Robust online/cloud backup? [MERGED]

[Webcat86]

I have a couple of local backups — a main one for Time Machine, plus another external drive for videos.

I also want an online backup in case I lose the physical ones in my house (theft, fire etc). Ideally, this backup would be able to backup my external drive too, although I could manually sync the files if needed.

What’s the best route here? I’m happy to spend a bit, but don’t want an expensive subscription. I have Dropbox and iCloud, but assume there are better options purpose built for this.

 

[chown33]

Arq and BackBlaze are two names that came to mind. Here's a past thread, and it has links to an older & longer thread on Arq and others:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/online-backup-recommendations.2303260/

I don't know if Arq or BackBlaze are still around, but reading the earlier threads should give some ideas of what to search for.

The main considerations I can see are:
1. Budget.
2. Data size.
3. Provider reliability.

 

[Webcat86]

Arq and BackBlaze are two names that came to mind. Here's a past thread, and it has links to an older & longer thread on Arq and others:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/online-backup-recommendations.2303260/

I don't know if Arq or BackBlaze are still around, but reading the earlier threads should give some ideas of what to search for.

The main considerations I can see are:
1. Budget.
2. Data size.
3. Provider reliability.

Thanks. That’s interesting.
I am tempted to just upgrade my Dropbox or iCloud - it wouldn’t be a full computer mirror but would let me have an online backup of all my important files and 2TB is only £8-£10 a month

 

[Weaselboy]

I am tempted to just upgrade my Dropbox or iCloud

Those are not really considered backups, but more like sync services. I would not rely on a sync service like that to backup my cherished photos.

I'm still using Arq with Backblaze B2 servers like I described in that thread @chown33 linked.

I have 100GB stored there and my B2 bill this month was 54 cents.

 

[Webcat86]

Those are not really considered backups, but more like sync services. I would not rely on a sync service like that to backup my cherished photos.

I feel like that's adequate — I have a full Time Machine backup, and most of what I do is online now anyway. So Photos are stored in iCloud and Time Machine backups, and I feel like that would be a very, very unlikely and unfortunate scenario that my house caught fire and iCloud was wiped at the same time.

I'm still using Arq with Backblaze B2 servers like I described in that thread @chown33 linked.

I have 100GB stored there and my B2 bill this month was 54 cents.

How are you getting this price? Arq's pricing page shows $60/year

 

[Weaselboy]

How are you getting this price? Arq's pricing page shows $60/year

That pricing is if you want to use Arq's own servers for backup. I am not doing that. I bought the Arq app, then I pay Backblaze B2 for server storage space.

 

[Webcat86]

That pricing is if you want to use Arq's own servers for backup. I am not doing that. I bought the Arq app, then I pay Backblaze B2 for server storage space.

Oh interesting. How complicated is this overall setup? iCloud is tempting because I already use it and exclusively use Apple

 

[Weaselboy]

It is pretty easy. Just go to Backblaze B2 and setup an account then create a "Bucket" to store your Arq backups.

Then add a new storage location in Arq and in this screen pick B2. Then you enter your B2 credentials and select the Bucket (essentially a folder on the B2 server) you created earlier.

 

[Webcat86]

It is pretty easy. Just go to Backblaze B2 and setup an account then create a "Bucket" to store your Arq backups.

Then add a new storage location in Arq and in this screen pick B2. Then you enter your B2 credentials and select the Bucket (essentially a folder on the B2 server) you created earlier.

View attachment 2465170

Thanks for this.
I also discovered tonight that Dropbox offers a feature called Backup, which is a full computer backup with versioning. It’s £20 a month so more expensive than your current setup, but I wonder how it compares.

Also what is the benefit of Arq? I see Backblaze offers personal backups for $9 a month, so it just a cost factor or is there a benefit to using Arq?

 

[Boyd01]

I have been using Backblaze on multiple computers for a number of years, I just have the personal version which gives you unlimited storage for all the disks connected to each Mac. Any external disks must be connected all the time however or you'll get warnings and eventually their backups will be removed. You can pay extra if you want those disks to be saved indefinitely.

