Crashplan exiting consumer market - the hunt for a new provider.

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#2170562 31-Jan-2019 09:14

@michaelmurfy if you're interested, I finally got a response from CrashPlan support. As anticipated no help there:

CrashPlan users can expect to back up about 10-30 GB of information per day on average if their computer is powered on and not in standby mode. We are a shared service, which means that upload and download speeds depend on the number of users connected at any given point. CrashPlan estimates the total time that it will take to upload your data based on your current network speeds. This estimation will fluctuate over the time of your initial backup.

They then listed all the basic steps to improve initial seed time, increase CPU usage etc.

I replied with the following:

I understand that I am still getting speeds a little better than your 10-30GB per day estimate, but I am curious as to why I was previously getting a consistently much faster speed for months and then on around 15 Dec 2018 the speed dropped significantly and has remained consistent at the lowered speed. It is not an issue of CPU or memory allocation as these have already been optimized.

By backup speeds dropped by more than 90% and have stayed that way, it seems unlikely that the number of users utilizing the service would have increased that much all at once to account for such a significant drop.

Are you able to advise if you do any artificial throttling or rate limiting on users?

If you do rate limit as part of a fair use policy that is your prerogative, but it would be great if you could advise if this is the case?

Like I said in my reply; if they rate limit then so be it, but I'd just like to know.

Can you let me know if you get a different response?

michaelmurfy

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#2170572 31-Jan-2019 09:34

@Paul1977 I got the exact same message including an additional step to raise the memory Crashplan can use (as I had it set to 1gb). This has increased speeds for me a bit however it is still dog slow.

They're now moving me to the Sydney datacentre. Will report back when this change happens.

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Paul1977

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#2170643 31-Jan-2019 11:01

michaelmurfy:

@Paul1977 I got the exact same message including an additional step to raise the memory Crashplan can use (as I had it set to 1gb). This has increased speeds for me a bit however it is still dog slow.

They're now moving me to the Sydney datacentre. Will report back when this change happens.

@michaelmurfy I'll be very interested to hear how your speeds go on the Sydney server.

For memory usage do you mean the java mx XXXX command? Mine was was already very high, but it never seems to actually use more than a GB or so for me anyway.

Previously I'd found the biggest improvement came from setting compression to OFF and setting deduplication to MINIMAL, which @SirHumpfryApple was good enough to detail several posts back how to change now that CrashPlan have removed these options from the GUI.

He also advised about settings for maximum file sizes to attempt deduplication on. I personally use a value of 0 (which means unlimited) for dataDeDupAutoMaxFileSize and dataDeDupAutoMaxFileSizeForWan as I found no improvement by using 1 (which effectively disables rolling deduplication entirley by setting a max file size of 1 byte). Probably a good idea to at least test it with a value of 1 though as you're results may differ from mine.

I'll update here if I hear back with an answer on whether they actively rate limit users.

michaelmurfy

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#2170648 31-Jan-2019 11:16

@Paul1977 Thanks for that.

It is pretty clear that some rate limiting is going on. I made the changes in the configuration and am now getting 10Mbit. Still going to take months for my initial backup to complete.

I simply don't accept that the initial backup can take months to complete as per what their support was saying. Data can change and especially in a large business this data can also change rapidly. This will essentially mean there will be many business out there that can't even complete their initial backup if this were the case.

It looks like Crashplan actually isn't an option for my backups. It is a shame that Backblaze has no Linux support.

mdf

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#2170650 31-Jan-2019 11:23

michaelmurfy:

<snip> ... It is a shame that Backblaze has no Linux support.

I use Backblaze B2 from Unraid via rclone. I found it super effective for my stuff (mainly photos admittedly so less demanding than your requirements, I suspect). It's a one man band, but Nick is super responsive in the rclone forums and social media.

Paul1977

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#2170661 31-Jan-2019 12:04

@michaelmurfy Got a couple of updates:

We do not throttle speeds. There are many factors that contribute to backup and restore speeds and it is completely normal for them to vary greatly. Truth be told, the speeds you were getting before you saw any slowdown are actually remarkable speeds for this service. In the interest of setting realistic expectations, I do not expect you to see speeds like that consistently, if ever again. I'm not saying it won't happen, just that it's not common to get such great speeds. As I noted in my previous message, it is more realistic to expect speeds between 1-5 Mbps. Anything above 5 Mbps is considered very good.

