Have you done a backup recently?

[cambridgehank]

I make a backup daily to one of two external hard drives.  My MacBook Pro backs up  also to Airport Time Capsule, which is also my router, through Time Machine.  I use a portable 1TB hard drive that I leave at my son's house monthly, I might get another one and swap it out with him weekly. I burned all my cds and sold them to a local used cd seller.  He also purchased my old LPs and 45s.  We are relocating into a small condo and there is no room for my music. 

[Bob Stern]

6 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Unfortunately Amazon changed its prices drastically. To backup all my music was going to cost me several hundred dollars per month. I stopped using it.

 

Out of curiosity, I compared prices between Amazon Cloud Drive and the Glacier level of Amazon S3.  The price per TB of storage is identical.  Neither charges for uploading.  I believe the differences are:

 

(1)  Cloud Drive and S3 charge in increments of TB and GB, respectively, so 1.001 TB costs $120/yr on Cloud Drive and $60/yr on S3.

 

(2)  Retrievals, required only if your local backup is lost, are free (for now) with Cloud Drive and $90/TB with S3.

[cambridgehank]

Here is my reply from Amazon tech support:

 

Thank you for your interest in a music upload option. The Amazon Music Storage subscription plans (free and paid) are retired, which means the option to store your Music library is not available anymore. If you require any other assistance or have any other questions regarding this, Please call or chat with an Amazon Digital specialist for live assistance, we'll be happy to help. We can be reached 24 hours a day, seven days a week using the following link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us

We'd appreciate your feedback. Please use the buttons below to vote about your experience today.

Best regards, Sasha-lee. P Amazon.com

[The Computer Audiophile]

That’s a misinformed or disingenuous answer. Music is only a data file. It can be backed up to Amazon. I currently have ~500GB of music there. 

[botrytis]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

That’s a misinformed or disingenuous answer. Music is only a data file. It can be backed up to Amazon. I currently have ~500GB of music there. 

 

Only ~500GB? I am at 2TB currently. I have several backups of my music on various HD's (most are plugged in only to back up once a week - it is a pain but it saves them). I also take each artist and RAR them up to put on another HD.

 

I think Amazon is worried about bootleg copies and/or illegal copies and do not want to be responsible for that.

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 hour ago, botrytis said:

 

Only ~500GB? I am at 2TB currently. I have several backups of my music on various HD's (most are plugged in only to back up once a week - it is a pain but it saves them). I also take each artist and RAR them up to put on another HD.

 

I think Amazon is worried about bootleg copies and/or illegal copies and do not want to be responsible for that.

I won’t store my 12TB on Amazon because the cost is too much. 

[plissken]

I had 8TB stored on Amazon Cloud Drive.  I spun up a Windows 10 Pro machine, used storage spaces, built a 12TB parity space using 3 drives. 

 

My HP Z420 workstation runs all my machines as VM's in Hyper-V and I use Acronis to backup all that to the SMB share. 

 

Love having operating systems stored as a file. 

[botrytis]

41 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I won’t store my 12TB on Amazon because the cost is too much. 

 

That is more like it

[Jud]

1 hour ago, plissken said:

I had 8TB stored on Amazon Cloud Drive.  I spun up a Windows 10 Pro machine, used storage spaces, built a 12TB parity space using 3 drives. 

 

My HP Z420 workstation runs all my machines as VM's in Hyper-V and I use Acronis to backup all that to the SMB share. 

 

Love having operating systems stored as a file. 

 

I've got 3 copies of my stuff at home (two 4 TB HDDs, a handful of SD cards that double as my music library for travel). But I want something remote in case of fire or break-in.  Amazon was perfect under the old pricing structure.  Looking for something to replace them.

[semente]

How about this:

 

pCloud 2TB Premium Plus Lifetime ₤ 220.99 (single payment)

[Jud]

18 minutes ago, semente said:

How about this:

 

pCloud 2TB Premium Plus Lifetime ₤ 220.99 (single payment)

 

That's more along the lines I was thinking of, but I can contemplate having more than 2TB to store, since I'm at 1TB with most of my CDs still to rip. 

[NOMBEDES]

My Time Machine states that my last backup was in 2017.  I attempted to back up today and it stills indicates 2017.   In short, I can't get Time Machine to work.  Although it sits on my desk and tells me that it only has 6 hrs to go......

 

1.  When your computer goes to sleep does that stop the time machine back up?

2.  I am going to buy two 1 TB drives and back up all my photos to one and all my music to the other.  

3.  I don't get why OSX is so obtuse.

[monteverdi]

i do not understand what advantages cloud storage has. One or two HDD drives cost not much.

