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Like many in this thread, I'm here looking for alternatives. CrashPlan was sufficient for my family needs, and none of the other services I looked at hit the s

Like many in this thread, I'm here looking for alternatives. CrashPlan was sufficient for my family needs, and none of the other services I looked at hit the same sweet spot. Slow, saturated uploads, and their bloated client were tolerable for what I was paying, and what I got. We've got a few mentioned replacement possibilities scattered in the comments and replies below, but I'd like to put forth my "asks" for solutions, which seem to match others. I'm a tech guy, and "rolling my own" Linux solution is possible, but in this case, I'd be happy to pay someone else to worry about the details of storing a copy of my bits, so I can do other things with my time. My wish list is as follows: MUST ====== have both Linux and Windows client ability to whitelist/blacklist/select subsets of files/folders to be backed up ====== SHOULD offer as many of the following as possible (all optional) ======= some sort of "Family" pricing deal for multiple machines in one account encrypted backups with consumer controlled key not necessarily given to service option to switch out back end bulk storage infrastructure "forever" file retention / restoration of old versions (charge me for storage) user scheduled backups and/or don't bring client to crawl or saturate home line ====== Feel free to add any replies with suggestions here which might be useful to others. For my point of view, if CrashPlan found the home offering unsustainable from "abuse" of the "unlimited" feature, I would have much preferred them introduce a cap to the home plan at some "reasonable" value. They could have balanced the books, and saved 95% of their customers. Start rolling off oldest file version backups when you hit space cap and/or offer extra space at cost+profit. Done.

