Ok so having sifted through roadmap candidates I was left with Carbonite, SpiderOak and Backblaze.
As I mentioned in the first part of this piece I've got some very specific [picky] drivers and requirements for this solution.
Carbonite seemed pretty good overall but the price is an issue. For £34 a year (or thereabouts depending on the forex rate) you get to backup only one device. Even the next package up at around £60 a year is restricted to one device.
However for that you get unlimited space on your single Windows or Mac machine. It's not bad but I'm aiming for something that isn't as restrictive to cover my secondary drivers and requirements. To do that I'd have to take one of the Pro Plans, which start at £162 per year. That covers an unlimited number of devices but is then restricted to 250Gb.
It's an option but I'm discounting it for now as I'm going for something cheaper - perhaps even considering Carbonite alongside Datto for an enterprise-level candidate. My concern there is for non-US customers as they have stateside support only according to their website.
So down to two, both of whom have trials available.
I started with Backblaze as it seemed to cover all aspects. The review from the original cloud storage reviews list stated that Backblaze doesn't have a single-point encryption key to match some of the other products but I think the vendor has added the feature since that review.
All fine - good price: Either £3 per month for an essentially unlimited storage quantity, or £9 for the year. I actually thought I need look no further - and for most people this will probably do what you need it to do with minimum hassle. It's pretty easy to use ... but the problem is that I couldn't use it the same way I could with Mozy Pro and define specific backup sets of files and folders. I need a selective DR option and this would take too much time to configure.
With Backblaze I found it would back up all drives, but then allow me to isolate exceptions to the rule to exclude from future backups / delta chains.
If it wasn't for that small issue I would have signed up there and then. If you don't have such restrictive requirements and are looking for something safe and cheap you may want to take a look at the options this vendor provides.
My last option was actually added after further research whilst trialling Backblaze, and does exactly what it says on the tin (what I'd call "a Ronseal job").
Whilst the free 2Gb, unlimited devices, hive capable, secure and fast capabilities seem great; A word of caution: The two-factor authentication is limited as this is a US-focused product too - you cannot use the two-factor authentication unless you have a Canadian or US mobile number. I can get around the problem as I have infrastructure and phone numbers in the states but anyone solely based in Europe would need to review and balance capability over protection.
The vendors engaging the wider FOSS community with outer shell tools and libraries from their product. There's a description of the encryption and hashing algorithms implemented within the web-gumpff pages if you want to read it in detail. Its impossible to tell exactly how they're managing the information protection aspect of the implementation from the sales page but use of CFB is interesting. Works for me.
The only problem I have with that will be future release of open-source libraries used by their main products. Open-source is great but without organisation-level QA of each delta there's a risk of insecurity - lets hope that changes with the major corporate push on critical open source projects from earlier this year. We'll see where that goes but for now I'm going to shortlist SpiderOak.
I've read a few reviews that state that the UI isn't as intuitive; or that its quite complicated - I think thats probably relative. Its more complicated that Backblaze, but probably about the same as MozyPro. The UI is consistent on the Debian package as well so I'll give it a thumbs up.
I like that SpiderOak has endpoint installers for my favourite OS across Windows, Debian-based and Android...but no Windows Phone. We'll see how that goes for now as its not a critical requirement. [Update: WP doesn't need it due to the direct integration with OneDrive]
Whilst chipping away at this article I've been running SpiderOak for a day or so on a selected backup set. I had some problems with the SSL scanner within one of my security suites initially, but have since resolved that issue.
I ran some tests on a couple of other devices and virtual machines. Windows Server 2012 R2, Kali, Windows 7, Debian and a Mac all worked perfectly well. Time will tell but for now that's all boxes checked. I didn't get round to checking how well it works on the Nexus 7 but there's nothing of value on there anyway. We don't have any overpriced paperweights in this house [c.f. iPad].
SipderOak doesn't store plain text backups, encrypts before transfer and encrypts the transport so prevents easy acquisition of my device files and data.
All the candidates I looked at were good products but this one suited my needs better than the rest. I'd be really interested to hear other opinions.
