I’ve been using Backblaze to back up my photo collection. I’ve been happy with the system, but it has an annoyance that you have to connect any drive you want to back up at least once a month. That’s OK if I’m at home but if I’m travelling for a long period it’s a problem. (a related problem is that my useless internet connection drops from time to time requiring a reboot of the router). I had a look at cloud backup solutions that don’t impose that constraint (Dropbox, Google Drive etc) but for large amounts of data (3-4 Tb) they’re chuffing expensive. Does anyone have an idea of a good alternative – either an alternative strategy or an alternative provider?
IMHO, cloud-storage is nice if one is mobile and still needs access to all one's digital assets. The fact that there is presumed to be a good back-up in place for the stored data is reassuring. But access to very large volumes of data can be slow (or non-existent during connection problems) and the recurring costs can become significant over time. And some Data storage warehouses are not very environmentally friendly, consuming lots of power for running the hardware and for cooling.
With a little effort, it is possible to organize one's own storage and backups on Harddisks which doesn't have to cost much in hardware (depending on how remote access is organized). Making copies of physical storage disks can be very cheap, and doing that periodically / routinely also assures that the data remains readable. Also making duplicates for off-premise storage to protect against fire/water calamities is simple, either by making a physical copy and moving it elsewhere, or by doing it remotely via a network connection.
There are plenty of software solutions one could use, from simple/cheap to very complex enterprise solutions.
I've had good experiences with
https://www.storagecraft.com/products/shadowprotect . But I routinely also work with Harddisks in several docks, which makes it easy to make a simple Backup or Synchronize files, and/or make a copy for storage in a fireproof safe.
The required complexity of a storage solution can change over time, but having a simple copy of the files on an external harddisk in a logical directory/folder structure can prevent a lot of headaches. 24/7 access to large volumes of data requires a more complex solution.
Just some thoughts,
Cheers,
Bart