "backup" per se. I consider that "syncing". Of course there are "backup elements" to dropbox... but I still think it is best to not rely on dropbox for backup.

/Jim