Online/offsite backup services - Options

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Hello. Just reviewing my options for backing up my files/image library "off site". We are talking a lot of data (2TB). Had a look at Crashplan but it doesn't seem to be available in the uk. https://www.code42.com/store/. Was just wondering what everyone else uses. (I am using a cable connection, so upload speed would be better - if still very slow).

Thank you.
 
Get a 3TB hard drive and a USB3/eSata docking station. Backup to this disk and keep the disk off-site (at work, a friend/relative's house). Get two disks and rotate them once a week.
 
Crashplan is available everywhere, its an online service. You can't use their seed option but you can upload all you want. I have 2.5TB backed up on it - it took about 3-4 months to back it up completely
 
I use crashplan in the UK, find it very good and reasonably priced. You can use their software free to back up locally to a nas etc and off site to a family/friends computer (or their NAS), or pa to use the Crashplan servers.
 
I can also confirm that Crashplan is fine in the UK. The only issue is that it's difficult to use their hard drive "seeding" service from outside the US.
 
hollis_f said:
Get a 3TB hard drive and a USB3/eSata docking station. Backup to this disk and keep the disk off-site (at work, a friend/relative's house). Get two disks and rotate them once a week.
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This is exactly what I do. I have one drive running daily backups in the office and one drive running daily backups at home, and every Friday I rotate them. Simples!
 
Another Crash plan user here with more than 2TB of storage. The initial upload took weeks to complete and even after speaking to their tech support and making optimisation changes that they suggested the upload speed is woefully slow.

That moan aside, I think it's a great service which I'm more than happy to pay for.
 
Interesting thread, I am also looking for an off site backup solution.

Currently using a 6TB (2x3TB mirrored) on a Buffalo NAS unit.

I found this comparison between Crashplan and iDrive - which is biased, of course, as it was done by iDrive.

https://www.idrive.com/crashplan

Crashplan users, why did you pick Crashplan over iDrive and other services, please?

If anyone using iDrive or any other services I'd like to hear your opinion, please?

Would also prefer a UK based solution if there is anything available.

I think I might try the iDrive free plan as a tester.
 
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I use iCloud driver that syncs all my RAW images to the cloud every night. Obviously it only syncs files that have changed or been added and automatically removes any images that I have deleted.

I have an external HDD ( time machine) which backs up my entire HDD on an ongoing basis. This is connected to my Mac so only used if I need to recover a file or if my main HDD fails.

I also use Mylio which syncs all my full res jpg images between my HDD, a iCloud folder, and two iPads.
 
JennyGW said:
Crashplan users, why did you pick Crashplan over iDrive and other services, please?
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The ability to back up a NAS and cost - €40 per annum for unlimited data.

hollis_f said:
And how long would it take to download it all?
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A long long time. That's why you need the files backed up locally as well. Crashplan is only really in the event of a catastrophe and you lose everything.
 
Ballyman said:
Crashplan is available everywhere, its an online service. You can't use their seed option but you can upload all you want. I have 2.5TB backed up on it - it took about 3-4 months to back it up completely
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Out of interest, what speed of internet connection did you have as a rough benchmark of how long it would take? Thanks.

Ironic really that they are reporting on the news tonight that the internet will reach capacity in 5 years.....
 
I dont think it matters how fast your upload speed is as the bandwidth is shared among all the users. It probably averaged around 4-5Mbps

My upload speed at home BTW is 150Mbps.
 
Ballyman said:
I dont think it matters how fast your upload speed is as the bandwidth is shared among all the users. It probably averaged around 4-5Mbps

My upload speed at home BTW is 150Mbps.
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I find that hard to believe!
 
My upload speed at home BTW is 150Mbps
 
Most "home" broadband is actually an ADSL connection. The A in ADSL is for "Asymsetric" and that term is used because the upload speed and the download speed are different (hence asymmetric). Most people want fast downloads, because most of the data volume is from the server to you, you send a short request for a video or image and then the server sends down a lot of video or image data.

SO, downloading from Crashplan or Google Drive or whatever will be a lot faster (10 times or more) than uploading.
 
A long long time. That's why you need the files backed up locally as well. Crashplan is only really in the event of a catastrophe and you lose everything

.
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Actually, on the two occasion I've needed to download from Crashplan it was surprisingly quick. I have a 100Mb/s service and was getting about half that during download.

If only their upload speeds were like that :(
 
Bristolian said:
Actually, on the two occasion I've needed to download from Crashplan it was surprisingly quick. I have a 100Mb/s service and was getting about half that during download.

If only their upload speeds were like that :(
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See my post above, it's not "their" upload speed, it is the fact that ADSL broadband (i.e. the Broadband at your house) has a much slower upload than download.
 
sirch said:
See my post above, it's not "their" upload speed, it is the fact that ADSL broadband (i.e. the Broadband at your house) has a much slower upload than download.
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Except that I don't have an ADSL service - I'm with VM so its fibre optic all the way and with a business account I get 100Mb/s both ways
 
Amazon Prime now offers free photo storage including RAW files. It's a pain to upload stuff though. I always say you can't have too many backups, so it is a good extra location.

Some alternatives to CrashPlan are Carbonite and BackBlaze.
 
Ballyman said:
My mistake. Download is 150 and upload is about 12.
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That is roughly the same as what I get via fibre optic (100 down - 10 up), so presumably it would take me a few months for a complete backup also. It is functional for delivering zips of individual shoots to clients, but not sure how practical it is for large scale backup. Will have to do some more thinking.
 
Don't forget you can also use services like Dropbox and Google Drive. I also use ReadyVault (I think Elephant Drive underpins it) but find it expensive (although reliable) and considering iDrive purely because they seem to have good value plans and have specific backup apps for my QNAP NAS
 
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Spy said:
Don't forget you can also use services like Dropbox and Google Drive. I also use ReadyVault (I think Elephant Drive underpins it) but find it expensive (although reliable) and considering iDrive purely because they seem to have good value plans and have specific backup apps for my QNAP NAS
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I use Dropbox and Drive for sharing files but wouldn't consider them as suitable backup solutions. 1TB on Dropbox is £7.99 per month - more than I pay on CrashPlan for unlimited storage - and Drive has a habit of resizing images (at least that's my experience).

IMHO dedicated backup services are different to file sharing/synchronisation sites - horses for courses and all that :)
 
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