Have you done a backup recently?

[mansr]

Sorry to hear that.

 

Seriously, HDtracks doesn't let you re-download? That is just totally user-unfriendly. I've bought very little there, but basically will now stop completely.

If you ask nicely, they will probably let you re-download. It's a bit silly of them to restrict it at all, of course. I only buy from them when there's a discount on. Otherwise Qobuz tends to be cheaper.

[mansr]

Is it Backblaze where the uploads affect downloads? That happened for me too with another service, but not for Amazon Cloud Drive, which is one of the reasons I moved to it and have stayed with it.

Saturating your upload bandwidth can adversely affect downloads (Google "buffer bloat" for details). Limiting upload speed to around 80% of max rate avoids this. The extent of this effect depends more on your ISP than the service you're connecting to.

[mansr]

Indeed, it's only when I crank my upload speed up to max that my download/surfing speed suffers. Backblaze allows you to adjust speed. They claim upload speed is ONLY limited by your own home speeds. (Our ISP can do high speeds, but this apartment must have really bad wiring that limits speeds).

 

Great if Amazon and other clouds have some way of allowing max uploads without cropping downloads.

 

It's possible that Amazon client or server software adjusts the rate to keep latency reasonable.

[mansr]

I've used at least 3 different client software products, so it could be the server or something all client software must contain.

 

An acquaintance at Amazon says it's the sort of thing they'd likely be doing but it's not his department.

[mansr]

15 minutes ago, Jud said:

now that Backblaze requires me to back up my main local drive

How do they do that?

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

There were two check boxes for the backup, one for my external drive, one for my primary local drive. When I unchecked the latter, the backup software said it would not proceed if I didn't back up my primary local drive.

No third-party client software?

[mansr]

2 hours ago, RunHomeSlow said:

Clouds come and go...

 

You never know what can happen in the sky... Like we are sorry to inform you that all our passwords and files were deleted by a 13 years old hacker 

 

I will always favor physical backup for my music files and outside my house.

Cloud storage is still useful as one of several backups. It's highly unlikely that Amazon, Google, and your safe deposit box will get hacked at the same time.

[mansr]

[mansr]

9 minutes ago, hipstone said:

I have a question that is likely already asked and answered, but I'll shoot anyway.

 

I'm backing up my 11TBs of data from 3 internal drives to a bunch of 2TB external USB drives.

 

How much free space should I leave on each drive to be safe and not over stuff a drive?  I know leaving some space unused is desirable, but not sure how much.

Fill them to the brim. Any advice you've seen recommending some spare room relates to the performance of drives in active use. The reasons are not relevant to backup media.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

I use Carbon Copy Cloner and recommend it wholeheartedly. One of the advantages of programs like this is that they do a smart copy and only copy over the files that have changed or have been added, greatly reducing the time required for a backup.

That's one of the great things about rsync. It can even detect a part of a large file has been modified and copy only the changes.

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, cambridgehank said:

Do you use Time Machine also or not?

I don't use Macs.

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

what about emacs?

But of course. Also vi.