Cloud backup in the UK?

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wooster

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Hi

I know there's a couple of posts that mention cloud backup but none has addressed my specific concerns so I'd ask for any advice you might have.

I've researched the options and it seems to me that Crashplan is a well-regarded ethical back up solution which is economical and reliable. I really am tempted but the fear is that initial back up. Even if I restrict my files to include only those that I'd be likely to be asked for again and disregard others I'm still looking at around 300Gb data and that would take a long time to get online.

In the US Crashplan offers a seeded backup service for a not insignificant $125. Despite being priced highly I'd use it but unfortunately it isn't available here. I suppose I could simply phase in Crashplan over the next 6 months or so but the prospect isn't something that fills me with joy: I spent 3 months ripping my CDs to computer at the start of this year so I don't really need another "project".

Nonetheless, the online solution really appeals to me and I might just bite the bullet. Unless of course, you know of a UK based solution, equally well-regarded and also with a seeding service.

As I say any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks :)
 
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Backblaze is a good option, just over £3 a month with unlimited storage. I have over a terrabite to upload so have had to change my internet provider to get a decent upload rate. Talk talk was poor in this regard.
 
Thanks, Lee. Trouble is they're US too and therefore the seeding is out. I haven't been able to find a UK company with seeding at a reasonable price ie that doesn't cater for large companies
 
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Are you on ADSL or fibre?
 
surfg1mp said:
Sorry Wooster, not sure what seeding is, what's the big deal with finding a uk company?
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Seeding = physically posting a drive to the provider to load into their storage. Saves the pain of the initial upload.
 
mid_gen said:
Curious what qualifies as 'ethical'?
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Was just my shorthand for that they don't rip you off. I've heard horror stories about service "exclusions" that make the service impractical eg throttling upload speeds in initial upload or not allowing external drive information to be backed up etc
 
Oops.. already answered...

Yes, a bit impractical on ADSL - I only went online when I got fibre. I only found a few companies that had UK servers - most are US based. Can't remember if any did seeded. Sorry, not a big help I know...
 
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My stepson has fibre. I wonder if I could plug my computer into his ?

If so how long does fibre take to upload roughly?
 
Quickly calculating that on my broadband ( upload of 0.96Mbps last time I checked) it would take me 500 hours to transfer allowing for broadband fluctuations etc.

Is this a reasonable rough calculation?

I suppose I could let it run for 8 hours a day so it would take me around 9 weeks to complete. Hope the computer could take the strain ;)
 
Depends what package your son is on as it is upload bandwidth limited. The only one I found to be able to utilise fibre (I have a 18Mbit upload link) at 100% and have a UK based server was backupsolutions.com. £65/yr unlimited. I guess you could upload from your son's house and then do a differential backup thereafter. Limited to 1 PC, but has worked flawlessly for me so far (nearly a year). They are a cheap front end to Iron Mountain (where their backup is stored) so a fairly solid firm doing the backup!

As long as you don't have a bandwidth limit, just leave the PC on doing its thing.... Once you are seeded, you can control when updates are run.
 
I use Carbonite, who are US based and I don't know if they do seeding. However, they do have a premium service whereby they'd courier you your complete set of files in an emergency restore situation.

Backup is unlmited, and they do a three year contract for about £85 up front payment.
 
I'm not sure why the time taken for initial back up is a problem. I have used Backblaze for over two years now, and sure the initial back up too a week, but it just got on with the job whilst I carried on working. The back up does not interfere with your work. It just backs up in the background now as necessary and I don't notice it. Their prices are excellent too.
 
Yellowbelly said:
I'm not sure why the time taken for initial back up is a problem. I have used Backblaze for over two years now, and sure the initial back up too a week, but it just got on with the job whilst I carried on working. The back up does not interfere with your work. It just backs up in the background now as necessary and I don't notice it. Their prices are excellent too.
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How much data do you have backed up?
 
Ive been with Carbonite for about 2 years, currently have 350GB from my PC and 0.5GB from my iPad backed up.

Came in useful when my main HD failed on my PC a while back. Just downloaded a mirror image back onto a new drive and carried on as if nothing had happened.
Initial upload took about a week running all day.
 
Thanks guys. I am pretty taken with having an online backup of some sort and will certainly check out the ones mentioned. It seems I'm being unduly pessimistic about upload times but I'm limited to 0.94Mbps upload maximum.

Backup solutions seems an interesting proposition. I hadn't heard of them so will investigate them with the others.

Thank you everyone
 
I don't get that. Mine is the same and it should take around 28 days 24/7 for me to upload 291.6 Gb
 
wooster said:
I don't get that. Mine is the same and it should take around 28 days 24/7 for me to upload 291.6 Gb
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You asked how much I had backed up. It may well have been less when it was backed up initially two years ago. But so what if it takes 28 days?
 
You must've had a lot less than that when you did your initial backup.

Re the time, it just means you've got your computer churning away for 28 days backing up. It might seem an inconvenience to some. Maybe not be an issue at all for others. My view: it would be nicer to be less time

Anyway, I decided eventually to give Crashplan a trial and I've started my 28 days of backup. I'll let you know how much it bothers me
 
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Update. The app is installed and uploading. So far it seems it really isn't much of an inconvenience and I can just get on with everything else while it does it. The only thing is that I can't let my computer sleep so it will need to be active when backing up.