corford 9y ago
I think https://www.spideroak.com https://www.spideroak.com fits your list (specifically "One" which is their consumer solution/app). I'm a happy user who's had an account with them for years (it costs me under $10/month iirc). It has/supports: * Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android * Lets you share your quota across unlimited machines/devices * Lets you whitelist/blacklist folders & files to be backed up (by pointing and clicking and/or by specifying patterns) * Does LAN syncing * Keeps versioned file history forever (i.e. point-in-time recovery) * Has scheduling but I haven't used this, it just runs quietly in the background and I never notice it negatively impacting anything (client and accompanying background service is currently using a total of 51MB of memory). You can cap the upload speed if you want to make sure it never saturates your uplink. * Uses end to end encryption i.e. they don't have your key (important caveat: this is provided you only use their app and don't use their web interface, although even then they claim the key is never stored anywhere - just kept temporarily in the server's RAM while it auths/decrypts files for you) * Been around for ages and not likely to go out of business any time soon * Lets you share files with a self-destructing link * Uses aggressive de-duping on their backend (ZFS based I think?) so you can squeeze the most out of your quota (just checked my account and I'm using 94GB without compression & de-duplication but only being charged for 41GB) Edit: and they release a lot of opensource: https://github.com/SpiderOak https://github.com/SpiderOak
- walkingolof 9y ago
  I've tried Spideroak and I really tried to like / use it, but it never worked very well, feels unfocused and a bit unfinished. I'm probably going to just move my photos to Dropbox (I know, its not a backup program, but it works and is very simple to deal with)
  - corford 9y ago
    Not sure how recently you tried it but the current SpiderOak One app is solid and polished (imho anyway). It just works and is brain dead simple to use. Much more so than I remember Crash Plan ever being (admittedly haven't used them in years). Edit: I've only ever used SpiderOak's Windows app though. No idea how good/bad their Linux client is. Edit 2: this is what the current version looks like on my windows machine: http://imgur.com/a/KfnlQ http://imgur.com/a/KfnlQ
- Thespian2 9y ago
  Thanks corford. I think I looked at spideroak a few years ago. Good to see they are still around. Might be my best fit. A friend also suggested grabbing this table, export to your own spreadsheet and sort by what matters for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_se...
  - corford 9y ago
    Ha, I think your friend is right :) The size of that list just goes to show there isn't a "one size fits all" backup solution out there. SpiderOak is my sweet spot but YMMV. Think they offer a free trial (or they used to at least) so no harm in giving it a whirl. Good luck on your quest!
- Freaky 9y ago
  I've used them for a few years, not been particularly impressed with their speed. I'm also currently fighting a problem with the client quietly wedging on upload (not sure how long ago it stopped, but the upload queue was past 6GB), and the re-syndication process just sitting there seemingly doing nothing. > Uses aggressive de-duping on their backend (ZFS based I think?) Err, I hope not. Pretty sure they sync a database of seen blocks between clients and they collectively dedupe based on that - their backend simply shouldn't have the information necessary to dedupe itself.
x0x0 9y ago
arqbackup.com will do windows and mac; you pay for your own S3/gc data usage. It allows you to (1) black/white list; (2) encrypt client side; (3) use s3/gcp/your own nas; (4) schedule on demand. I guess the reason for CrashPlan bailing on the home market wasn't just people trying to store 20T of movies, but also just the support needs. The economics of providing end-user support on $60/year plans is horrific. Note that all Crashplan really did was increase cheapest plan from $6 to $10/mo...
- Thespian2 9y ago
  x0x0 not quite. $6 to $10 a month would be acceptable to me, but its now $10 a month per device, where before it was $6 a month for a "family" of up to 10 devices. That's the real cost increase problem. I'm still only one customer, with almost no support burden, but the price to go to office version is substantially different for multiple machines.
  - x0x0 9y ago
    oh wow, that is a big price increase $6/mo for a family's worth of devices is ludicrously cheap
  - adamhepner 9y ago
    Exactly. The short list for my family was: me, my wife, my mother, father, sister, and mother-in-law. 6 users under one plan, also using each other's computers as targets, because the connection speed at my parents' is atrocious. So now, instead of 6$ total, which I could just sweep under a rug and call it a day, I'd have to pay 10x that - or bother getting money from them, because none of them want to bother managing their own backups. Hell, my parent's couldn't even been bothered to stick an USB HDD every once in a while. This seriously sucks, especially that I now have to find a new solution, deploy it remotely on multiple PCs, and they'll all have to suck it up for another couple of weeks if not months when everything reuploads to the new solution. As for me - even if I migrate to new solution, I'd still effectively loose the versioning. This is a serious bummer!
    - 9y ago
cm2187 9y ago
I am not sure if synology allows for snapshots (I am sure there must be an option for that) but it certainly the cheapest solution over the long run. With cloudstation you can sync a folder to your NAS dropbox style (be careful to use a different user on each machine) which you can access from outside of your home if you open a port. You are in control of your data. Doesn't protect you against your home burning but you could have one in each home of the family. Modern hard drives are monstrously large. You don't need a massive system unless you have loads of data. [Edit] actually you can probably just rsync the diskstation volume with a backup volume on the same NAS. [Edit#2] actually you don't even need rsync. Synology has a utility called Hyper Backup that does time machine like incremental backups, either on the same NAS, or on a remote NAS.

corford 9y ago

I think https://www.spideroak.com https://www.spideroak.com fits your list (specifically "One" which is their consumer solution/app). I'm a happy user who's had an account with them for years (it costs me under $10/month iirc). It has/supports: * Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android * Lets you share your quota across unlimited machines/devices * Lets you whitelist/blacklist folders & files to be backed up (by pointing and clicking and/or by specifying patterns) * Does LAN syncing * Keeps versioned file history forever (i.e. point-in-time recovery) * Has scheduling but I haven't used this, it just runs quietly in the background and I never notice it negatively impacting anything (client and accompanying background service is currently using a total of 51MB of memory). You can cap the upload speed if you want to make sure it never saturates your uplink. * Uses end to end encryption i.e. they don't have your key (important caveat: this is provided you only use their app and don't use their web interface, although even then they claim the key is never stored anywhere - just kept temporarily in the server's RAM while it auths/decrypts files for you) * Been around for ages and not likely to go out of business any time soon * Lets you share files with a self-destructing link * Uses aggressive de-duping on their backend (ZFS based I think?) so you can squeeze the most out of your quota (just checked my account and I'm using 94GB without compression & de-duplication but only being charged for 41GB) Edit: and they release a lot of opensource: https://github.com/SpiderOak https://github.com/SpiderOak

