Thoughts on online backup

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tomhenderson

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#75607 20-Jan-2011 17:26

I've been looking at online backup options (backblaze/mozy/carbonite) and was wondering if anyone could share their experiences with these products? I'm looking at this as a secondary form of backup in case there is ever a problem with my external backup drives.

The pricing and feature set seem pretty standard for all these companies: approx US$5/month, doesn't back up system/temp files, apps or anything over a certain size threshold, automatic background app handles the upload.

Edit: Posting in Mac OS as I'll only be using with a mac system. If this is the wrong area I can post elsewhere.

Talkiet

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#429268 20-Jan-2011 17:35

tomhenderson: I've been looking at online backup options (backblaze/mozy/carbonite) and was wondering if anyone could share their experiences with these products? I'm looking at this as a secondary form of backup in case there is ever a problem with my external backup drives.

The pricing and feature set seem pretty standard for all these companies: approx US$5/month, doesn't back up system/temp files, apps or anything over a certain size threshold, automatic background app handles the upload.

Edit: Posting in Mac OS as I'll only be using with a mac system. If this is the wrong area I can post elsewhere.

I have over a terabyte with Backblaze and it's been superb. The windows client (at least) is stable and small - plus doesn't hit the CPU... I have also done a couple of test restores and had no problems.

If it wasn't for the cost of bandwidth here in NZ it would be a winner.

(Since Bigtime got discontinued I control closely what folders get backed up)

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

mattwnz

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#429271 20-Jan-2011 17:43

tomhenderson: I've been looking at online backup options (backblaze/mozy/carbonite) and was wondering if anyone could share their experiences with these products? I'm looking at this as a secondary form of backup in case there is ever a problem with my external backup drives.

The pricing and feature set seem pretty standard for all these companies: approx US$5/month, doesn't back up system/temp files, apps or anything over a certain size threshold, automatic background app handles the upload.

Edit: Posting in Mac OS as I'll only be using with a mac system. If this is the wrong area I can post elsewhere.

I have heard of someone using one of these online backup companies had major problems where they weren't able to be be retrieved when they needed them. They were told some story about the files being archive files, and they don't backup archives. Some of them will also only backup one drive, such as where windows is installed, so if you have lot of addon drives, you would probably have to buy extra accounts. I personally don't use online backups, I just have an offsite harddrive I use that I copy to every few days.

Talkiet

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#429273 20-Jan-2011 17:46

mattwnz:
tomhenderson: I've been looking at online backup options (backblaze/mozy/carbonite) and was wondering if anyone could share their experiences with these products? I'm looking at this as a secondary form of backup in case there is ever a problem with my external backup drives.

The pricing and feature set seem pretty standard for all these companies: approx US$5/month, doesn't back up system/temp files, apps or anything over a certain size threshold, automatic background app handles the upload.

Edit: Posting in Mac OS as I'll only be using with a mac system. If this is the wrong area I can post elsewhere.

I have heard of someone using one of these online backup companies had major problems where they weren't able to be be retrieved when they needed them. They were told some story about the files being archive files, and they don't backup archives. Some of them will also only backup one drive, such as where windows is installed, so if you have lot of addon drives, you would probably have to buy extra accounts. I personally don't use online backups, I just have an offsite harddrive I use that I copy to every few days.

Can you find out what service that was because those restrictions sound like none of the current online backup services.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Ragnor

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#429277 20-Jan-2011 17:54

Carbonite had some big issues with their SAN (storage area network) in the past which resulted in data loss for some clients them suing their vendor (Promise).

http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2009/03/more-on-the-carbonite-backup-failures/
http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/03/27/carbonite-data-loss-reports-miss-the-point/

Mozy and Backblaze have good reputations.

Blackblaze are very open about how they provide their service (blog posts on their storage pod designs etc) and they handled/recovered from a major power outage at their data center last year pretty well (no data loss, just a service interruption).

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/
http://blog.backblaze.com/2010/04/23/dont-push-that-button/

tomhenderson

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#429278 20-Jan-2011 17:56

@ragnor Yes, I've read those blog posts at Backblaze and am leaning towards them at the moment.

nate

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#429324 20-Jan-2011 20:16

Mozy = brilliant. It really is a set and forget solution.

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mattwnz

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#429346 20-Jan-2011 21:34

Talkiet:
mattwnz:
tomhenderson: I've been looking at online backup options (backblaze/mozy/carbonite) and was wondering if anyone could share their experiences with these products? I'm looking at this as a secondary form of backup in case there is ever a problem with my external backup drives.

The pricing and feature set seem pretty standard for all these companies: approx US$5/month, doesn't back up system/temp files, apps or anything over a certain size threshold, automatic background app handles the upload.

Edit: Posting in Mac OS as I'll only be using with a mac system. If this is the wrong area I can post elsewhere.

I have heard of someone using one of these online backup companies had major problems where they weren't able to be be retrieved when they needed them. They were told some story about the files being archive files, and they don't backup archives. Some of them will also only backup one drive, such as where windows is installed, so if you have lot of addon drives, you would probably have to buy extra accounts. I personally don't use online backups, I just have an offsite harddrive I use that I copy to every few days.

Can you find out what service that was because those restrictions sound like none of the current online backup services.

Cheers - N

From what I have heard Carbonite will only backup your computers internal drive but it is unlimited. Not 100% sure if that includes all internal drives, or just your main harddrive. This is on the carbonnite website, which just says 'drive'

2. How much can I back up with Carbonite?

There are no limits on your backup storage space. Carbonite will back up all the user-generated files on your internal hard drive whether you have 1GB, 10GB or more.

It does say you can't use it to backup external harddrives, unless you sign up to their small business product as below.

External Hard Drive backup. Our Carbonite consumer product does not allow you to back up your external hard drive. However, we do offer external hard drive support with our small business product.

The thing with all these online backup solutions is to read through the terms very very carefully, as the terms often contain all the details.

freitasm

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#429383 20-Jan-2011 22:32

I found years ago Carbonite wouldn't backup files larger than 2GB or any .exe - which automatically excluded all the installers I have here.

So I movbed to Mozy - my laptop backup is currently sitting at 140GB. I also use Mozy Pro to backup Geekzone.

If you want to join Mozy, here is an affiliate link: Mozy Backup. As normal all affiliate purchases give a little to Geekzone...

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AndrewTD

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#429457 21-Jan-2011 10:06

Does anyone have a NZ-based online backup service provider they recommend? I really like the idea of being able to use (free) national traffic only to achieve automated, reliable off-site backups.

kind regards Andrew TD

freitasm

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#429458 21-Jan-2011 10:09

There is DataLock, but it seems traffic is free only if you are with Maxnet.

Slingshot also offers their own backup solution called BackFlip, also free traffic but only for Slingshot users.

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tomhenderson

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#430306 23-Jan-2011 19:57

Thanks for the replies. Backblaze and Mozy both offer free trials, so I'm going to give them a try with a couple of folders and see how they work.