So the official word is they don't rate limit. Seems dubious to me, and I'd be surprised if the help desk people know everything that really goes on. But I at least makes their position clear that if your getting 1Mbps or more then they don't consider there to be a problem.

The advanced deduplication and compression settings were removed from the application in Version 6. These settings were for local backup archives only - cloud backups always utilize full compression, deduplication, and encryption.

This is contrary to what I have read, and my own experience. Changing these settings in the past has made a tremendous difference. Unless they have made a change that means cloud NOW always uses full compression and dedupe, but it used to be configurable?

That said, I was trying different settings the other night and I'm sure when I set compression and depupe to ON and FULL my speeds dropped even further. Might have to try again to confirm.

Regardless, I don't see an benefit in probing their support team further since what I consider to be a significant slow down they consider to be "very good".

Paul1977

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#2170662 31-Jan-2019 12:17

mdf:

I use Backblaze B2 from Unraid via rclone. I found it super effective for my stuff (mainly photos admittedly so less demanding than your requirements, I suspect). It's a one man band, but Nick is super responsive in the rclone forums and social media.

Pay as you go like B2 is cost effective for up to a couple of TB, but can get expensive quickly. 7TB would cost US$35/month and then and additional US$70 if you needed to restore the whole lot.

I haven't used it but I believe the BackBlaze Personal service is unlimited, however I think restores are done a file at a time - or for multiple files it creates a ZIP for you to download. The ZIP file approach seems very problematic if a full restore is ever required. Can a BackBlaze user confirm this?

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#2170732 31-Jan-2019 13:40

@michaelmurfy:

It is a shame that Backblaze has no Linux support.

What? Backblaze can be used as a bucket storage and with that there are tens of applications and integrations available. Including for Linux as listed here.

You need to be more specific with that statement.

michaelmurfy

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#2170733 31-Jan-2019 13:42

freitasm:

@michaelmurfy:

It is a shame that Backblaze has no Linux support.

What? Backblaze can be uses as a bucket storage and with that there are tens of applications and integrations available. Including for Linux as listed here.

You need to be more specific with that statement.

Apologies - I mean with their unlimited backup option. I can only use Backblaze B2 with Linux which is incredibly expensive for backing up ~7tb of data (as above).

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#2171472 1-Feb-2019 20:22

Just an update (@Paul1977) - no idea what support did but they said they've adjusted some settings and also noticed a problem with traffic routing from NZ:

I've performed something on my end - let me know if that doesn't spark some new uploads from Pikachu! If it doesn't, then we're actually trying to track cases in which an Australian device somehow starts backing up to Seattle data center. If this is the case, then we'd love to see some client logs from your device, in order to investigate this.

Now am getting 300Mbit on the backup and is due to complete the full backup in 2 days. I'll keep monitoring it. This is over to their US host (boh-sea.crashplan.com).

Paul1977

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#2171506 1-Feb-2019 20:58

michaelmurfy:

Just an update (@Paul1977) - no idea what support did but they said they've adjusted some settings and also noticed a problem with traffic routing from NZ:

I've performed something on my end - let me know if that doesn't spark some new uploads from Pikachu! If it doesn't, then we're actually trying to track cases in which an Australian device somehow starts backing up to Seattle data center. If this is the case, then we'd love to see some client logs from your device, in order to investigate this.

Now am getting 300Mbit on the backup and is due to complete the full backup in 2 days. I'll keep monitoring it. This is over to their US host (boh-sea.crashplan.com).

Thanks for the update. That’s good news for you.

I’m still crawling along at about 8Mbps to Sydney :(

I wish I’d gotten your support person!

EDIT: @michaelmurfy Maybe you could ask the support person you got whether there is a similar issue effected the routing from NZ to Sydney server (caa-syd.crashplan.com) or setting that could be changed like he did for your server? Maybe worth a try since you seem to have gotten someone who can actually help.

