
Ask HN: What's the best (basic/cheap) backup solution? - marojejian
I have very simple needs: I want to ensure that, in an extreme case, (e.g. my house burns down)  my files (not covered by web services) can be retrieved.<p>So let&#x27;s assume a TB (or a few in the future), with slow regular upload, and very rare DL access.  I want to minimize cost, but also effort in sync (assume limited technical expertise).<p>What&#x27;s the best option?
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Raed667
I use a Synology NAS that backups everything on Google Drive and Dropbox. I
don't have a TB of data though so I'm still in the free-tier.

Having 3 copies of the data (with one being local) is safe enough for me, you
can multiply that by as much as you're willing to pay.

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bradknowles
Many tools will support multiple backends. Amazon S3 and Glacier versus
Backblaze are common alternatives.

But I think more important is the front-end tool, what format it creates,
whether the content is encrypted before it leaves your machines, etc....

Once you decide which front-end you want to use, then start looking at which
back-end might work best with it.

For my part, I believe that it is best to do the first level of backups
locally to a NAS device (with encryption before the files hit the server), and
then secondarily back up the NAS device to the cloud (with another layer of
encryption before the files leave your site).

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atmosx
I agree, the local time machine backup saved my ass multiple times.

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Normille
I use Duplicacy [free CLI version] [0] to back up to Amazon S3. My backup is
currently around 160GB and my monthly S3 charge is usually a few cents over $2
[extrapolate accordingly for higher storage needs].

It would be cheaper still if I used Amazon Glacier but I prefer to have the
speedier access, when needed.

[0] [https://duplicacy.com/](https://duplicacy.com/)

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giantg2
I backup onto a USB drive a couple times a year. I think it fits on 128GB, but
the windows backup files covers drives that total between .5TB and 1TB.

With this backup frequency, I would lose some data. I don't generate much
important data, so backing up after the few times I generate it is fine with
me. The only except is for code, but I use GitHub so that is covered.

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mdorazio
I personally use backblaze and it's been excellent. Cheap, works flawlessly in
the background with minimal resources, doesn't bombard me with ads or upsells,
and it's saved my ass twice now - once in an actual hard drive failure, and
then when I accidentally deleted files I needed to get back (you can download
them for 30 days after deletion).

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atmosx
Backblaze if you have good upstream bandwidth and/or
[https://wasabi.com/](https://wasabi.com/) .

If you don’t have upstream bandwidth, try USB disks and place them in a safe
place elsewhere. It’s an expensive drill in terms of commitment but I’ve seen
in practice and works.

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quickthrower2
Back blaze is good because it’s set and forget and fairly reasonably priced.
It’s one anxiety that I have now dropped that I don’t back up enough! It has
also given me a reason to just use git and not github for private personal
coding projects. As the code is backed up and I can use git locally there is
no need to push.

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gramakri
Hetzner storage has some fantastic deals which supports NFS mounting.
Backblaze is also good and has a reputation of being very cheap but you should
be aware that the download has a cost if you download your backups often.
Wasabi storage is also very cheap (s3 compatible)

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unethical_ban
Amazon Glacier with "FastGlacier" Windows software is very accessible. I
backup about 100GB and I believe my bill is $1/month.

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emersonrsantos
Backblaze, or Amazon Glacier with the inconvenience of having to wait some
hours to restore the tape backups.

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seanwilson
Google Drive is about $100/year for 2TB. Seems very reasonable to me for what
you get.

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tehlike
I use google drive too, but feeling the chills from the possibility of getting
locked out one day. I am looking into hosting a camlistore instance

