Arq backs up to Google Drive storage | Hacker News Reader

Arq backs up to Google Drive storage

haystacksoftware.com

48 pointssreitshamer11 comments

I'm a huge fan of Arq. It's reliable, easy to use, inexpensive, and keeps getting better. I highly recommend it.

Back up everything for $10/month? That's appealing.

For most people S3/Glacier hybrid zones are probably still cheaper. But gDrive is definitely more "noob" (or your mom and dad) friendly than AWS. Anything under 1TB is less expensive.

How is it more "noob?" Considering the esoteric file format Arq uses, I will not call backups with it to Google Drive simple. If anything, they might be very confusing.

I wonder is Stephan meant Google Storage instead...

UPDATE: Just read that is uses "appdata" directory. Mom and dad will not 'see' the data.

What's more confusing for a beginner/my mom, telling them to enter their gmail and password or having them log into AWS, create a new bucket, selecting the appropriate region, copy that super long unreadable ID and key, and take into account # of request and any delays during restore?

The second, for sure. You are right.

Right. Also that means the backup data won't accidentally get copied to your hard drive by the Google Drive sync client.

How are you guys able to use these cloud backup solutions for more than a handful of documents?

I have 30Mbps down/.5Mbps up. It takes about a minute to upload one JPEG off my DSLR. I can't imagine how much time it would take to upload a ~100gb full disk backup.

I'd love to use Arq, but I think I'd have to live in a Google Fiber city.

>I have 30Mbps down/.5Mbps

Well there's your problem. I've got a 10 Mbps upstream connection, so it never takes more than a few minutes to back things up.

My `daily` backup is actually nightly, at 2AM which happens to coincide nicely with when my ISP's network is quiet enough that my upload is higher (still a paltry 4mbit).

Amusingly, for the initial backup of my my home desktops I actually lugged them to work and plugged into our 10Gbit network. My homedirs are backed up nightly, but the delta is rarely over a a gig or two per machine. I have something like 7TB backed up over the course of a few years, a lot fo it on my pitiful 2-3mbit.

I have the fastest upload available in my area (5 Mbps) and my initial backup may have taken a month or two for something to the tune of 900 GB. You certainly don't need 1 Gbps to backup remotely but 500 Kbps might not be quite enough.

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