Crashplan....alternative?

Forums › IT Pro and developers › Crashplan....alternative?

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2159

#243436 11-Dec-2018 19:44

My crashplan cheap business subscription will be coming to an end soon.

What is a good alternative? Backblaze seemed fairly popular a while back, but there was some talk that amazon could be a better alternative .

I want to backup around 2tb of data.

1 | 2

Amanzi
1354 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 331

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2143564 11-Dec-2018 19:55

There was a big thread on here a while back discussing alternatives. I tried a bunch of things and I ended up paying for Arq (https://www.arqbackup.com/) and then backing up to Backblaze B2 (https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage.html). The Arq licence can be used on any/all of your computers and Backblaze B2 was the cheapest storage provider. The Arq app works well - sits in the background doing its thing and sends me an email when something fails to backup. I've also had to restore files a few times and it works perfectly fine for that too. I also have my Windows personal folders (Documents, Desktop, Pictures, etc) all redirected into a OneDrive folder, so that's my second level of protection.

Edit - I see Arq are now offering their own Cloud backup service. I haven't tried that, I just a bought a licence for the app: https://www.arqbackup.com/arqbackup/

Benoire

2878 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 681

#2143583 11-Dec-2018 20:43

How much data do you want to backup? If you have NAS then you can run crashplan in docker and use that and you'll get unlimited backup that is worthwhile for anything greater than 2TB, with unlimited versioning. Less than 2TB of stored data and you're in the realms of the other providers in my opinion.

hio77

'That VDSL Cat'
13036 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3896

ID Verified

Trusted

Lizard Networks

Subscriber

#2143588 11-Dec-2018 21:03

amanzi:

Edit - I see Arq are now offering their own Cloud backup service. I haven't tried that, I just a bought a licence for the app: https://www.arqbackup.com/arqbackup/

only mac though!

Does this not have the silly 1TB limit that most clients do?

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Benoire

2878 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 681

#2143589 11-Dec-2018 21:05

Its 5.99 per TB stored.

hio77

'That VDSL Cat'
13036 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3896

ID Verified

Trusted

Lizard Networks

Subscriber

#2143590 11-Dec-2018 21:07

Benoire:

Its 5.99 per TB stored.

Sorry should have been clear.

The app backing up to a third party, such as B2.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Benoire

2878 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 681

#2143591 11-Dec-2018 21:09

Oh sorry, not sure then.

HP

Shop now for HP laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

kingjj

1730 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 450

ID Verified

Trusted

#2143636 11-Dec-2018 21:26

Could try idrive.com (not affl with Apple). If you do a quick search you can usually find deals for $12-$20 USD for a years worth of 2TB storage. App is pretty good, allows you to backup NAS's etc. Upload is not the quickest but download seems to work well. Haven't had to do any large scale restores but small ones have worked fine. Compresses everything uploaded (I've got about 1.6TB of stuffed backed up there, only using 700gb's). After a year its about $65USD for a year from memory.

timmmay

20858 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5350

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2143638 11-Dec-2018 21:27

CloudBerry Backup with AWS S3, tiered to Glacier. US$12.50 per TB on S3 IA class, moving to US$4/TB if you can make use of the glacier storage class. There's a new S3 intelligent tiering feature that might make glacier storage class easier.

I don't fully trust CloudBerry block based backups and such, for no really good reason. I also figure plain file uploads are more compatible than compression and such that's vendor specific. I send data to S3 using https, encrypt using S3, and do version history with S3.

What I do is keep latest data on S3 IA class, uploaded daily. I backup to hard disks every month or so. Every six months I convert all my raw files to medium jpeg, videos to 720p, and upload to glacier proper. Because they're smaller files the cost is low. I have about 500,000 images and a lot of family video, lots of files, taking about 80GB. S3 / Glacier cost me about US$2 per month.

BackBlaze B2 is cheaper storage, less reliable in theory (single data center, S3 / Glacier uses 3 data centers and regularly checks file integrity), but B2 is reliable enough.

BackBlaze managed backup is $5 per month for unlimited, which is a great deal. Less control though.

amanzi

Amanzi
1354 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 331

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2143647 11-Dec-2018 21:53

hio77:

Benoire:

Its 5.99 per TB stored.

Sorry should have been clear.

The app backing up to a third party, such as B2.

No, Arq doesn't have any limits like that. Just a straight forward licence for the app and you can use it for whatever you like. You can backup to a heap of different destinations too.

amanzi

Amanzi
1354 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 331

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2143651 11-Dec-2018 22:03

timmmay:

CloudBerry Backup with AWS S3, tiered to Glacier. US$12.50 per TB on S3 IA class, moving to US$4/TB if you can make use of the glacier storage class. There's a new S3 intelligent tiering feature that might make glacier storage class easier.

