Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Best Online backup service? Ditching Mozy after price hike...
- Thread starter theNEOone
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I use crashplan to back up several computers but I don't have my large photo collection backed up. It is about 200 gig. It sounds like (from this thread anyway) adding 200 gig would put me in "throttled" territory. How does this work? Once you have 200 gig stored with them, ALL future uploads are throttled or is it only everything above 200 gig for the initial seed. I guess I could live with a slow initial seed since I don't particularly want to pay for them to ship me an external HDD to use their "seed by mail" service. Has anybody gone above 200 Gig with crashplan and decided to stay or are people just reacting to what they expect to happen if they go above 200 Gig?
Guess I'll try crashplan next then. I really don't want to fork over 100 for a year of Mozy. That's double what I'm paying now.
Ack! Help guys!
Mozy reports that the 4 directories I have selected to back up are 105GB total.
When I manually select each folder in Finder and add them up, it comes to 105GB also.
But when I installed Backblaze, it doesn't let you select any directories and just reported that I had ~79GB to be backed up. (This caused me to ditch Backblaze)
Well now, I've installed Crashplan, and selected my 4 directories, and it too reports that they weigh in at 79GB total.
:S what is going on?
It makes me afraid to use Crashplan or Backblaze, because I am afraid it's missing something.
79GB vs 105GB is a big discrepancy.
Mozy reports that the 4 directories I have selected to back up are 105GB total.
When I manually select each folder in Finder and add them up, it comes to 105GB also.
But when I installed Backblaze, it doesn't let you select any directories and just reported that I had ~79GB to be backed up. (This caused me to ditch Backblaze)
Well now, I've installed Crashplan, and selected my 4 directories, and it too reports that they weigh in at 79GB total.
:S what is going on?
It makes me afraid to use Crashplan or Backblaze, because I am afraid it's missing something.
79GB vs 105GB is a big discrepancy.
Thanks for the link. One area in particular can lead to quite a bit of savings. After the long list of file wildcard exclusions there is a list of excluded folders in OS X. This list includes (or should I say Excludes) /System, /usr and /private which weigh in at 3.6 GB, 880 MB and 14GB respectively on my Macbook! Since I only checked those 3 exclude folders and found nearly 20 GB of excluded files, I don't have any problem believing that by default Crashplan is excluding 25GB of cruft the OP doesn't need out of his 105GB of files.
The way I set up crashplan, I don't back up a lot. I back up pictures, which contains iPhoto Library which contains metadata referencing 200 GB of images but NO images are copied to iPhoto Library. I back up my documents folder and a few other folders and wind up with a grand total of less than 30 GB to back up on a system with a 500 GB HDD that is just under 40% full. The rest of the stuff including music, applications and xcode SDK's I can put back easily enough or I have it backed up a different way such as a copy sitting on a NAS drive.
A little more investigation led me to /private/var/vm where I have 15 GB of swap files including a 4GB sleep image (I have 4 GB of RAM). I would certainly not want those sent to Crashplan.
Last edited:
I would double check how much data you really have.
I agree, I would be concerned that the backups are not complete... but you can confirm for yourself whether the real total is 80 GB or 105 GB.
Use a program like Path Finder or http://whatsizemac.com/ or (maybe someone has a better folder size calculator other than Finder) and see for yourself.
Don't forget, crash plan and backblaze are not TM or CCC or SuperDuper!, they are not intended to restore your system to full operating condition following a crash. They are intended to restore your files after you have reinstalled your OS. So system files are stripped out of the backup sets.
Not sure which 4 folders you are backing up, but this might be an explanation for the size discrepancies.
I agree, I would be concerned that the backups are not complete... but you can confirm for yourself whether the real total is 80 GB or 105 GB.
Use a program like Path Finder or http://whatsizemac.com/ or (maybe someone has a better folder size calculator other than Finder) and see for yourself.
Don't forget, crash plan and backblaze are not TM or CCC or SuperDuper!, they are not intended to restore your system to full operating condition following a crash. They are intended to restore your files after you have reinstalled your OS. So system files are stripped out of the backup sets.
Not sure which 4 folders you are backing up, but this might be an explanation for the size discrepancies.
Guys, I'll try a file size program to see how big it reports the folders are rather than using finder. I'll do that tonight.
