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Arq 4 Beta

75 points by chmars 13y ago

leejoramo 13y ago
Arq is a great piece of software and is part of my backup mix. (I also use Carbon Copy Cloner, CrashPlan, rdiff-backup) I like that Arq's restore software is open source, hopefully, Arq 4 will continue with this.
- chmars 13y ago
  Are you still happy with CrashPlan? The Mac version at least is still Java-based and that comes with many annoyances, for example high CPU usage. I can set the CPU usage to whatever I like, it is very often around 100% (including the 'java' process). The firewall configuration if you do not use uPnP is a problem too for more than one Mac with CrashPlan behind the firewall.
sreitshamer 13y ago
A new beta will be out in a day or two with a bunch of fixes so please don't get discouraged if you try the current beta! (I'm the author of Arq)
- coffeecheque 13y ago
  I love Arq 3 and have recommended it to several friends and family, but I ran into a problem and it wasn't fixed and I've had to stop using it. I re-installed Mac OS X Mavericks and then used Time Machine to bring my user folder over again. I adopted the Glacier backup, and while it has worked with some folders, it appears to want to sync my entire Library/Mail folder again. This isn't ideal as it's 15GB+ and since the data has been uploaded once before, I don't want to upload it again. I don't know if you can "skip" a folder during sync, or set it to only upload files new/changed past a date. All support said was "I'm sorry I don't have a better answer". I'm stuck now with a Glacier full of old data and software that doesn't work. Any suggestions?
  - tfe 13y ago
    I've had a very similar experience. I migrated to a new Mac using Migration Assistant and Arq no longer sees my long backup history, and is trying to back up everything anew. I was never given the option to "adopt" the old backup set, and Arq and Glacier both see that there are several hundred GB in the vault, but apparently all of that is orphan data that I'll be paying for forever (I guess I could manually delete the vault). Support was not very helpful in my case either. On the plus side, Arq 4 recommends deleting and recreating your Glacier-backed backup sets anyway...
    - sreitshamer 13y ago
      Did it see your backup folder configuration? If not then you'd have to browse under "Other Backup Sets", select your old computer's backup set and click the "Adopt" button. If you did see the folders configured, then you've already "adopted" (Migration Assistant copied Arq's config file). In that case it shouldn't have re-uploaded.
      - tfe 13y ago
        OK, it's apparently adopted then. But it shows no backup history and is trying to re-upload everything. My support case is #2152 if you want to look it up.
        alaindc 13y ago
        Hi. Were you able to solve this issue? I am in the same exact situation. Also, where can you look up support cases for Arq? The website shows no support forum at all... Thanks
  - sreitshamer 13y ago
    Well that's not a great support response -- I'm sorry about that. Arq 3 is good about this when backing up to S3, but not to Glacier. It uses the most recent backup record as its starting point and backs up new/changed files. (When backing up to S3, it gets an object list from S3 so it knows what's there.) But if the most recent backup record of your Library/Mail folder has the files in it, then it shouldn't re-upload everything. Arq backs up in 2 steps. First, it estimates the amount to be uploaded by comparing the timestamps and other metadata of files on disk to the most recent backup. Then it does the backup. For each file with a different timestamp, it calculates a checksum of the file's contents. If the contents are the same, it doesn't re-upload. Was it really re-uploading everything?
xxdesmus 13y ago
Beta 4 has been very buggy in my experience (yesterday) with it. S3 backup crashed the helper and then continued to crash the helper service. Tried a DreamObjects backup (hooray) but that also just crashed the helper service over and over again. That's just my experience so far.
- sreitshamer 13y ago
  Sorry! I've got a fix, but I'm doing more testing before I ship it. (I wasn't expecting this to be on Hacker News today) I'll ship it hopefully tomorrow.
  - xxdesmus 13y ago
    Thank you for the reply, really looking forward to being able to backup to DreamObjects (much cheaper than S3).
photoGrant 13y ago
I LOVE Arq. It does everything I'd like it to, but the price increase just burns me a little bit :( Hoping to wait out for another humble bundle or such.
- amerine 13y ago
  Increase? I would have sworn the last two licenses I bought in September were the same price listed on the Haystack site right now.
- tfe 13y ago
  I'd like to see some upgrade pricing for owners of previous versions, rather than paying full price every release.
  - sreitshamer 13y ago
    We've always offered upgrade pricing. Upgrade from Arq 3 to 4 will be $19.99.
    - tfe 13y ago
      Oops, my mistake. Didn't see it mentioned on the store page for Arq 3. Good to know.
mjmsmith 13y ago
I really hope the author adds the ability to generate log files for individual Arq backups runs. It's a great product overall, but it seems like a huge flaw to me that it's so hard to monitor the status of backups without manually launching the app. (I don't necessarily want an email every day, I just want an easy way to detect if the backup has failed.)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
bruceboughton 13y ago
To echo others' sentiments: I use Arq on 3 Macs and absolutely love it. It's a bit of a pain that Amazon have no migration from the original Glacier API to the new S3-Glacier API but I guess that's the cost of being an early adopter. I'll have a few terrabytes to re-upload so apologies in advance to anyone on the Shoreditch BT hub.

