Hi, I found Duplicati looking for a Mac AND Windows client to make online backups to Amazon Glacier. But while researching clients I think I understood that Glacier is very cheap … unless you actually restore the backup. So I started looking into similar services, the one that seems to stand out is Microsoft Azure. I want to backup 5 machines with about 600 GB or so in all, so a “family plan” would run me $150 and up/year. So now I’m looking for recommendations. Where should I backup to? Ideally, the server would be in Europe rather than in the US or elsewhere, for security reasons. Alternatively, I would be open for solid encryption, if I can wrap my head around it. Thanks, Ulrich
Thanks for checking out Duplicati!
Deciding on “the best” destination for backups can be a difficult thing to do, so I’ll leave that to others who have more experience with cloud providers than I do.
However, I’m curious about what you expect t o gain from using Solid Encryption.
Since Duplicati backups are already encrypted (assuming you set it up to be), are you just wanting just double layers of encryption, do you prefer the security of the one-time pad encryption, or is there something else you’re hoping to gain?
Thanks! Basically, I have no idea about encryption. So what I’m asking is this (kinda): If I backup to a server in the EU, I should not have to worry about encryption - or should I? If I would use a server in the US, I know i have to worry about encryption - is it enough to set Duplicati to “encrypt” and backup to anywhere in the world (which might be the case)? Thanks, Ulrich
If you use Duplicati’s integrated AES256 encryption, your data will be encrypted using a symmetric key. Your passphrase is used to both encrypt and decrypt your data. Keeping your passphrase at a safe place is very important.
Use a long, complex passphrase (and store it safely) against brute force attacks.
There is no known successful attempt to get access to AES256 encrypted data without knowledge pf the encryption key.
For more information about this for of encryption:
Personally, I think you should worry about encryption any time the data leaves your device. Remember, it’s not just the destination you have to worry about - your bits travel through a lot of different hardware to get to that destination. It’s quite possible that your EU destination is accessed via a service or hardware handled by an American company.
Duplicati is written as a “trust no one” backup solution with the goal of making sure there’s no useful information accessible to anybody (without the passphrase) BEFORE the archive files leave your computer.
Since all encryption happens on your device, even if there’s a man-in-the-middle monitoring your internet connection all they’ll see is encrypted data. As kees-z pointed out, if that data is AES256 encrypted then you can be pretty confident that nobody can figure out what’s in the archives.
In the worst case they might guess that you have “somewhere around 600GB” of data, but even then they don’t know how much it’s been compressed (maybe it’s 1.2TB of data compressed at 50%) or how much it’s been de-duplicated (maybe it’s 2.4TB of data of which 75% is the same).
B2. I have closer to 800GB on B2 now, spread across ~5 machines, all backed up via duplicati, and my B2 bill has been about $3/month.
Are you asking for “cold” cloud options for a specific reason or just because you think they’ll be cheaper?
If cheapest is what you want you could check out Most cost efficient backend for about 300GB as well as SIA (blockchain) storage network (which I hear is OK pricing).
Asking for “cold” because I thought it would be cheaper.
So, to regroup:
- Duplicati apparantly can encrypt my files so I shouldn’t have to worry about where to put them
- I will check out B2
- goal is to backup my 300 GB plus 4 more machines with far less data (about 600 GB in all) as cheap and easy as possible, keeping in mind that I actually want to be able to restore (which kinda rules out Glacier)
-and Ideally I won’t have to re-seed (as I have to do now) ever again … so a"big" company would be preferred at this time
Thanks so much so far, Ulrich
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Sia is:
- the wave of the future, seriously,
- dramatically cheaper than any other platforms, and
- (most importantly) NOT reliable enough yet for backup usage with Duplicati (or anything else).
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Yeah, it does feel like a big jump forward. I was actually thinking about getting one of those Siacoin miners (I forget what they’re called) and pushing any net “profit” to Duplicati.
Unfortunately, I can’t afford the $2k initial outlay at the moment. 
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I’m not sure if you saw the gripes I posted about Sia here around a month or so ago, but basically my complaints center around the fact that at a certain point, uploads (and then also downloads) just completely fail to work, at random. This messes up duplicati for one thing, but i also wasn’t really able to meaningfully upload or download stuff from the Sia client itself by that point. But if they ever get these and other kinks (like the enormous outlay someone needs to make to be a host for even a small bit of space) worked out, and the support becomes a bit more robust, i think it’ll be revolutionary.
