Off site backup solution for my iMac - Any suggestions?

Feek · 12 Aug 2015 at 10:15

Now that I've got a decent broadband connection with 20Mbps upload I think it's time to look at a proper off site backup. My native Apple app documents are in iCloud and I have my main Documents folder linked into Dropbox along with a Time Machine backup but hey, one can never have too many backups.

What I'd like is one of the online backup services and just dump absolutely everything in it. All my films and music are stored in iTunes and I serve them out to the house. I've had a massive failure before after a near lightning strike and it was an utter ache to get everything back.

If I could dump everything onto an online service, that would be fantastic.

I appreciate the initial backup time wouldn't be quick but it would be a lot faster now compared to my old ADSL connection and once it's done, it would just be a case of it keeping itself up to date. I want this to be an automatic process, just a case of kick it off and forget about it until I need it.

So, what online backup service do people use? What does it cost, what do you recommend?

Thanks.

Feek · 12 Aug 2015 at 16:55

If I do everything, absolutely loads. Nearly three terabytes.

Feek · 12 Aug 2015 at 21:37

S2KIP said:
Crashplan's speed is pretty poor.

I've read a couple of reviews which mention the speed of Crashplan. I've checked and I was correct, I have nearly three terabytes of data I'd be uploading so speed is quite important to me.

Feek · 13 Aug 2015 at 08:20

S2KIP said:
I've no idea if the second option is available in the UK. May be worth a look?

That's interesting but it's not clear whether it's a fully automated service, ie set it and totally forget about it. That's a big requirement for me.

I've been doing a bit of reading over the last couple of days and Backblaze seems to be coming out favourite at the moment.

Feek · 14 Aug 2015 at 07:50

I started a Backblaze trial yesterday, this morning it told me it's backing up at an average rate of 98Gb/day which I think is quite acceptable.

I've told it to use all my bandwidth but if I decide to go with it, I'll drop it down a bit once the initial backup has completed.

Feek · 21 Aug 2015 at 17:05

I'm very happy with the performance of Backblaze for the first week of the trial and I've done a couple of test restores so I just signed up for a year. That works out at £2.65/month which is more than reasonable.

Feek · 6 Sep 2015 at 19:55

My initial Backblaze backup has completed, just under three weeks.