cloud backup software

[hardcore_gamer29]

my WD external HDD is failing is there is any way to back up data to some cloud and download anytime and anywhere

 

[damian101]

That would take way very long and would also cost you money. It seems to me the best option is to just buy another external HDD and copy the files over tho the other drive.

 

[jleon]

I use BackBlaze and found it affordable and ensures I have offsite backup (cloud).
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[SpaceBeer]

Depends on amount of data you have and price you are willing to pay. You can use e.g. Duplicati (FOSS) to backup (encrypted) data to most of popular cloud services.

Other option is to use Cryptomator (FOSS), Boxcryptor or Veracrypt (FOSS, use only if service supports delta sync) to have easier access. So this is more sync than backup. Or to use service that supports E2E encryption, e.g. Tresorit, Sync.com, Nextcloud (FOSS, still in beta), pCloud (with Crypto Addon)

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would just buy another drive, way cheaper in the long run. I would also look into raid so you don't have to worry so much about a single drive failing, but you'll still want backups on top of that.

If you do want to backup online you can still get a cloud provider but I would not rely on that only. I personally like having all my backups on hand where I know they're safe and in my control.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Backblaze is $6 a month per system for an unlimited amount of data. That's less than $75 a year, and there are apps for mobile access, as well as access to files via Web Browser. It's simple and straightforward to do and my recommendation for users simply looking to get protection from their data (and out of the house where it can still be affected by natural disasters).

 

[Muadib]

Backblaze is $6 a month per system for an unlimited amount of data. That's less than $75 a year, and there are apps for mobile access, as well as access to files via Web Browser. It's simple and straightforward to do and my recommendation for users simply looking to get protection from their data (and out of the house where it can still be affected by natural disasters).

Do they allow for backing up a NAS? I use Google drive, but Backblaze would be cheaper with more storage.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Do they allow for backing up a NAS? I use Google drive, but Backblaze would be cheaper with more storage.

Not with the Backblaze consumer app / plan. $6 a month a client can swallow a couple power users when many clients are just backing up 20GB or whatever of space, but allowing your app to be deployed on anything with the same low price is how you let power users "ruin" the profitability of the service. It's the exact reason why CrashPlan left the home market entirely, because Power users with Tens of TB's of data were using the $5 a month plan to save their data collections to the cloud.

All that said, they do allow NAS Backup via a number of integrations with their B2 Object Storage. Whoever makes your NAS, if they're one of the main ones (like Synology) likely has an integration that works with B2. But Backblaze B2 is still $0.005 / GB per month, which will end up at equilibrium after about 1TB of data. I pay about $20/month to keep a bit over 4TB in the cloud.

 

[Muadib]

Not with the Backblaze consumer app / plan. $6 a month a client can swallow a couple power users when many clients are just backing up 20GB or whatever of space, but allowing your app to be deployed on anything with the same low price is how you let power users "ruin" the profitability of the service. It's the exact reason why CrashPlan left the home market entirely, because Power users with Tens of TB's of data were using the $5 a month plan to save their data collections to the cloud.

All that said, they do allow NAS Backup via a number of integrations with their B2 Object Storage. Whoever makes your NAS, if they're one of the main ones (like Synology) likely has an integration that works with B2. But Backblaze B2 is still $0.005 / GB per month, which will end up at equilibrium after about 1TB of data. I pay about $20/month to keep a bit over 4TB in the cloud.

Okay, then I will stay with Google. Thanks for the info!

 

[ultimatebob]

I don't think that I would want to rely on a cloud backup service to clone a failing hard drive. Unless you have bidirectional gigabit Internet, the backup to the cloud would likely take longer than the remaining lifespan of the drive.

With Comcast's absurdly low (10 Mbps) upload speeds, it would probably take me 2 weeks to upload a TB of data, and I'd probably go over my new 1.2 TB monthly bandwidth cap in the process.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Cloud backup is good as secondary backup but I would never trust it as primary. At very least, use raid + backups on separate local drives. The raid protects you from drive failure while ensuring continued access to data, and the backups will protect you from every other potential cause of data loss. Raid alone is not a backup solution but it can ensure you don't need to use your backups if a drive fails.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

For many people, backup is an after-thought. As such, a backup solution needs to be cheap, easy to use, and relatively automated. A cloud backup provider like Backblaze gets recommended because it's affordable, it's easy to use, and it gets backups out of the house. A flood, fire, or other act of god can easily take out an in-home backup. A cloud backup is absolutely the best solution as a primary backup for the largest percentage of users needing to back up their data. Sure people like us may store terabytes of data and want a local backup to restore from, and a remote backup for acts of gods, but again, that's not most people, and having a backup on some random single drive that may have bit rot, or the backup software stopped running, or the disk started having bad sectors at some point, or someone left the disk connected all the time and now it's converted to a bucket of uselessness because of ransomware is a lot of extra problems to have to deal with vs. a cloud backup.