[Davecraze]

With the advent of all these unlimited flat monthly fee backup services, I was wondering if anyone is "crazy" enough to back up their larger size media collection online. I have noticed that several of the backup services have removed all file size limits, so it is possible to backup high bit rate mkvs and blueray isos.


I have about 16tb of media (mostly HD movies) spread across twelve 2tb drives and have been seriously thinking about trying this out for the ultimate in disaster protection for flood/fire etc.


I have a symmetrical 35 mbit connection. I have not done the math but I assume that the initial backup could be done in a month or two.


Has anyone done something like this? Feel free to tell me I am crazy or wasting time thinking about this.

 

[DJWikiera]

Your crazy and waisting your time thinking about this.

Your better off having backup drives and storing somewhere else. Do a search, someone did some math on doing a large transfer like that and you may be surprised how long it could take.

 

[Davecraze]



Quote:
Originally Posted by DJWikiera /forum/post/20811327


Your crazy and waisting your time thinking about this.

Your better off having backup drives and storing somewhere else. Do a search, someone did some math on doing a large transfer like that and you may be surprised how long it could take.

Thanks very much. Even if it is 3 months to do the first backup, not a big deal to me. If backup drives are my only real solution, it doesn't mean enough to me to worry about backup drives and the logistics of that, so I would just do without it.

 

[shabazkilla]

I have 13TB and growing backed up with Crashplan. The initial backup took a few months @ about 10mbit upload.

 

[electrickrypt]

You're better off investing your money and time in hard disks. Online backups are extremely unreliable and a waste of time when compared to hard and quick access data.

 

[Davecraze]

If the house burned down, I think I would not need hard and quick data access. Just would like to get it back in due course.


shabazkilla: Is there a file size limit on crashplan? How often do you update the backup? did you look at any other services? Also like how you can send them the drives for initial backup

 

[creativeoutleh]

My experience with online backup hasn't been good so far. It does seem unreliable. At times its "lost" my entire backup and have had to start-over. When you switch or upgrade your O.S. you can have problems as well.


I've switched to a Synology NAS for large media files and portable drives placed in a fire safe. Its easy to be lazy with the portable drives though.

 

[MrBobb]

Online backup: Gosh, the commercial kind, an outfit like IBM, or EDS, I would trust. Anything else, fly-by-night operations, good for giggles but serious backups u can depend on when u need it? DIY.

 

[shabazkilla]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Davecraze /forum/post/20812034


If the house burned down, I think I would not need hard and quick data access. Just would like to get it back in due course.


shabazkilla: Is there a file size limit on crashplan? How often do you update the backup? did you look at any other services? Also like how you can send them the drives for initial backup

Crashplan doesn't have a file size limit. I know that Backblaze does which is why I skipped them.


Before Crashplan I used Mozy with decent results. Uploads were slower. It took about 6 months to finish my initial backup. I left Mozy when they dropped their 'all you can eat' plans. They sent me an estimate on how much it would cost with their new pricing plans and it was just over $1k a month!


Before that I tried Carbonite which was even slower. I mean horribly slow once you get past a few hundred gigs uploaded. I forget the exact number, but I did the math and it was a few years to complete the initial backup due to their throttling

.


One thing to note about Crashplan's ability to send them a hard drive with your initial backup. You can only send them a single drive so it's not that great.


On the bright side one thing that sets Crashplan apart from the other online backup providers is that by default they do not delete removed files after 30 days or some other arbitrary number like everyone else. You can change that setting, but I think it's great. One thing I always worried about with Mozy was my ability to re-downloaded all my media in the event of a crash. If I didn't get it all in 30 days it was automatically deleted. No such worries with Crashplan.


As for my backup settings - I just started using Crashplan's backup sets feature so I can have different settings based on content location. I have my documents and other non-media locations monitored in real-time for changes and I verify the backup selection daily. Since this data is only ~30 gigs this is very quick. I also have compression enabled on this backup set. For my media I don't monitor the filesystem in real-time, I verify the backup selection every 14 days, and I have compression disabled.

