Online backup (again)

[rach3975]

What's everyone using for online backup these days? Have you been happy with it? I've been using Crashplan for a couple of years, and I was happy with it until a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm trying to restore everything on a new computer (from a local backup, though it's also in the cloud with them) and I'm incredibly frustrated. I've done smaller restores in the past and thought it was easy, but this full restore...ugh. Once I finally get this finished (or even started, since their "file maintenance" has prevented me from getting anything off my EHD for more than 24 hours) there may be a new online backup site in my future.

One of my main reasons for going with Crashplan was that they could run both my local and cloud backup, but right now that's feeling like a very stupid move on my part. The problems I've been having affect both backups; if I'd been doing the online backup through Crashplan and the local backup through someone else, I'd be a lot more confident that at least one of the two was safe. Sadly, right now I'm happy that it was my computer's motherboard instead of the HD that failed. I suppose I could get everything off that HD if I have to give up on restoring through Crashplan.

 

[anelia]

I haven't heard of Crashplan but I've been using Dropbox for couple of years and I'm very happy with it. They give you 2GB free or you can upgrade to paid monthly/annual plans. I have their folder installed on my computer(s) and I put whatever I want in there and it uploads to their servers and then I can access it from anywhere when I login onto their website

 

[rach3975]

I haven't heard of Crashplan but I've been using Dropbox for couple of years and I'm very happy with it. They give you 2GB free or you can upgrade to paid monthly/annual plans. I have their folder installed on my computer(s) and I put whatever I want in there and it uploads to their servers and then I can access it from anywhere when I login onto their website

I love dropbox for getting things between my phone and my computer, but I don't think it will work for my backups since I have more than 300 GB backed up right now.

 

[MamaBee]

Yikes!! I use crashplan! :blink: I'll have to let hubby know about your experiences. My biggest complaint with crashplan is that somehow - I think it was when I updated the OS, it started over... so it still has a year to upload. *SMH*

We have a buffalo personal server that has a copy of everything.. that gets backed up to crashplan nightly and so does my laptop (when it feels like it, apparently). We have moved to different computers and we just move the stuff from the personal server to set up the new computer - to us, crashplan is more like insurance... good to have, hope never to use.

I'll be watching the thread - always good to keep an eye on what is new and others are using.

 

[rach3975]

If it makes you feel any better, Rebecca, I've been thinking about it this morning and most of my problems have been related to the local backup that Crashplan manages for me. The online backup is there and accessible, but I'm not willing to pay $150 (or whatever it's up to now) to get my files mailed to me on a drive. That's why I also have a local backup. If the situation were different and the online copy was all there was, I'd happily pay the money and be grateful to have the files. In theory I can download it all myself for free, but in the 500 MB chunks they allow at a time that's not practical.

 

[rach3975]

Crashplan update: It looks like if you go through the desktop app instead of the website you can restore an unlimited amount at a time. Most of my restores have been when I needed a file on a computer that didn't have Crashplan installed, which is why I was running into the 500 MB limit.

 

[lovely1m]

I use crashplan, but they have been driving me nuts since March when I got a new debit card. Every single month they say it didn't go through, I log in and they still have the old card on there. I update, think it's fixed, then next month, it's the same thing.

 

[rach3975]

I use crashplan, but they have been driving me nuts since March when I got a new debit card. Every single month they say it didn't go through, I log in and they still have the old card on there. I update, think it's fixed, then next month, it's the same thing.

Frustrating! I had something similar happen with a cell phone once. Every month I signed up for automatic payment and got a confirmation that it would take effect for the next billing cycle, but the next month it didn't work. I never did get it working, just gave up after a while.

I finally gave up on restoring from the backup Crashplan had made on my EHD. It was running incredibly slowly and files I'd deleted months ago were loading back on. I ended up putting the HD from my dead computer in an enclosure so I could use it as an EHD and just copied everything directly. Done in one day and only the files I wanted were transferred. My takeaway lesson is that for my online backup I want all my files saved just in case I delete something accidentally, but for my EHD backup I want something that more closely mirrors the computer in case I have to restore everything after a crash.