Backups...

August 19, 2012 11:51 AM

Offsite backup options that are not Dropbox?

What are the best offsite backup systems that are not Dropbox? I'm also not interested in the Truecrypt-container-within-Dropbox solution.

Details:

--must support a Mac (running OS X Mountain Lion)
--have ~500 gb to back up
--prefer a service that will allow me to ship a physical drive to them for the initial backup rather than having to rely on slow upload speeds.
--reliable
--secure
--not free. I want a real business running this operation

posted by dfriedman to computers & internet (17 answers total)

This question may be of interest.
posted by pompomtom at 11:58 AM on August 19, 2012

I've done a lot of backing up to Backblaze, and a few small restores, and it seems fine and good value. It's a dedicated backup service rather than Internet-based storage like Dropbox, so you can't mount it as a drive or drag-and-drop files.
posted by BinaryApe at 12:05 PM on August 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

I use CrashPlan. (I also do local backups.) I currently back up more than 500 GB of data. I didn't ship a drive to them, but I believe that option is available. The service costs $5/month.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:06 PM on August 19, 2012

I was coming in to recommend CrashPlan too. The "Plus" level is the "backup on their computers" option.

They offer the "send us a hard drive" option for US customers. Details are here. Looks like they send you their hard drive, you back up onto it, and send it back.
posted by mendel at 12:39 PM on August 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've also had good experiences with both Backblaze and Crashplan. My boyfriend uses Backblaze and likes it, I prefer Crashplan because it seems like a very real business.
posted by psycheslamp at 12:41 PM on August 19, 2012

I've been using rsync.net for a number of years now and have been very pleased with their service; low-key, professional, and capable. What they provide, however, is simply offsite storage; it's up to you to choose and implement the software on your end that creates and manages the backups. They're fairly expensive though (looks like you'd end up paying 30¢ per GB-month). I use them for a much smaller quantity of data.
posted by hattifattener at 12:42 PM on August 19, 2012

Crashplan.
posted by Brian Puccio at 12:54 PM on August 19, 2012

My backup plan is a combination of Backblaze and Time Machine.

It used to only be Backblaze. This works great, the biggest issue is that in the case of a catastrophic failure (hard drive dies or stolen laptop) they need to send you a USB drive with your files to recover. After a few of these I added the Time Machine to the mix. This allows for an immediate recovery and if I'm on the road or something I still have the remote backups in case something super important hasn't had a chance to get backed up locally.
posted by bitdamaged at 12:57 PM on August 19, 2012

--prefer a service that will allow me to ship a physical drive to them for the initial backup rather than having to rely on slow upload speeds.

Your local bank and a safe-deposit box should be less than $50/yr. Add a SATA docking station for the drives for ~$50.
posted by rhizome at 1:31 PM on August 19, 2012

Dolly Drive does all this, and will let you ship your drive for the initial back up. If you use Time Machine/Time Capsule, you can use Dolly Drive to clone your back up if you choose.
posted by cushie at 2:55 PM on August 19, 2012

CrashPlan. You can even set your own security key that is only stored in your client so CrashPlan's admins have no access to your backup set. (Insofar as you trust CrashPlan's software to do what it claims.) It works with Mac, Windows, Linux and, for some unholy reason, Solaris.

I've been using it for awhile now and am very pleased. BTW, surf around and you'll probably find a 10% off code without much looking.
posted by fireoyster at 3:57 PM on August 19, 2012

nthing Crashplan. With Crashplan you have the added option to store deleted files (which has saved my butt many times) which you do not have with Backblaze (where they only mirror your local data and you must prove to them at regular intervals, especially if it's on an external drive, that you still have those data or they delete it remotely).
posted by special-k at 5:54 PM on August 19, 2012

I really like Arq. Arq backups to your Amazon S3 account. You can encrypt your backups with a password only you know.

As the data lives on Amazon S3 the initial backup would be over your internet connection.
posted by mac-way at 7:39 PM on August 19, 2012

And I too came here to suggest CrashPlan. To add something not already mentioned: I know people who've had to do restores from CrashPlan, and they've raved about it.
posted by jeri at 9:53 PM on August 19, 2012

Nth Crashplan.
posted by Silvertree at 7:10 AM on August 20, 2012

I have Backblaze and while it's pretty good (unlimited storage, fairly inexpensive) I really don't like the fact I need to keep my external hard drives attached within 30 days or else it's purged from the system. (They say it's to prevent people using it as offline storage instead of backup).

CrashPlan as far as I know doesn't have this requirement.
posted by wcfields at 10:33 AM on August 20, 2012

I've been sold on CrashPlan. Thanks.
posted by dfriedman at 7:14 PM on August 20, 2012