Have not used arq so don't know how that would work with B2. But with the personal backblaze, it will only backup your user files (documents, photos, movies, etc) and not apps or system files. If you dig through the setting, you can enable backup of many of those file types, but it still won't backup the applications folder or system files (but you could put copies of apps you want backed up in a separate folder).

One thing I've found is that backblaze (personal version) will devour massive amounts of RAM - basically everything you aren't using. For example, this is what I saw this morning. It will free up some of that automatically when you open another app, but more than once I've gotten an out of memory error from backblaze. Some discussion here.

However, my computer usage is unusual, I create huge intermediate files (300gb or more sometimes) and then delete them later. I also export millions of small files at times, last weekend I created about 5 million, for example (I make maps and these are image tiles). Eventually I should find a better solution for this, but for now I just disable backblaze when I'm in the middle of a project, then set it back to automatic when I'm done.

But again, mine is just the standard personal backblaze installation, shouldn't be a problem if you're using B2 with another software package.

 

[Der Keyser]

jottacloud.com for better privacy and dataprotection - plus it is not expensive if you have several TB data.

 

[Weaselboy]

Also what is the benefit of Arq? I see Backblaze offers personal backups for $9 a month, so it just a cost factor or is there a benefit to using Arq?

I have not used the Backblaze app, so cannot compare app functionality, but Arq to B2 is very inexpensive for my use case. I have about 32GB of data in my ~/Users folder, so 100GB on B2 give me backup versions going back about six months. I also like the using Arq gives me full control of encryption before the data leaves my computer. If you go to the Backblaze website and look in my Bucket, all you will see is a bunch of random folders full of gibberish encrypted files.

 

[Webcat86]

jottacloud.com for better privacy and dataprotection - plus it is not expensive if you have several TB data.

I don’t, my entire computer is using 600-700gb

I have not used the Backblaze app, so cannot compare app functionality, but Arq to B2 is very inexpensive for my use case. I have about 32GB of data in my ~/Users folder, so 100GB on B2 give me backup versions going back about six months. I also like the using Arq gives me full control of encryption before the data leaves my computer. If you go to the Backblaze website and look in my Bucket, all you will see is a bunch of random folders full of gibberish encrypted files.

Ah so I need a storage plan that’s significantly larger than the amount I’d be backing up?

 

[Weaselboy]

I don’t, my entire computer is using 600-700gb

Ah so I need a storage plan that’s significantly larger than the amount I’d be backing up?

It depends on how many old versions you want to store. If you just want a couple versions back, you don't need as much.

It also depends on how much your data changes each day. My daily Arq backup is usually around 500MB, since my data does not change much. But if for example you are editing multiple 5GB movies each day, that will eat up a lot more data for the incremental daily backups.

 

[Webcat86]

It depends on how many old versions you want to store. If you just want a couple versions back, you don't need as much.

It also depends on how much your data changes each day. My daily Arq backup is usually around 500MB, since my data does not change much. But if for example you are editing multiple 5GB movies each day, that will eat up a lot more data for the incremental daily backups.

My day to day storage is almost entirely fixed

 

[cjsuk]

I wouldn't consider iCloud to be a backup. It's a file distribution system and convenience only. You can lose access to it and there are no guarantees that they won't lose anything.

Get an external SSD or something, make an encrypted APFS volume on it and copy your stuff onto there and leave it at someone else's house. Or use it as a second time machine disk.

I have 2x 1TB SSDs (NVMe disks in Sabrent USB-C enclosures). I keep one on site and one at a friend's house. They are swapped over every 3 months and I do a weekly time machine backup on to each one. If the house burns down and I lose access to iCloud (I use that as well) then I will lose back to the last 3 month window which I can live with. If the machine explodes or I lose iCloud (far more likely) then I lose a week max.