I'm not very great on these matters, but can someone reassure ( or otherwise ) me that there's no detriment to the physical wellbeing of the computer to let it go on for such a long time.

Also, I'm on Sky unlimited and they say it really is unlimited but I'm wondering it they might take some sort of action if they see my uploading 300 Gb in 4 weeks. Any views?
 
No harm at all leaving your PC on for the duration.

I'm with CrashPlan too. My initial 1TB upload took three weeks, but I have fibre.

In terms of "unlimited" or "capped" plans, this is from the POV of downloads, not uploads. However it's worth a call to your ISP to confirm. Mine (Zen Internet) were quite happy for me to send 1TB.

I take a belt and braces approach to backups and also run weekly backups to an external HDD. That is my immediate "hands on" if I need to recover. I also use SkyDrive for a subset of files so I can access those from any of my desktops/laptops. I view CrashPlan as the place I'll need to go to should the house burn down!
 
Hi Duncan. I mailed Sky and they're fine with it which is good. I will have an initial upload of 300Gb but I plan to upload another 500 or so in the pipeline over the next year or so.

As you're with Crashplan can I ask you if its the case that you can remove the HDD do whatever you like with it etc and then simply reattach later and your upload recommences?

Also if you the drive fails I assume you can just put on your backup, select that, and the upload will do a smart upload just moving what is necessary to cover or your files. Is this right?

If you need to recover files and the drive ( or your computer drive ) goes kapoot then you just recover to your new drive?

Sorry for all the questions but I'm new to this :)
 
Hi Wooster,
  • I run a NAS on an HP Microserver with RAID'd discs for the data. This is my F: drive.
  • A subset of the F: drive folders are synced to Crashplan. So F: > CrashPlan
  • A subset of the Crashplan folders is also synced to SkyDrive. So F: > Crashplan > SkyDrive
My external HDD is a local form of backup in addition to Crashplan. Crashplan constantly backs up the subset of the F: drive I identify for cloud storage. Once a week I attach the external HDD and some software called ViceVersa Pro detects I have plugged the drive in and copies all of F: over to the HDD.

Once the backup is complete I can take it off the NAS and use it however. So if my NAS dies my first port of call is to restore from the HDD, but it could be up to one week out of date. Typically that won't worry me as the subset of files that change daily are also on SkyDrive so I can re-sync those from there.

So really I should only ever need to go to CrashPlan to restore if both my NAS and my HDD fail at the same time.

Not sure if this answers your questions, but I hope it helps.

Duncan
 
Thanks Duncan. That's a comprehensive system you have there. Mine is much less so I'm afraid. I simply have my pictures backed up onto ext HDD 1 with a backup copy of these onto ext HDD 2. Super Duper gives smart back up of drive 1 to drive 2. I also have a Time machine backup on a 3rd drive and a Super Duper bootable backup on a 4th.

I thought Crashplan would give me some up to date offsite backup and once set up would be simple to keep updated. I am uploading copies of the images on drive 1. It will take me a few weeks.

What I'm really wondering is if I can continue to edit the images on HDD 1 and remove it to use on my laptop while I'm completing my backup to Crashplan from that drive.
 
wooster said:
I'm not very great on these matters, but can someone reassure ( or otherwise ) me that there's no detriment to the physical wellbeing of the computer to let it go on for such a long time.
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I haven't turned my PC off since I built it about 4 years ago!
 
TCR4x4 said:
I haven't turned my PC off since I built it about 4 years ago!
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Well it puts my backup in perspective :)

Does it matter if it's grinding away without even stopping for sleeping for a few weeks?
 
wooster said:
Does it matter if it's grinding away without even stopping for sleeping for a few weeks?
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Not really.

As for your Q above, I think Crashplan will want to see the files/disk permanently attached. If you take the drive off the machine on which Crashplan is running it will probably think they have been removed and may delete them from the could, depending on the "keep" settings you have. If you need to move the disk around, then the best bet is to pause Crashplan. Open the desktop app and click the pause button ...

All this is "I think" as I don't have your use case. Why not try it? Create a dummy folder with a few files on HDD1, backup just those to Crashplan and see what happens if you take the drive away in the middle of things.
 
Hi Duncan. Thanks for your help. I had mailed Crashplan and this is from their reply:

Yup, you can continue working on the files, saving files, etc. CrashPlan will see the changes as they happen and back them up accordingly. You can also disconnect the drive and CrashPlan will retain the data. When you plug the drive back in, I recommend running a file verification scan to make sure CrashPlan picks it up (go to Settings > Backup and click the Now button next to "verify selection...").
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
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So it seems to be pretty robust. Apparently you can move files to new locations, edit them and take your drive on and off without a problem which is good.

Meantime, my computer is carrying on backing up. I've just left it going 24/7 and it's telling me it has around 20 days left :)
 
I checked again with Crashplan asking if I need do anything before ejecting the disk and they sent me the following:

You do not need to pause, or change your usage at all, when removing your external drive from CrashPlan. When the drive is removed, CrashPlan will simply mark it as "missing". When the drive is attached, it will be recognized and scanned, and backups will continue.
This article describes the process really well.
https://helpdesk.code42.com/entries/22402957-Why-are-my-files-missing-
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So pretty straightforward :)
 
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