I don't fully trust CloudBerry block based backups and such, for no really good reason. I also figure plain file uploads are more compatible than compression and such that's vendor specific. I send data to S3 using https, encrypt using S3, and do version history with S3.

What I do is keep latest data on S3 IA class, uploaded daily. I backup to hard disks every month or so. Every six months I convert all my raw files to medium jpeg, videos to 720p, and upload to glacier proper. Because they're smaller files the cost is low. I have about 500,000 images and a lot of family video, lots of files, taking about 80GB. S3 / Glacier cost me about US$2 per month.

BackBlaze B2 is cheaper storage, less reliable in theory (single data center, S3 / Glacier uses 3 data centers and regularly checks file integrity), but B2 is reliable enough.

BackBlaze managed backup is $5 per month for unlimited, which is a great deal. Less control though.

I tried CloudBerry and hated everything about it - everything from the crappy website, the pricing structure, and using the app itself.

One thing to note with the $5p/m BackBlaze backup app, is that they only have a 30 day retention policy. This was the deal breaker for me. I even emailed them to check if that was really the case and they confirmed it and had no plans to change.

stinger

628 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 169
Inactive user

#2143704 11-Dec-2018 23:03

I'll give a +1 to Backblaze, it's cheaper than Amazon S3, and offers everything I need. I use duplicity so I can have PITA backups (up to two months) and the information is GPG encrypted before it leaves my computer.

Mighty Ape

Shop now at Mighty Ape (affiliate link).

timmmay

20858 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5350

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2143749 12-Dec-2018 07:25

amanzi:

I tried CloudBerry and hated everything about it - everything from the crappy website, the pricing structure, and using the app itself.

One thing to note with the $5p/m BackBlaze backup app, is that they only have a 30 day retention policy. This was the deal breaker for me. I even emailed them to check if that was really the case and they confirmed it and had no plans to change.

I agree that it's not the best software ever. However, if you use it as a sync tool it works fine - though I have found a couple of major bugs with operation, though none with restores. I don't have a lot of confidence in the incremental backup feature, which is why I do a sync as well.

I'd like to find some decent PC software that reliably does syncing and incremental backups to disk and cloud storage. I can't find any. I'd even take reliable incremental backups for a reasonable price, and sync them to the cloud myself, but there's not a lot I found that I liked. I didn't like the Arq backup interface, and I found a couple of bugs in the short time I was evaluating it, so I discounted it.

xpd

Geek of Coastguard
14115 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 4574

Retired Mod

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2143756 12-Dec-2018 07:45

Im using Backblaze, wish i could select drives to backup but otherwise very happy with it - Ive set a schedule on it to run around 1am rather than letting it run 24/7 as I found it can cause a bit of congestion especially if playing games online.

Its probably backing up around 150GB a night.

Had to do a restore once, was painless and fast enough, but wasnt anything time critical that I was restoring.

XPD / Gavin

LinkTree

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2159

#2143760 12-Dec-2018 07:55

timmmay:

I agree that it's not the best software ever. However, if you use it as a sync tool it works fine - though I have found a couple of major bugs with operation, though none with restores. I don't have a lot of confidence in the incremental backup feature, which is why I do a sync as well.

I'd like to find some decent PC software that reliably does syncing and incremental backups to disk and cloud storage. I can't find any. I'd even take reliable incremental backups for a reasonable price, and sync them to the cloud myself, but there's not a lot I found that I liked. I didn't like the Arq backup interface, and I found a couple of bugs in the short time I was evaluating it, so I discounted it.

Like you, I had been hoping to buy good client synching software and then some cloud disk space.

Crashplan still looks the best option but they don't have consumer plans anymore :( I guess they weren't making enough margin.

Backblaze / idrive still not as good.

SirHumphreyAppleby

2938 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1860

#2143764 12-Dec-2018 08:02

surfisup1000:

Crashplan still looks the best option but they don't have consumer plans anymore :( I guess they weren't making enough margin.

I ended up consolidating backups, so overall I'll still be paying CrashPlan about the same as I was previously. The year of service at a reduced rate was a bonus.

In my case, I have around 20TB backed up with them, and nothing else comes close in terms of price. If they start enforcing their 5TB limit, I'll be heading down the LTO route and giving up on cloud backup except for Duplicati syncing to OneDrive on my dev box.

1 | 2