cloud storage/archiving - or alternatives.

[super gnu]

i have always used a system where i have a "working" drive (2x ssd raid 0 at the moment) and that has a one way sync (using allways sync) to a mirrored pair of 6TB hard drives.

this works ok, and when the hard drives are full, i unplug them and store them as a pair of archives, and plug in a new pair of drives. i now have a stack of old drives.

however the older ones are sometimes unreadable and ive lost a fair amount of older work.. its never caused real problems as its generally suuper old stuff (10 years old+) but i dont like the unreliability. ive now started plugging the archive drives into an old pc i have, which doubles as a home theatre machine. that way the drives are regularly powered up so less likely to fail. however there is a limit to how many drives i can attach there, and it seems a waste of electricity.


SO. i am looking for a more elegant solution.. a friend suggested LTO tapes, but the cost seems very high, and in my experience in an office 10 years ago, its pretty clunky getting stuff back.


so, that leaves cloud backup/storage.

im going with the idea that the larger the company, the less risk of them going bust and losing your data. so amazon/google/microsoft etc.


anyone have a system setup they are happy with? what are the costs?

i looked briefly at amazon, but their tiers and pricing are very complicated.

(glacier storage seems cheapest, but has loads of caveats about time you must keep files, time to access them, extra charges for metadata etc... and i couldnt even work out if the prices were quoted as monthly or yearly!) if monthly, and if i understood correctly, its about 40 dollars a month for 10TB. however im not sure if you pay for a block and use as much as you need up to that limit, or you pay a changing rate depending on how much you have stored.




i just want something robust, cheap and simple.

any advice?

[thablanch]

We generate quite a high volume of files / data weight in a day over here.
For on going work, a sync disk (which you are already doing) + basic external backup. We did shop quite a little for this, but found a local provider with an amazing level of service and quite decent pricing. These files are nnot kept on this system that long, just the time of the project.
For finished work, archiving, - a copy of the generated files on 2 external drives, exact same data on both different drives - not old work drives that we were using as work drives, but 'WD my book' kind of drives. We are making 2 just in case. Both copies are stored in a different place, one in the office and one at somebody's home. In something like 18 years, never lost something with this method. Not that expensive and does the job.

[super gnu]

you have never had an issue with an old drive that has been unplugged for years becoming unreadable? it has happened several times to me. i use WD red drives generally.. maybe i need to switch brand although they are supposed to be reliable.

i do have a vague suspicion that keeping them for several years in a bag on top of my UPS (which has a massive transformer in it) was potentially not the brightest idea i ever had..

i did read that unplugged hard drives to have a lifespan after which they begin to demagnetise., and for this they are not recommended for "real" archiving

[flino2004]

I switched my email account to Google so I got Gmail for business and it comes with unlimited Gdrive space, you can download the Gdrive file stream to set it up as a local drive...so I have the active project folderS available off-line and when it's done online only. It works great and it's super fast.

[glorybound]

I have a local HD backup and in external mirror. I also have iDrive for online mirror.

[Vizioen]

I switched my email account to Google so I got Gmail for business and it comes with unlimited Gdrive space, you can download the Gdrive file stream to set it up as a local drive...so I have the active project folderS available off-line and when it's done online only. It works great and it's super fast.

I also have Gmail for business but that only includes 30GB of space?

[super gnu]

well according to the google sales pitch with g-suite for business, you get unlimited gdrive if you have more than 5 users, but 1tb each user if less than 5.. however i also read that google dont enforce that limit, and single g-suite for business users also have unlimited.. however i wouldnt rely on that to last!

in any case its quite tempting.. i might investigate sharing a g-suite subscription with a few fellow freelancers to get that unlimited goodness. no idea if thats practical or not.

ive looked at a few cloud backup providers, backblaze B2 looks great, and very cheap, but they sure have some terrible reviews online, and i figure, if im going to be archiving old stuff , its better to go with a massive company that is unlikely to dissapear in the next 10 years..

[Oleg_Budeanu]

Amazon Glacier looks tempting. That's for archiving only, though.

[super gnu]

the problem with all the major players is price though. amazon glacier has a ton of restrictions and extra fees for file transfer etc.. the base cost is like 3x that of backblaze, before you consider extra fees.

[Oleg_Budeanu]

the problem with all the major players is price though. amazon glacier has a ton of restrictions and extra fees for file transfer etc.. the base cost is like 3x that of backblaze, before you consider extra fees.

Well depengind on your needs. If you are archiving projects or information - you will not have additional costs AFAIK, but yes, that is not a suitable service if you need take out projects once in a while.