Cloud Storage - Expensive Backup Option

[krs]

I was just looking at using cloud storage as a third level backup for some of my files that I really don't want to loose,and I was a bit surprised how expensive it is compared to just buying another external hard drive.
For 2TB of cloud storage, I seem to be looking at $US8.- per month, in comparison, I can buy a 2TB portable USB 3.0 hard drive for $US60.-
One advantage of cloud storage is that I can access that from anywhere, but as a straight backup, that is really of no value to me.
I suppose one could argue that cloud storage itself is essentially backed up which would mean a second 2TB drive, but even then one is ahead with a purchase of two 2TB drives after 15 months.
Am I missing something here?

 

[MacInWin]

Nope. The value of an online backup is not so much that it's another backup as it is that it's a backup that is NOT in the same location as the others. So a disaster at your prime site (your home, in this case) may destroy or damage critically the drives at your site, but you can recover your files from that remote site. That's the theory, anyway.

Something to consider is to take that new external drive and put it in a safety deposit box at your bank, or anywhere that is either not in your local area or in your home. When I ran a major military data center we had a backup service that had a courier that came to our location once a day, took away the backup media for that day and returned the media from the previous day, then took that data to their waterproof, bombproof, disaster proof (as much as they could) location. Actually we had 7 backup sets there so the backup from last Monday was returned and we gave them this Monday's backup to take back.

So, is that necessary and is the cost reasonable? That's up to you, it's your data.

 

[Rod]

I've found that 50Gb has been more than enough for me even with judicious use of iCloud drive. I can justify the $1.50/month for that and currently still have 20Gb free. I don't use it for documents or photos though. primarily its for applications which store data/documents such as my password manager, pages, email etc.

 

[lclev]

I backup to cloud storage anything that I would consider a catastrophic loss. I use both iCloud and Google drive for backup - mainly because initially Google drive offered more options for what you could backup.

But the main reason - if my computer dies, house/work burns down or get robbed, or a natural disaster strikes, the important information is safe in the cloud.

Lisa

 

[MacInWin]

Safe in the cloud, or an external location, or, if you think you can find one secure enough, a fire and water resistant security enclosure in your house. Water resistance is fairly easy, but fire resistance is tricky. You can get such enclosures, but they are NOT cheap. You might even consider putting the enclosure in an external building, if you have one on your property--a garage, shed, etc., where you can have a professional mount it in such a way that it's very hard to remove (nothing is impossible, if given enough time and effort). Frankly, it may be easier to just invest in a couple of cheapish drives and find somebody you trust. You ship them the first drive to hold for you, then when you ship them the second, they ship back to you the first. You, of course, provide the shipping labels for both directions. Or you can do a swap with someone you trust and hold their backups while they hold yours. You can encrypt the backups, but if you have to do that, why trust them to hold them in the first place? Anyway, there are lots of creative options. The whole goal is to be able to lose everything (hardware, local backups, network, everything) and then be able to replace the hardware and recover your files to that new hardware.

 

[Rod]

I backup to cloud storage anything that I would consider a catastrophic loss. I use both iCloud and Google drive for backup - mainly because initially Google drive offered more options for what you could backup.

But the main reason - if my computer dies, house/work burns down or get robbed, or a natural disaster strikes, the important information is safe in the cloud.

Lisa

I don't use Google Drive any more but I do make use of Microsoft's OneDrive for similar reasons, saves online copies of all my MS Office docs.

 

[Slydude]

Everyone who has has already answered here knows what I'm about to say but for the benefit of others reading the thread keep the following in mind:

1. Cloud storage probably should not be counted on as a means of restoring your entire computer. It can take quite some time to do the initial backup or to restore your files depending upon your internet speed.
2. Backing up your entire system may be a problem if your ISP limits your data in any way.
3. Some cloud-based backup services solve this issue by providing a hard drive for the initial backup. When the initial backup is complete you ship the drive to them. They return it to you if you ever need to do a full restore. There is a bit of a delay as the drives are in transit.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

1. Cloud storage probably should not be counted on as a means of restoring your entire computer. It can take quite some time to do the initial backup or to restore your files depending upon your internet speed.
2. Backing up your entire system may be a problem if your ISP limits your data in any way.

This. ^^

The Internet itself is a huge bottleneck in uploading and downloading a lot of data. You data will likely get throttled if you try to download too much in any one day (which is likely when you will need it the most). It might take many days to restore your data if it's lost.