walkingolof 9y ago
I've tried Spideroak and I really tried to like / use it, but it never worked very well, feels unfocused and a bit unfinished. I'm probably going to just move my photos to Dropbox (I know, its not a backup program, but it works and is very simple to deal with)
- corford 9y ago
  Not sure how recently you tried it but the current SpiderOak One app is solid and polished (imho anyway). It just works and is brain dead simple to use. Much more so than I remember Crash Plan ever being (admittedly haven't used them in years). Edit: I've only ever used SpiderOak's Windows app though. No idea how good/bad their Linux client is. Edit 2: this is what the current version looks like on my windows machine: http://imgur.com/a/KfnlQ http://imgur.com/a/KfnlQ
Thespian2 9y ago
Thanks corford. I think I looked at spideroak a few years ago. Good to see they are still around. Might be my best fit. A friend also suggested grabbing this table, export to your own spreadsheet and sort by what matters for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_se...
- corford 9y ago
  Ha, I think your friend is right :) The size of that list just goes to show there isn't a "one size fits all" backup solution out there. SpiderOak is my sweet spot but YMMV. Think they offer a free trial (or they used to at least) so no harm in giving it a whirl. Good luck on your quest!
Freaky 9y ago
I've used them for a few years, not been particularly impressed with their speed. I'm also currently fighting a problem with the client quietly wedging on upload (not sure how long ago it stopped, but the upload queue was past 6GB), and the re-syndication process just sitting there seemingly doing nothing. > Uses aggressive de-duping on their backend (ZFS based I think?) Err, I hope not. Pretty sure they sync a database of seen blocks between clients and they collectively dedupe based on that - their backend simply shouldn't have the information necessary to dedupe itself.

x0x0 9y ago

arqbackup.com will do windows and mac; you pay for your own S3/gc data usage. It allows you to (1) black/white list; (2) encrypt client side; (3) use s3/gcp/your own nas; (4) schedule on demand. I guess the reason for CrashPlan bailing on the home market wasn't just people trying to store 20T of movies, but also just the support needs. The economics of providing end-user support on $60/year plans is horrific. Note that all Crashplan really did was increase cheapest plan from $6 to $10/mo...

Thespian2 9y ago
x0x0 not quite. $6 to $10 a month would be acceptable to me, but its now $10 a month per device, where before it was $6 a month for a "family" of up to 10 devices. That's the real cost increase problem. I'm still only one customer, with almost no support burden, but the price to go to office version is substantially different for multiple machines.
- x0x0 9y ago
  oh wow, that is a big price increase $6/mo for a family's worth of devices is ludicrously cheap
- adamhepner 9y ago
  Exactly. The short list for my family was: me, my wife, my mother, father, sister, and mother-in-law. 6 users under one plan, also using each other's computers as targets, because the connection speed at my parents' is atrocious. So now, instead of 6$ total, which I could just sweep under a rug and call it a day, I'd have to pay 10x that - or bother getting money from them, because none of them want to bother managing their own backups. Hell, my parent's couldn't even been bothered to stick an USB HDD every once in a while. This seriously sucks, especially that I now have to find a new solution, deploy it remotely on multiple PCs, and they'll all have to suck it up for another couple of weeks if not months when everything reuploads to the new solution. As for me - even if I migrate to new solution, I'd still effectively loose the versioning. This is a serious bummer!
  - 9y ago

cm2187 9y ago

I am not sure if synology allows for snapshots (I am sure there must be an option for that) but it certainly the cheapest solution over the long run. With cloudstation you can sync a folder to your NAS dropbox style (be careful to use a different user on each machine) which you can access from outside of your home if you open a port. You are in control of your data. Doesn't protect you against your home burning but you could have one in each home of the family. Modern hard drives are monstrously large. You don't need a massive system unless you have loads of data. [Edit] actually you can probably just rsync the diskstation volume with a backup volume on the same NAS. [Edit#2] actually you don't even need rsync. Synology has a utility called Hyper Backup that does time machine like incremental backups, either on the same NAS, or on a remote NAS.