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I have been spending quite a bit of time over recent weeks looking into my cloud backups, and want to see if there are any out there I may have missed that might meet my goals.
First, a caveat - I want software that can back up to multiple providers, NOT software provided by the vendor of the storage. I believe that storage vendors, especially those who offer unlimited backups, exercise too much control over what and how things are backed up. I want an independent program I control.
As a simple example: Backblaze offers $5/mo unlimited backups, but limits you to 30 day retention on prior versions, and does not back up lots of things (for example, it does not back up a .ISO file, for reasons lost on me). The latter is changeable if you notice; the former is not.
On the other hand, Backblaze B2 is a la carte storage, and if you use it, you can control entirely what you store there and how. The break even point is about 1TB of storage, above that you pay a bit more for control, below that you actually pay less to have your own software.
So...my goals:
1) Versioned (point in time) backups completely under my control (including automatic runs)
2) Optional encryption as it leaves my system, NOT in-vendor encryption; storage vendor must not have keys
3) Fast, local backups to EHD or NAS or other computers with similar features (cloud backups are my backup-of-last-resort, always have local ones).
4) A variety of mechanisms to ensure reliability - consistency checks, verify-after-write or verify-later, preferably capitalizing on storage features (e.g. S3 provides MD5 without reading a file; B2 provides SH1 without reading a file, which could be used to compare to live on-disk copies).
5) Some track record and indications of stability and support going forward.
6) Broad cloud vendor support but in particular three I've looked at are S3 (and Glacier), Amazon Cloud Drive, B2 as they have the most attractive pricing.
The two I am landing on are:
Cloudberry Online Backup - from Cloudberry Labs. Has by far the most broad list of supported storage, and is definitively a backup product (as opposed to sync), with point in time, easy restores, incremental and differential backups (including large file backups of only changed blocks), encryption... it really is by far the most complete, except for these issues:
- Mediocre at best support (and it is paid, albeit cheap), and mostly no support. To be fair, the product just works most of the time (I have used it for years).
- The cheap ($30) version only will support up to 1TB total size, for unlimited you buy their enterprise at $300. So for most photographers it's a $300 solution not $30 (I bought before this rule so am grandfathered).
- The consistency check and MD5 verification features are poorly documented, consistency check seems to work fine, verification by MD5 I have no clue and have not been able to find out.
Goodsync - from Sieber Systems has been around for a long time, but is (IMO) poorly positioned from a marketing standpoint, as it is strongly a "sync" tool, that happens to do backup. In fact it does a very fine job of backup, but it is hard to tell if you are just browsing. It also requires you jump through a few hoops to avoid the sync aspect and concentrate on backup. But once you do, most the features are there - prior versions (though awkward to retrieve), excellent consistency and verification checks, no size or usage limits. They also have a peer component if you control the other side of the connection (e.g. another computer or NAS) that let's the backups run extremely efficiently, I can actually move at wire speed on 1gbs ethernet. They also produce very frequent updates with bug fixes and features, it is very actively developed and has been for a long track record. I was attracted to them as they were the only vendor who did a good job of Amazon Cloud Drive. Their downsides:
- Not very broad cloud support, for example no B2 (nor plans)
- Well documented but arcane features for backup; e.g. point in time restores are purely manual
- Support is fast and responsive but moody and not very helpful
Most other products I have discounted. For example, I tested ARQ but its Cloud Drive just did not work properly, and when questioned on consistency check or verification processes, was basically told "trust the cloud" when I was offering examples of where the backup in the cloud was corrupted. That ended that trial.
A lot of tools (e.g. oDrive) were very cool but pure sync, no backup support (e.g. point in time restores).
I ignored tools locked to their own cloud (Acronis is one of the better known).
Cloudbacko (which is very much a Cloudberry look-alike) didn't support Glacier or B2, so it did not offer the price of storage advantage.
A ton of others that do not come to mind now, but generally lacked some killer feature, especially in the "cheap but good" storage vendor areas of Glacier, B2, ACD.
So.... my search is never over really. I'm posting to see if others have found a better solution, or other products I should look at.
Or if you are looking, you may want to consider these.
By the way, for reference, as of this writing cloud storage prices to some extent are summarized here though it omits Glacier ($0.007 but with very expensive downloads) and Amazon Cloud Drive (unlimited at $60/mo).