RmACK

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#2171681 2-Feb-2019 09:30

Do any of you who still use crash plan use your own keys, especially pass phrase based? If so, do you do test restores?

I'm curious because I used to get around 200Mbps to Sydney but ditched it last year due to a huge bug. I found after about 4-6 weeks, the restore interface would reject my passphrase based key. I wiped the backup and started over, even though I was convinced I knew my pass phrases. Happened for both of my machines (mac and Linux). The third time I saved my phrase in my password manager to guarantee that it wasn't me stuffing it up (was a long pass phrase!). As usual, I set a calendar reminder and did small test restores every week. Same issue occurred with the definitely correct phrase. That's when I finally ditched crash plan. This all happened shortly after the forced move to business edition.

All along, I have friends who use CP and have never had this issue but they let CP manage the keys for them. I'll check their speeds for you next time I visit.

Paul1977

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#2171699 2-Feb-2019 09:52

RmACK: Do any of you who still use crash plan use your own keys, especially pass phrase based? If so, do you do test restores?

I'm curious because I used to get around 200Mbps to Sydney but ditched it last year due to a huge bug. I found after about 4-6 weeks, the restore interface would reject my passphrase based key. I wiped the backup and started over, even though I was convinced I knew my pass phrases. Happened for both of my machines (mac and Linux). The third time I saved my phrase in my password manager to guarantee that it wasn't me stuffing it up (was a long pass phrase!). As usual, I set a calendar reminder and did small test restores every week. Same issue occurred with the definitely correct phrase. That's when I finally ditched crash plan. This all happened shortly after the forced move to business edition.

All along, I have friends who use CP and have never had this issue but they let CP manage the keys for them. I'll check their speeds for you next time I visit.

@RmACK I use my own very long and complicated custom key. Did a test restore just last week with no problem. Have been with CrashPlan for years with the same key.

You can actually go into the security settings page of the app and choose to copy your custom key to the clipboard. Try pasting that into notepad and see if it matches what you have in your password manager.

My only issue is the backup speed. Like you I used to get 200Mbps, now it’s about 8Mbps.

However restore speed (based on limited testing) is still around 200Mbps. If it would sustain that throughout a multi-TB restore might be another matter though.

Paul1977

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#2196330 12-Mar-2019 09:34

So after a lot of investigating and testing I have discovered that the huge drop in my backup speed coincided with Windows 10 upgrading from 1803 to 1809.

This wasn't obvious at first since I didn't notice the lower speeds until 6 weeks later.

Overall upload speed was still fine on 1809 - Speedtests showed 500+Mbps upload speed. Only CrashPlan was affected.

I've confirmed this by restoring my system drive to early December, and the backup speeds jumped back up to 200+Mbps. I subsequently updated the CrashPlan app, NIC drivers, and Windows updates (excluding feature update to 1809). Backup speed remained 200+Mbps.

As soon as I upgrade to 1809 the backup speed drops to approx 8Mbps (actually fluctuates wildly between 3Mbps and 16Mbps). Rollback to 1803 from within Windows (rather than restore backup this time) and the speed increases again to 200+Mbps.

Next month I'll try upgrading directly from 1803 to 1903 when it's released, and if the same speed drop occurs I'll try a clean install of 1903.

But I would be really interested to know if anyone has experienced anything similar with CrashPlan since upgrading to Windows 10 1809? I'm trying to figure out if it's just a weird issue with my install, or if it impacts all 1809 installs.

droopanu

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Master Geek

#2196400 12-Mar-2019 10:16

Paul1977:

So after a lot of investigating and testing I have discovered that the huge drop in my backup speed coincided with Windows 10 upgrading from 1803 to 1809.

That is interesting. I remember that when I was using crashplan, I could see a lot of traffic generated from my PC that was not identified to any application by any of the windows monitoring tools I have tried.

After a while, I manage to discover that the traffic was generated by the "Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface". That is a IPv6 tunneling interface that I have never configured, and I believe was enabled by the crashplan client.

So I did a test, and disabled the Teredo interface and my backup speeds dropped, just like in your case.

Would be interesting to see if there is an issue with Teredo interface in 1809 that causes that speed drop.

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