As I mentioned in the first part of this piece I've got some very specific [picky] drivers and requirements for this solution.
Carbonite seemed pretty good overall but the price is an issue. For £34 a year (or thereabouts depending on the forex rate) you get to backup only one device. Even the next package up at around £60 a year is restricted to one device.
However for that you get unlimited space on your single Windows or Mac machine. It's not bad but I'm aiming for something that isn't as restrictive to cover my secondary drivers and requirements. To do that I'd have to take one of the Pro Plans, which start at £162 per year. That covers an unlimited number of devices but is then restricted to 250Gb.
It's an option but I'm discounting it for now as I'm going for something cheaper - perhaps even considering Carbonite alongside Datto for an enterprise-level candidate. My concern there is for non-US customers as they have stateside support only according to their website.
So down to two, both of whom have trials available.
I started with Backblaze as it seemed to cover all aspects. The review from the original cloud storage reviews list stated that Backblaze doesn't have a single-point encryption key to match some of the other products but I think the vendor has added the feature since that review.
All fine - good price: Either £3 per month for an essentially unlimited storage quantity, or £9 for the year. I actually thought I need look no further - and for most people this will probably do what you need it to do with minimum hassle. It's pretty easy to use ... but the problem is that I couldn't use it the same way I could with Mozy Pro and define specific backup sets of files and folders. I need a selective DR option and this would take too much time to configure.
With Backblaze I found it would back up all drives, but then allow me to isolate exceptions to the rule to exclude from future backups / delta chains.
 |
| Inverse selection....Choose everything then remove everything you don't want |
My last option was actually added after further research whilst trialling Backblaze, and does exactly what it says on the tin (what I'd call "a Ronseal job").
Whilst the free 2Gb, unlimited devices, hive capable, secure and fast capabilities seem great; A word of caution: The two-factor authentication is limited as this is a US-focused product too - you cannot use the two-factor authentication unless you have a Canadian or US mobile number. I can get around the problem as I have infrastructure and phone numbers in the states but anyone solely based in Europe would need to review and balance capability over protection.
The vendors engaging the wider FOSS community with outer shell tools and libraries from their product. There's a description of the encryption and hashing algorithms implemented within the web-gumpff pages if you want to read it in detail. Its impossible to tell exactly how they're managing the information protection aspect of the implementation from the sales page but use of CFB is interesting. Works for me.
The only problem I have with that will be future release of open-source libraries used by their main products. Open-source is great but without organisation-level QA of each delta there's a risk of insecurity - lets hope that changes with the major corporate push on critical open source projects from earlier this year. We'll see where that goes but for now I'm going to shortlist SpiderOak.
I've read a few reviews that state that the UI isn't as intuitive; or that its quite complicated - I think thats probably relative. Its more complicated that Backblaze, but probably about the same as MozyPro. The UI is consistent on the Debian package as well so I'll give it a thumbs up.
I like that SpiderOak has endpoint installers for my favourite OS across Windows, Debian-based and Android...but no Windows Phone. We'll see how that goes for now as its not a critical requirement. [Update: WP doesn't need it due to the direct integration with OneDrive]
Whilst chipping away at this article I've been running SpiderOak for a day or so on a selected backup set. I had some problems with the SSL scanner within one of my security suites initially, but have since resolved that issue.
 |
| The final candidate, operational across numerous devices. |
SipderOak doesn't store plain text backups, encrypts before transfer and encrypts the transport so prevents easy acquisition of my device files and data.
TL;DR
Overall this is the viable candidate for me, and in summary (comparing it against my original key drivers) I can sync and schedule backups separately, or link the events together - with a per-machine sync schedule. There's a zero-visibility policy meaning only I can unlock the secured backup sets. I can have 2Gb storage free forever - Although I've now signed up to the annual 100Gb package for £60. Its more than I was paying for Mozy Pro but I get more for my money, better support availability and unlimited device capability (including mobile and virtual). I can pick and choose where to restore specific files from any device in my list.All the candidates I looked at were good products but this one suited my needs better than the rest. I'd be really interested to hear other opinions.
