Online backup suggestions, please

[silentbrown]

While I already use a mixture of dropbox, google photos/drive and github to store most of my important stuff, I'm aware my backup 'strategy' is rather more 'tactics'.

I'm looking for a cloud-based system which can easily get a Windows PC back up and running (or restore to a new PC) after theft/catastrophic hardware failure/etc.

Ideally not too expensive. Not interested in DIY solutions with multiple onsite/offsite rotations as IMO I'm much more likely to mess it up or forget it than a company that's doing that as their main business.

[Alex_225]

Personally I use DropBox and pay for 2tb monthly.

I found when I switched from iOS to Android, the ~85,000 photos I had on my iPhone were proving hard to back up anywhere other than to my iMac. I wasn't keen on Google Drive but I have found that DropBox seems better organised and automatically backs up my photos from my Android device and I can sync a folder on my Mac. Assume same can be done from Windows.

[essayer]

Backblaze is good. Either pay for cloud storage (B2) and use free backup software, or pay a bit more for their solution including software

[silentbrown]

Alex_225 said:

Personally I use DropBox and pay for 2tb monthly.

I found when I switched from iOS to Android, the ~85,000 photos I had on my iPhone were proving hard to back up anywhere other than to my iMac. I wasn't keen on Google Drive but I have found that DropBox seems better organised and automatically backs up my photos from my Android device and I can sync a folder on my Mac. Assume same can be done from Windows.

I'm really after system backup, so software, settings, OS etc can all get restored. Dropbox is already part of my current toolkit, and very useful.

[Actual]

I use Microsoft One Drive. Whenever I get a new computer or phone I just login to Outlook and One Drive and the new computer is immediately ready for use with recent stuff and fully restored and synced in a few hours.

For OS and System restores I have found in the past that computer configurations and installs move on so quickly that any recent computer image is already out of date so there isn't any point in restoring the image. It is easier to start a new image and let it freshly install and sync all the apps and data.

[eeLee]

Windows PC, I would copy what I do which is M365 Family (for street prices not MS prices per year) and attach 1Tb OneDrive.

Of course, I am belt-and-braces so sync my OneDrive to my Synology which then backs it up to another drive.

This means I am unlikely to lose anything and I can just attach the data to any Windows PC I like (or macOS, or iOS - but beware the Files App and its ability to know that OneDrive files are offloaded).

[Hoofy]

Found this thread: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Do these licences include online backup?

[donkmeister]

silentbrown said:

Ideally not too expensive. Not interested in DIY solutions with multiple onsite/offsite rotations as IMO I'm much more likely to mess it up or forget it than a company that's doing that as their main business.

If you are worried about the mandraulic nature of DIY hard drive rotations rather than the DIY nature of getting back-ups set up to run automatically, can I suggest using Veeam to a pair of NAS?

I have a main NAS that my Windows boxen automatically do an incremental nightly onto, and then in the wee hours this is automatically replicated to a second NAS in a building that is 25m away from the house.

Yes it's a tad more expensive than a cloud package, but I have a set-and-forget backup strategy with 10-gig fibres between the big boy machines that need it. Anything so critical that I would want it even after an EMP strike can go on my Google drive (which is synced with my NAS).

It also doesn't have to be expensive; you can make it really really bloody expensive if you want.

[Funk]

essayer said:

Backblaze is good. Either pay for cloud storage (B2) and use free backup software, or pay a bit more for their solution including software

I use Backblaze - the personal backup version: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup/personal

Unlimited capacity, fully encrypted (private key if you prefer), versioning for 30 days (up to a year for an extra fee) and fully automated once the client's installed on the PC - and works out about £80 a year. Just make sure when signing up that you select the EU datacentre option as you'll want your data held there rather than in the US - it's a very small option that's easy to miss when going through the sign-up process.