[The Computer Audiophile]

What happens if the hard drives die, burn in a fire, or are stolen? 

 

Can you access those hard drives from anywhere in the world?

[Gregory]

14 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

What happens if the hard drives die, burn in a fire, or are stolen? 

 

Can you access those hard drives from anywhere in the world?

 

Plus automatic backup, one properly setup :-)

[beerandmusic]

i use windows scheduler to backup any changes daily to an attached ssd drive, and then monthly i copy the deltas to two larger HDs...(kept in fireproof safe).

 

i do this for all my data and music.

 

I used to mail a copy to my brother in another state until he passed away...mainly so he could also have a backup as well, but it was nice to have a copy offsite just for my concerns as well.

 

Once my data was larger than 1TB, i deleted a lot of DSD files that i never listen too. (got rid of a lot of classic and blues, keeping mostly jazz and a few classics)...i am content with my 1TB and will keep it trimmed to that point.

My backup drives are 4TB, but i keep the music below 1TB because that is the size of my ssd drives, and i really don't listen to more than 1tb music.

[jrd1975]

I am more than happy using https://www.idrive.com

 

They have a 50% off sale on currently as well!  

[Bob Stern]

10 hours ago, NOMBEDES said:

My Time Machine states that my last backup was in 2017.  I attempted to back up today and it stills indicates 2017.   In short, I can't get Time Machine to work.  Although it sits on my desk and tells me that it only has 6 hrs to go......

 

When your computer goes to sleep does that stop the time machine back up?

 

If it's a laptop, go to System Prefs > Energy Saver > Power Adapter and enable Power Nap.

 

Time Machine troubleshooting:

 

Delete the .inProgress files:

http://osxdaily.com/2014/03/31/time-machine-stuck-preparing-backup-mac-fix/

 

Pondini's advice:

http://osxdaily.com/2014/03/31/time-machine-stuck-preparing-backup-mac-fix/

[monteverdi]

16 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

What happens if the hard drives die, burn in a fire, or are stolen? 

 

Can you access those hard drives from anywhere in the world?

That's why one should have 2 drives at different locations. And access to the internet is not equal everywhere. I wonder how often cloud storage is really updated/cloned as also their drives are not permanent either. As cloud is a recent option permanence of cloud storage is not known

[Jud]

10 hours ago, jrd1975 said:

I am more than happy using https://www.idrive.com

 

They have a 50% off sale on currently as well!  

 

They offer a nicely priced 2TB plan as well as a 5TB plan for not terribly much more, which would likely be enough for me for at least several years into the future.  But probably not for some folks here.

[beerandmusic]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

 

They offer a nicely priced 2TB plan as well as a 5TB plan for not terribly much more, which would likely be enough for me for at least several years into the future.  But probably not for some folks here.

 

very reasonable...but remember that is 50% off, so if you are going to do it,, i would recommend the 2 year plan....

[Bob Stern]

23 hours ago, jrd1975 said:

I am more than happy using https://www.idrive.com

They have a 50% off sale on currently as well!  

 

A big question with any online backup service is whether they'll still be in business when you need to retrieve your backup.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Bob Stern said:

 

A big question with any online backup service is whether they'll still be in business when you need to retrieve your backup.

Sure. Which means you still need to have other alternative backups.

So if you go that route, you have to monitor it and get a new service as soon as the previous one goes belly up. 

The outlay for some of them is modest, so you might lose $50 if one of them goes away. 

[Jud]

20 hours ago, monteverdi said:

That's why one should have 2 drives at different locations. And access to the internet is not equal everywhere. I wonder how often cloud storage is really updated/cloned as also their drives are not permanent either. As cloud is a recent option permanence of cloud storage is not known

 

Much of cloud storage is geared toward business, so performance on measures like having updated copies of your data would presumably be of great importance to their major customers.

[Jud]

Other features I want or need from an online backup service that Amazon delivered: 

 

Necessary: The service doesn't hog your Internet connection while running. I've read some comments that iDrive may do this. Anyone know about Backblaze (which currently offers unlimited storage)?

 

Desired: Fast uploads. Again, I've read some comments to the effect that iDrive is rather slow. PCMag tests appear to indicate Backblaze is a little quicker.

 

Backblaze's disadvantages - lousy app, lack of ability to be very granular selecting files to back up - aren't deal breakers for me, though they might be for others. (I have all my music files on an external drive, so I can just have Backblaze back up the whole drive. I'd rather the iPhone app was nicer, but that's not essential to me.)

 

Any reactions from folks who may have tried either or both of these, or other services you like?