If your concern is that you want to avoid fire, flood, theft, etc., just store your first and second backup tiers in two different places (e.g. home and office). Your third tier can be something that fits in your pocket and is always with you. (If you survive, your data will survive.)

Of course, only you know how important it is to be able to access all of your data quickly in the event of a catastrophe.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Note that you can use a NAS, with the right extensions, to create your own virtual cloud backup. And that NAS can be situated anywhere. Why pay someone else for cloud backup when you can have your own...with more privacy/security?

 

[chscag]

Note that you can use a NAS, with the right extensions, to create your own virtual cloud backup. And that NAS can be situated anywhere. Why pay someone else for cloud backup when you can have your own...with more privacy/security?

I have to totally agree with Slydude and Randy. Cloud backups can not only be expensive but there is no guarantee that you will be able to retrieve your data in a timely manner.

 

[Howard Brazee]

I wish there was a setting on IOS & PadOS to back up both on my Mac and the cloud, every time.

 

[TechnoBob]

My requirements:
1. Remote site.
2. Inexpensive.
3. Easy to set up.
4. Backs up everything I have.

The above would insure against catastrophe here at home -- security is the issue, not timeliness, because Time Machine takes care of "normal" catastrophes.

For me, Backblaze was the very simple answer. $6/month and a piece of cake to use.

 

[chscag]

I wish there was a setting on IOS & PadOS to back up both on my Mac and the cloud, every time.

Why can't you do that as separate backups? I backup 2 iPhones that way all the time. First, make a backup to your Mac, and then make a backup to iCloud. Just make sure you have enough available space on iCloud to do the backups. I just recently had to increase my iCloud space from the standard 5 GB to 50 GB. That increase is only .99 cents/month. Surely not a make or break expense.

 

[chscag]

For me, Backblaze was the very simple answer. $6/month and a piece of cake to use.

Backblaze is probably one of the easiest cloud backups to use and not overly expensive as some others are.

However, here's something to keep in mind about the backups that Backblaze makes for the Mac:

What We Don't Backup
Backblaze does not want to waste your bandwidth or Backblaze datacenter disk space. Thus, we do not backup your operating system, application folder, or temporary internet files that are transient and would not be useful in the future. Backblaze also excludes podcasts in iTunes.

So, what happens when you have a catastrophic drive failure? It means that you have to first install macOS to the drive, then you will need to install all your apps.

I realize and understand that if you have other backups such as CCC, SuperDuper, and\or Time Machine, that they will restore macOS and apps. So in effect, Backblaze or any cloud backup is really an off site backup - just in case. It seems to me that there are better ways to do that.

 

[krs]

My requirements:
1. Remote site.
2. Inexpensive.
3. Easy to set up.
4. Backs up everything I have.

The above would insure against catastrophe here at home -- security is the issue, not timeliness, because Time Machine takes care of "normal" catastrophes.

For me, Backblaze was the very simple answer. $6/month and a piece of cake to use.

Backblaze is probably one of the easiest cloud backups to use and not overly expensive as some others are.

However, here's something to keep in mind about the backups that Backblaze makes for the Mac:

What We Don't Backup
Backblaze does not want to waste your bandwidth or Backblaze datacenter disk space. Thus, we do not backup your operating system, application folder, or temporary internet files that are transient and would not be useful in the future. Backblaze also excludes podcasts in iTunes.

So, what happens when you have a catastrophic drive failure? It means that you have to first install macOS to the drive, then you will need to install all your apps.

I just came across that as well.
I have a bunch of Mac disk images of older macOSs that would be hard, if not impossible to find again on the net, so Backblaze not backing those up means I need to keep a separate off site backup anyway - sort of kills this option for me.
Otherwise Backblaze looks pretty good.

 

[chscag]

I have a bunch of Mac disk images of older macOSs that would be hard, if not impossible to find again on the net, so Backblaze not backing those up means I need to keep a separate off site backup anyway - sort of kills this option for me.

And it kills it for many other folks as well. I understand there are other cloud backup services which do backup everything but they generally are more expensive and time consuming. It seems nowadays, many of the cloud backup services are designed primarily for businesses.

 

[krs]

I just looked at my application folder.
It contains 276 items and uses 50GB of drive space.
For a storage space saving of just 50GB (out of about 2TB of data in my case), having to download and reinstall 276 applications seems like saving at the wrong end.