Hi guys,
I have successfully backed up a folder and restored a file. So that seems to work. I looks like I should opt for B2 over Sia. 
Questions:
- Does it look to you like Backblaze will offer B2 for a while … or should I rather stick with one of the big guns (Azure, Google…)? I read it that B2 is a good option (and I understand that nobody knows what the future holds).
- I will backup for several machines (daughters, mom…), is it good practice to do this to one B2 bucket each, or should I just dump everything in one bucket?
- And setting for the buckets I should set in B2 (i.e. I can set file lifecycles in Duplicati and in B2, and I’m assuming it’s not smart to do both)?
- I have a bunch of old files I keep on an external disk (MP3s, images, some movies and such; mostly it’s the lossless rips of my CDs, but my HDD is to small so I am using Apple Music in real life, which works just fine for me, until I remember this one song I loved in High School and they don’t have it). The files are not essential, but nice to have. It’s a hassle, though, to find and update the external drive every few months. Could I / should I make another bucket and just upload them directly to B2? That would be much more convenient for me, I think.
Thanks, Ulrich
Maybe OneDrive could be another option. With an Office 365 subscription you also get 1 TB for your OneDrive as an addition to all the Office apps. What’s even more interesting, if you use Office 365 Home instead of Personal sub, you actually can use this with up to 5 accounts, i.e. you get 5 x 1TB. The regular pricing is higher than B2, but I’ve never paid the regular price, I just buy an extension whenever I see a decent deal - which usually is less than 5€/month for Office 365 Home.
You can also use an extension key for 365 personal and extend your 365 home subscription but it’ll only add 9 months instead of 12 (but it’s usually easier to find a good deal for 365 personal as it’s often bundled with tablets etc.).
It seems like B2 will probably be around for a while. Since it’s not a “totally unlimited space for one price” service, this limits their potential future motivation to decide people are using up too much space for the price and discontinue the service (see: Amazon). But anything could change, which is why it’s a good idea to maybe a have fallback solution(s) in mind. With less than 1TB total backup needs like you and i both have, luckily there are a few different services where that much storage isn’t totally unreasonable, but for now I have a strong feeling about B2 - and there’s even the possibility that they might soften their prices in the future (maybe/maybe not, but as storage gets less expensive it’s plausible).
I personally have done a separate bucket for each machine, but it would probably also be acceptable to do all backups into one bucket but into different folders. Whatever you do, do NOT direct different backups into the same folder. Also keep in mind that once a B2 bucket or folder is named, it’s difficult and/or impossible to change the name.
I believe in B2 you should just set “keep all”. Duplicati deletes backup data sets that are no longer needed or redundant. I don’t believe B2 keeps deleted files so if i’m right then it shouldn’t be a worry (and if i’m wrong about that someone let me know please).
There’s no limits or penalties for having extra buckets, you just pay for your total storage size. Then again if it were me I’d just have Duplicati back them up to B2 (i currently do this with my hundreds of FLAC cd rips and DVD rip collection).
FWIW - after the CrashPlan-pocalypse, I put my wife (our only Windows machine) onto BackBlaze Personal. The initial backup of about 1.5TB is still running. It’s about 80% done. After seven weeks. I don’t think we’ll be renewing that next year.
I have since started putting most of our stuff into PCloud. It’s based in Europe and uploads are chugging along at a steady 51-53GB per day, suggesting that the limit is my 5Mbit outbound internet speed, not the provider’s throttle of inbound speed. 2TB storage and 2TB monthly download quota for $96/year
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I’m using OneDrive. As mentioned earlier in the thread, I pay $99/year for 5 1TB logins. We are actively using 3 of them. $20/TB/year is a really good deal. Backup speed is limited by my internet connection speed of 6mbit/sec up…
Marc
I looked at that, but one of our machines needs more than 1TB. So I would be signing myself up for some really gnarly logistics.
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PCloud is located in Switzerland.
250€ Lifetime plan for 2TB sounds interesting as well (but also suspicious).
How do you upload your data to PCloud?
FTP, webdav? I did not find something on the page of PCloud how to upload data from a NAS:
I use the device driver on one of my Linux boxes, and rsync a copy of the backup daily to pCloud.
Sorry, but what means “device driver”? Could you point me to the right direction?