Data backup services / solutions.

JMP

Adept
A Seagate 4 TB hard drive died on me recently causing a good amount of data loss, these days we are storing more are more things digitally, so I have been searching for good backup solutions available to backup vital data - family photos, videos, documents, conversations / messages, important emails.

With broadband becoming cheap, transferring 6.5 TB / month should be quite easy, so backups and restores should not be a problem.

I am searching for about 5-10 TB of storage to accommodate present and future needs. Possible solutions I have encountered :

1) 2x 10 TB Drives - INR 25K. Pro: 20 - 25K one time investment. Con: could be lost in case of fire or burglary at home.
2) iDrive - $3.5 for 1st year and $75 each year. Pro: 10 TB dedicated backup service which has been in business for a while. Con: slow speeds, high recurring costs.
3) Google Drive - $20 / month. Pro: Enterprise class unlimited storage, free custom email and Google services. Con: A small violation of TOS can get you banned from ALL google services permanently. high recurring costs.
4) Office 365 One Drive - INR 4500/year. Pro: 6 TB of professional storage from MS. Con: A small violation of TOS can get your account banned with no warning leading to permanent data loss.
5) B2 / AWS Glacier - Pay as you go. Pro: low upfront costs. Con: charges in USD for data at rest and transfer which could add up quickly over time.
6) VPS / Dedicated Server/Seedbox (Hetzner etc) - EUR 20 - 40 a month. Pro: Powerful remote machines with 10 -16 TB of storage. Con: High monthly cost, overhead of maintaining the server (DDOS can get you banned). Lower costs machines don't have onsite backup.

The best solution I have found so far is to have 2 large local drives in RAID with Blackblaze remote backup at USD 6/month.
Do any of you know of a better service for backup ?

What backup service / method do you use for your needs ?
 
I have done the similar exercise an year ago. I zeroed in on Office 365 One Drive. Microsoft is charging subscription fee. Service should remain available for time to come. They are less interested in looking into user's data.
 
Microsoft offers unlimited (25 TB increments) under its OneDrive Business Plan 2 at INR 660 / month, this would be a good place to backup data, but needs a minimum of 5 users. I wonder if people would be interested in a group subscription similar to Netflix, Office 365 and Magzter subscriptions here.

never ever trust your data with cloud providers.
Using rclone, cryptomator can protect one's data from prying eyes. Having an offsite backup is important. Replicating a NAS or large local drive onto the cloud is a reasonably safe option.
 
I've got a Synology NAS. Just ordered a second one for my brother.

This is how I'm planning to set it up:

So we both can have peace of mind of our data security and ease of use at the same time.
I think this is the most robust storage solution for a small office or home that we have complete control over.
 
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