First, a caveat - I want software that can back up to multiple providers, NOT software provided by the vendor of the storage. I believe that storage vendors, especially those who offer unlimited backups, exercise too much control over what and how things are backed up. I want an independent program I control.
As a simple example: Backblaze offers $5/mo unlimited backups, but limits you to 30 day retention on prior versions, and does not back up lots of things (for example, it does not back up a .ISO file, for reasons lost on me). The latter is changeable if you notice; the former is not.
On the other hand, Backblaze B2 is a la carte storage, and if you use it, you can control entirely what you store there and how. The break even point is about 1TB of storage, above that you pay a bit more for control, below that you actually pay less to have your own software.
So...my goals:
1) Versioned (point in time) backups completely under my control (including automatic runs)
2) Optional encryption as it leaves my system, NOT in-vendor encryption; storage vendor must not have keys
3) Fast, local backups to EHD or NAS or other computers with similar features (cloud backups are my backup-of-last-resort, always have local ones).
4) A variety of mechanisms to ensure reliability - consistency checks, verify-after-write or verify-later, preferably capitalizing on storage features (e.g. S3 provides MD5 without reading a file; B2 provides SH1 without reading a file, which could be used to compare to live on-disk copies).
5) Some track record and indications of stability and support going forward.
6) Broad cloud vendor support but in particular three I've looked at are S3 (and Glacier), Amazon Cloud Drive, B2 as they have the most attractive pricing.
The two I am landing on are:
Cloudberry Online Backup - from Cloudberry Labs. Has by far the most broad list of supported storage, and is definitively a backup product (as opposed to sync), with point in time, easy restores, incremental and differential backups (including large file backups of only changed blocks), encryption... it really is by far the most complete, except for these issues:
- Mediocre at best support (and it is paid, albeit cheap), and mostly no support. To be fair, the product just works most of the time (I have used it for years).
- The cheap ($30) version only will support up to 1TB total size, for unlimited you buy their enterprise at $300. So for most photographers it's a $300 solution not $30 (I bought before this rule so am grandfathered).
- The consistency check and MD5 verification features are poorly documented, consistency check seems to work fine, verification by MD5 I have no clue and have not been able to find out.
Goodsync - from Sieber Systems has been around for a long time, but is (IMO) poorly positioned from a marketing standpoint, as it is strongly a "sync" tool, that happens to do backup. In fact it does a very fine job of backup, but it is hard to tell if you are just browsing. It also requires you jump through a few hoops to avoid the sync aspect and concentrate on backup. But once you do, most the features are there - prior versions (though awkward to retrieve), excellent consistency and verification checks, no size or usage limits. They also have a peer component if you control the other side of the connection (e.g. another computer or NAS) that let's the backups run extremely efficiently, I can actually move at wire speed on 1gbs ethernet. They also produce very frequent updates with bug fixes and features, it is very actively developed and has been for a long track record. I was attracted to them as they were the only vendor who did a good job of Amazon Cloud Drive. Their downsides:
- Not very broad cloud support, for example no B2 (nor plans)
- Well documented but arcane features for backup; e.g. point in time restores are purely manual
- Support is fast and responsive but moody and not very helpful
Most other products I have discounted. For example, I tested ARQ but its Cloud Drive just did not work properly, and when questioned on consistency check or verification processes, was basically told "trust the cloud" when I was offering examples of where the backup in the cloud was corrupted. That ended that trial.
A lot of tools (e.g. oDrive) were very cool but pure sync, no backup support (e.g. point in time restores).
I ignored tools locked to their own cloud (Acronis is one of the better known).
Cloudbacko (which is very much a Cloudberry look-alike) didn't support Glacier or B2, so it did not offer the price of storage advantage.
A ton of others that do not come to mind now, but generally lacked some killer feature, especially in the "cheap but good" storage vendor areas of Glacier, B2, ACD.
So.... my search is never over really. I'm posting to see if others have found a better solution, or other products I should look at.
Or if you are looking, you may want to consider these.
By the way, for reference, as of this writing cloud storage prices to some extent are summarized here though it omits Glacier ($0.007 but with very expensive downloads) and Amazon Cloud Drive (unlimited at $60/mo).