75 points by chmars 13y ago

Arq is a great piece of software and is part of my backup mix. (I also use Carbon Copy Cloner, CrashPlan, rdiff-backup) I like that Arq's restore software is open source, hopefully, Arq 4 will continue with this.

chmars 13y ago
Are you still happy with CrashPlan? The Mac version at least is still Java-based and that comes with many annoyances, for example high CPU usage. I can set the CPU usage to whatever I like, it is very often around 100% (including the 'java' process). The firewall configuration if you do not use uPnP is a problem too for more than one Mac with CrashPlan behind the firewall.

sreitshamer 13y ago

A new beta will be out in a day or two with a bunch of fixes so please don't get discouraged if you try the current beta! (I'm the author of Arq)

coffeecheque 13y ago
I love Arq 3 and have recommended it to several friends and family, but I ran into a problem and it wasn't fixed and I've had to stop using it. I re-installed Mac OS X Mavericks and then used Time Machine to bring my user folder over again. I adopted the Glacier backup, and while it has worked with some folders, it appears to want to sync my entire Library/Mail folder again. This isn't ideal as it's 15GB+ and since the data has been uploaded once before, I don't want to upload it again. I don't know if you can "skip" a folder during sync, or set it to only upload files new/changed past a date. All support said was "I'm sorry I don't have a better answer". I'm stuck now with a Glacier full of old data and software that doesn't work. Any suggestions?
- tfe 13y ago
  I've had a very similar experience. I migrated to a new Mac using Migration Assistant and Arq no longer sees my long backup history, and is trying to back up everything anew. I was never given the option to "adopt" the old backup set, and Arq and Glacier both see that there are several hundred GB in the vault, but apparently all of that is orphan data that I'll be paying for forever (I guess I could manually delete the vault). Support was not very helpful in my case either. On the plus side, Arq 4 recommends deleting and recreating your Glacier-backed backup sets anyway...
  - sreitshamer 13y ago
    Did it see your backup folder configuration? If not then you'd have to browse under "Other Backup Sets", select your old computer's backup set and click the "Adopt" button. If you did see the folders configured, then you've already "adopted" (Migration Assistant copied Arq's config file). In that case it shouldn't have re-uploaded.
    - tfe 13y ago
      OK, it's apparently adopted then. But it shows no backup history and is trying to re-upload everything. My support case is #2152 if you want to look it up.
      - alaindc 13y ago
        Hi. Were you able to solve this issue? I am in the same exact situation. Also, where can you look up support cases for Arq? The website shows no support forum at all... Thanks
- sreitshamer 13y ago
  Well that's not a great support response -- I'm sorry about that. Arq 3 is good about this when backing up to S3, but not to Glacier. It uses the most recent backup record as its starting point and backs up new/changed files. (When backing up to S3, it gets an object list from S3 so it knows what's there.) But if the most recent backup record of your Library/Mail folder has the files in it, then it shouldn't re-upload everything. Arq backs up in 2 steps. First, it estimates the amount to be uploaded by comparing the timestamps and other metadata of files on disk to the most recent backup. Then it does the backup. For each file with a different timestamp, it calculates a checksum of the file's contents. If the contents are the same, it doesn't re-upload. Was it really re-uploading everything?

xxdesmus 13y ago

Beta 4 has been very buggy in my experience (yesterday) with it. S3 backup crashed the helper and then continued to crash the helper service. Tried a DreamObjects backup (hooray) but that also just crashed the helper service over and over again. That's just my experience so far.

sreitshamer 13y ago
Sorry! I've got a fix, but I'm doing more testing before I ship it. (I wasn't expecting this to be on Hacker News today) I'll ship it hopefully tomorrow.
- xxdesmus 13y ago
  Thank you for the reply, really looking forward to being able to backup to DreamObjects (much cheaper than S3).

photoGrant 13y ago

I LOVE Arq. It does everything I'd like it to, but the price increase just burns me a little bit :( Hoping to wait out for another humble bundle or such.

amerine 13y ago
Increase? I would have sworn the last two licenses I bought in September were the same price listed on the Haystack site right now.
tfe 13y ago
I'd like to see some upgrade pricing for owners of previous versions, rather than paying full price every release.
- sreitshamer 13y ago
  We've always offered upgrade pricing. Upgrade from Arq 3 to 4 will be $19.99.
  - tfe 13y ago
    Oops, my mistake. Didn't see it mentioned on the store page for Arq 3. Good to know.

mjmsmith 13y ago

I really hope the author adds the ability to generate log files for individual Arq backups runs. It's a great product overall, but it seems like a huge flaw to me that it's so hard to monitor the status of backups without manually launching the app. (I don't necessarily want an email every day, I just want an easy way to detect if the backup has failed.)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

bruceboughton 13y ago

To echo others' sentiments: I use Arq on 3 Macs and absolutely love it. It's a bit of a pain that Amazon have no migration from the original Glacier API to the new S3-Glacier API but I guess that's the cost of being an early adopter. I'll have a few terrabytes to re-upload so apologies in advance to anyone on the Shoreditch BT hub.