 

[Calcvictim]

do you internet providers do not have bandwidth limits?


Comcast in Boston has a soft cap at 250 gigs a month.

 

[Davecraze]

shabazkilla: Thank you very much. Very informative. What kind of sustained upload speeds are you getting with Crashplan?


calcvictim: My ISP doesn't have any caps or throttling.

 

[mslide]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Davecraze /forum/post/20811272


I have about 16tb of media (mostly HD movies) spread across twelve 2tb drives and have been seriously thinking about trying this out for the ultimate in disaster protection for flood/fire etc.

Personally, I think you're crazy. The ultimate is simply putting your physical backups offsite. A car is much quicker than an ISP when it comes to backing up and restoring terabytes worth of data. That's what a lot companies do that need to backup tons of data to an offsite location.


+1 to the comment about not trusting those online places.

 

[bjterry62]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Davecraze /forum/post/20812034


If the house burned down, I think I would not need hard and quick data access. Just would like to get it back in due course.


shabazkilla: Is there a file size limit on crashplan? How often do you update the backup? did you look at any other services? Also like how you can send them the drives for initial backup

If your house burned down and all you're worried about is your media.......


You DO have a problem!


BT

 

[haileris]

Sounds interesting to me. I'd be scared about them changing their policies. I mean, not sure how they can break even if everyone had 15TB media collections to save up there.


I understand the reticence over these type of services but the flip side is that it is damn expensive to setup a mirror of your device, not to mention that you have to remember to invoke it unless you have engineered a solution yourself.

 

[Sammy2]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Calcvictim /forum/post/20812680


do you internet providers do not have bandwidth limits?


Comcast in Boston has a soft cap at 250 gigs a month.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Davecraze /forum/post/20812973


shabazkilla: Thank you very much. Very informative. What kind of sustained upload speeds are you getting with Crashplan?


calcvictim: My ISP doesn't have any caps or throttling.

Davecraze: Who's your ISP? and what speed do you get?

 

[Davecraze]

bjterry62: Not sure where that is coming from and is really irrelevant.


samm2: It's Verizon fios - 35 mbit symmetrical.


mslide: Agree, obviously, physical backups would be the best. I am just never going to go through all that drive swapping and storing, so if there is a service that could make it work online, even at a couple hundred dollars per year, I would probably do it.


If it is not feasible, so be it.

 

[Jay M]

I keep a duplicate set of disks in the house. Last week a 2TB disk failed and I only need to replace it with the back up disk and I was up and running again. A new disk arrived from Amazon 2 days later and I made a new backup.


I use synctoy to keep the last primary and its backup in sync until they are full, then I pull the backup out and put it in a drawer.


worst case, I can always re-rip 2TB of optical media.


I do use Jungledisk to do nightly backups of pictures and documents. I am very happy with that.


~Jay

 

[Sammy2]

Davecraze: Bummer, no FIoS here, only uVerse and Charter... Charter has a softcap that tiers with your speed and uVerse CHARGES OVERAGE FEES. That is why I am using Charter becaue they aren't really enforcing the cap at this time.

 

[ogormask]

Just put the drives at a friends house plus then he can get free data too.

 

[bjterry62]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Davecraze /forum/post/20814059


bjterry62: Not sure where that is coming from and is really irrelevant.


samm2: It's Verizon fios - 35 mbit symmetrical.


mslide: Agree, obviously, physical backups would be the best. I am just never going to go through all that drive swapping and storing, so if there is a service that could make it work online, even at a couple hundred dollars per year, I would probably do it.


If it is not feasible, so be it.

Failed attempt at humor, sorry.


Seriously, I would expect one could build a complete backup server and store it at a climate controlled remote location for about the same cost (time and money) as it would take to back it all up online. Also, just because your ISP does not have bandwidth limits now does not mean they won't have them if / when you have to download your data. What took a month or two without limits could take a year or more if limits were enacted.


Something to think about.


BT