The folders I have selected are:
Documents
Music
Movies
Pictures
I'm using backblaze at the moment.
I agree. I have no use for those files any more either. My iDevice backups go to iCloud.
Ok, I'm feeling a little bit better. I looked in my iPhoto library and found a folder called iPod photo cache. This folder is 20.1GB in size, so that appears to be most of the 25Gb missing. Perhaps backblaze and crashplan were excluding that folder.
Now I feel a bit better about backblaze getting all of my data.
Would still love others to chime in though if they have any more input.
Now I feel a bit better about backblaze getting all of my data.
Would still love others to chime in though if they have any more input.
haha - I'm a big supporter of BackBlaze but recently encountered a problem getting a simple USB drive to get included in the backup set.
This was the response:
Your request (#9575) has been updated.
To review the status of the request and add additional comments, follow the link below: ###
You can also add a comment by replying to this email.
So even Backblaze prefers Crashplan!
This was the response:
Your request (#9575) has been updated.
To review the status of the request and add additional comments, follow the link below: ###
You can also add a comment by replying to this email.
So even Backblaze prefers Crashplan!
Got some really excellent service from Backblaze, sadly had to drop them because they are on the other side of the globe, so upload speeds where not ideal, which kinda matters with 12TB of data. Still the service and especially the interface where amazing. The setup is simple and you can get your data back in a way to works pretty much like the finder. Cool thing: they even offer a snailmail USB stick restore.
The reason I loved them and tried them for two months: the preference pane based interface takes almost no resources, or at least unnoticeable on my Mac Pro. Unlike pretty much every other cloud back up I have tried over the years.
When I asked support about my situation and if it was possible to upload 12TB I got a seriously good, honest answer. It really is a shame they don't have a EU server setup.
Check them out: http://www.backblaze.com/
The reason I loved them and tried them for two months: the preference pane based interface takes almost no resources, or at least unnoticeable on my Mac Pro. Unlike pretty much every other cloud back up I have tried over the years.
When I asked support about my situation and if it was possible to upload 12TB I got a seriously good, honest answer. It really is a shame they don't have a EU server setup.
Check them out: http://www.backblaze.com/
I'm using Crashplan and the data is encrypted as it is sent and on their servers.
Here is their FAQ on the topic.
Hi guys,
I'm trying to find an online backup service, so this thread is great. But I have some questions.
1) Does Crashplan alter or change your files in any way once you restore them back onto your desktop? I have some MTS video files I need to back up, and I fear that if the file names or any of the folders were changed in any way, big or small, it would damage the integrity of the video files and make them unusable/unplayable. So this is a biggie for me.
2) I understand that Mozy went up in price, but other than that, is it still a GOOD service? I emailed Crashplan two days ago--still have yet to hear back. In fact, it doesn't seem like I can contact them in a way that they understand I'm a prospective customer--not a current customer--as I got an automated email back from them that said my question has been escalated to the support team.
In contrast, Mozy offers an online chat, and I was able to get a few questions answered there very easily.
3) On top of that, is there any worry that some of these companies are young and could go belly up? I don't know who is owned by who and how long they've been around, but it's just something that's on my mind, as well.
Thanks.
I'm trying to find an online backup service, so this thread is great. But I have some questions.
1) Does Crashplan alter or change your files in any way once you restore them back onto your desktop? I have some MTS video files I need to back up, and I fear that if the file names or any of the folders were changed in any way, big or small, it would damage the integrity of the video files and make them unusable/unplayable. So this is a biggie for me.
2) I understand that Mozy went up in price, but other than that, is it still a GOOD service? I emailed Crashplan two days ago--still have yet to hear back. In fact, it doesn't seem like I can contact them in a way that they understand I'm a prospective customer--not a current customer--as I got an automated email back from them that said my question has been escalated to the support team.
In contrast, Mozy offers an online chat, and I was able to get a few questions answered there very easily.
3) On top of that, is there any worry that some of these companies are young and could go belly up? I don't know who is owned by who and how long they've been around, but it's just something that's on my mind, as well.
Thanks.
I use BQBackup service.
Good prices and runs rsync remote servers supporting SSH encryption, FTP access, etc.
Good prices and runs rsync remote servers supporting SSH encryption, FTP access, etc.