 

[zevrix]

I'm using CrashPlan for many years:

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[Webcat86]

I wouldn't consider iCloud to be a backup. It's a file distribution system and convenience only. You can lose access to it and there are no guarantees that they won't lose anything.

Get an external SSD or something, make an encrypted APFS volume on it and copy your stuff onto there and leave it at someone else's house. Or use it as a second time machine disk.

I have 2x 1TB SSDs (NVMe disks in Sabrent USB-C enclosures). I keep one on site and one at a friend's house. They are swapped over every 3 months and I do a weekly time machine backup on to each one. If the house burns down and I lose access to iCloud (I use that as well) then I will lose back to the last 3 month window which I can live with. If the machine explodes or I lose iCloud (far more likely) then I lose a week max.

I hear you, but what are the odds that iCloud loses my stuff at the same time that my physical backup is also lost? I think that’s a small level of risk that I can live with.

 

[cjsuk]

I hear you, but what are the odds that iCloud loses my stuff at the same time that my physical backup is also lost? I think that’s a small level of risk that I can live with.

Yeah that's not really the problem though.

You have no idea until you do a restore and no way to verify the contents of what is in iCloud. A backup is not a backup without verification.

 

[Webcat86]

Yeah that's not really the problem though.

You have no idea until you do a restore and no way to verify the contents of what is in iCloud. A backup is not a backup without verification.

Can you elaborate on how I can’t verify what’s in iCloud?

 

[ignatius345]

I feel like that's adequate — I have a full Time Machine backup, and most of what I do is online now anyway. So Photos are stored in iCloud and Time Machine backups

One gotcha you should be aware of: if you have Optimize Mac Storage turned on, any Time Machine backups of your Photos library are essentially worthless, as they're mostly "backing up" thumbnails and placeholder files. That goes for the rest of your files too, if you have a lot of stuff in iCloud Drive or another sync service and files are set to be fetched on demand instead of always having a copy downloaded locally.*

Maybe you already knew this, but I think it's worth pointing out!

* One caveat to all this is that apparently Carbon Copy Cloner will now account for this in its backup routine by temporarily downloading cloud files, backing them up to your external drive, and then evicting them again when it's done. If anyone's tried this, I'd be curious to hear how well it works.

 

[Webcat86]

One gotcha you should be aware of: if you have Optimize Mac Storage turned on, any Time Machine backups of your Photos library are essentially worthless, as they're mostly "backing up" thumbnails and placeholder files. That goes for the rest of your files too, if you have a lot of stuff in iCloud Drive or another sync service and files are being fetched on demand instead of kept always downloaded.

Maybe you already knew this, but I think it's worth pointing out!

Good to know, thanks. I think it’s off on my Mac, which is why the Photos library is so large, but it’s on on my iPhone and iPad. That said, I know some files aren’t saved locally on the Mac. Is there a setting for this?

 

[ForkHandles]

Buy a fire proof safe. Cheaper than you think.

 

[cjsuk]

Can you elaborate on how I can’t verify what’s in iCloud?

Well there’s files being stored or not and a separate concern which is if they are the same as when you uploaded them to iCloud. Did apple’s storage fail? Were they maliciously modified? Did some software fail somewhere and corrupt a file?

So you’d have to periodically download the entire contents of iCloud and compare the hash of what file came back versus local. Then resolve any differences.

Much easier to do this when you have local files.

Backups are not backups without testing recovery.

 

[Webcat86]

Well there’s files being stored or not and a separate concern which is if they are the same as when you uploaded them to iCloud. Did apple’s storage fail? Were they maliciously modified? Did some software fail somewhere and corrupt a file?

So you’d have to periodically download the entire contents of iCloud and compare the hash of what file came back versus local. Then resolve any differences.

Much easier to do this when you have local files.

Backups are not backups without testing recovery.

All my photos, documents like Pages & Numbers, messages etc are all downloaded on all my devices anyway so I feel like this check is being done on a near-constant basis