Would you be my "Friend"?
Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 4:59PM I have a problem.
I need to sort out my offline backups.
After trying Crashplan, I've cancelled my online account as the upload speeds just weren't cutting it. I have a 100MB down, 10MB up connection with Virgin Media and despite an initial high speed upload, the speed has fallen up dramatically. Yes, it's a brilliantly cheap deal, but I really want a fast upload.
After some research on the CrashPlan forums, it seems I'm afflicted by a routing issue out of their control with some carriers throttling traffic to CrashPlan (not VirginMedia BTW)
So I tried BackBlaze, another online service, but their upload speed isn't too hot either.
So I tried Arq.
Brilliant! Getting 1.2MB upload speeds, right into Amazon's S3 service.
The problem is though, it's going to be expensive. Not so much Arq, but S3 itself. To store 500GB on S3 will cost $70 per month (ish!). I've got a fair amount of data I'd like to store. Several terabytes in fact!
So how about this for a solution.
Find a "Friend" living within a hours drive of Liverpool, who is also on a Virgin Media 100MB connection and who is prepared to enter into a "symbiotic" relationship i.e. they would host my online backup and I will host theirs.
It would go something like this:
- I would configure a Mac mini and a 4 bay Drobo and do a local backup of all my stuff.
- I would transport the Mac mini and Drobo to the "Friends" location.
- They would power it up and connect it to their local LAN and be OK with leaving it on 24x7
- I would be able to backup incrementally to the remote Drobo and do the same for them (if required)
The Mac mini could be left to run without a monitor and I could arrange for Remote Access (if required).
So once in place, how would this work?
CrashPlan has a facility to allow you to setup a remote backup location with a "Friend" for free. Once configured, CrashPlan would start incremental backups automatically from my local data to the remote location. Because I would have already made a full backup locally before before transporting it, there would be no requirement to backup Gigabytes over data over the internet.
Other than the initial hardware costs, the running costs would be nil (except for power)
Physical security is another matter, but again, by setting up a CrashPlan "Friend" system, access to the data on the remote system is protected.
To prevent negatively impacting the bandwidth in the remote location, you can configure the inbound connections to only work overnight, but as they would only be incremental backups, this would probably not be an issue.
As I'd only really need to access the backups in the event of a catastrophe, there would be no real need to download stuff (other to validate the backups are working), and in the event, I could always just drive over and pickup the Drobo to connect to my local system.
Actually, I wonder if there is something already built into the Drobo to do Drobo to Drobo backups remotely. I'll need to do some research.
So what do you think?
Pitfalls?
Have you ever set up a similar system with CrashPlan and how has it worked out?
Are you within an hour of Liverpool, have a Virgin Media 100MB connection, be happy to have a Mac mini and a Drobo powered 24x7 and willing to be my "Friend"?
Let me know!
Reader Comments (12)
Hi Don.
I was reading something just the other day about Drobo and Oxygen cloud. Apparently they have partnered up to offer something like you have described. I bought a QNAP which was great - for 2 weeks - and has just been returned to Amazon and then on to NAS Server heaven somewhere. Now awaiting the arrival of our Drobo FS.
The Crashplan thing works as i've trialed it with my brother in-law having done a back up first, and then connecting that drive to his mac. I haven't died the oxygen cloud thing though as i can't remember where i read about it. I'll wait for our little Drobo and then see how you got on :-)
Alan....
Burton in Kendal's just over an hour away but I don't have the virgin service, sorry Don.
Why not look at buying a dedicate server and use R1soft for image backups that images your machine offsite??
Twitter @chrisduk85 and @cyberhostpro
We are In Liverpool with servers in Manchester :-)
http://www.cyberhostpro.com/servers/
Hi Don. I'd gladly host your server farm being only 40 minutes up the road. Only problem is I am hobbled by Sky Broadband at a max of 3mbps. Oh well, it's the thought that counts.
I checked crashplan after ur twitter posts but rejected it because I wanted a solution that would be able to work with NAS instead of a computer.
I am currently trying to set up a bidirectional exchange of files between my WD My Book World edition and a Drobo FS of a friend using only an rsync service.
The first tests worked. We both have only 1Mbps upload but we dont have this amount of data. We agreed that we will share a folder of about 150GB on each other and have. It may take some days but when done we will be able to offsite backup each others files.
Only thing is that rsync works only command line on the NAS an need some more advanced configurations.
I'm pretty sure Crashplan will backup a NAS.
Don... sounds like a plan... except you aren't protected from regional disasters choosing someone so close to you.
BOb
Don, this is a brilliant idea. I'd do it like a shot except I live in London. But now you've given me the idea I might look locally for a "backup friend" or, maybe, we should say Offside Recovery Affiliate. I shall do my own post, referring to yours, and see if anyone bites the hook.
Michael
www.macfilos.com
Backing up properly is always a delima. Like you, I have been reviewing my backup strategy and have recently invested in a DROBO S. I have also moved to CrashPlan from another provider (I exceeded the data storage allowance of the provider).
In Australia upload speeds (slow) and restrictive plans (cost/data allowances) means that you can take weeks to get an off line backup populated. If it is large, look at months. (I hope that our NBN project may address data speeds with "fibre to the home")
In your case the CrashPlan option of "pre populating" by sending a drive may be a good option. The "friend" concept does give the option of a quick/cost effective (perhaps)/easily?? managed off site backup. Amazon S3 is nice, but cost is high.
There is an unwelcome "hit" on the "friends" data usage though. Perhaps a shared cost Internet plan of larger capacity/performance. There is also the issue of trust and security. To me the "friend" option has many potential issues and is fraught with danger. We are dealing with our fellow human being on a pretty "intimate" level in the area of trust/reliability/access.
Suggestions of co-hosting may be worth investigation. A couple come to mind http://macminicolo.net/ and http://www.macminiworld.net/ Non are cheap.
I think pre populating will be a requirement of any choice (you would have large amounts of data to store) you make.
Next week my ISP plan upgrade should be in place and I will be able to play seriously with CrashPlan and see what sort of upload speeds I get from Ozz.
As we go digital this (backup) is becoming a serious issue for us all. I do not use a film camera at all these days. The iPhone 4S has a 1080p video and a 8megapixel camera. Data data every where. Now where's a place to store!
@PAul, keep in mind the crashplan peer-to-peer backup encrypts your data before it sends it to your friend. So, they have no access to your stuff.
BOb
Probably can't help with location, unless you think USA is close enough! But I use Crashplan as you plan, taking my USB drive to the office once all is on it, and running a second copy of Crashplan there.
When the drive is at home, my Crashplan syncs to it.
And when i take the drive to work, my Crashplan finds it through the second program and continues the backup remotely.
No issues so far - and I have tested file recovery too!
I've set this up in a very similar way to how you describe it Don.
However my 'friend' is actually me on my Mac in the office. I have a Drobo connected to the Mac Pro I use there and the free Crashplan app running on it. My MacBook and iMac at home (also with the free version of Crashplan) on Virgin both back up to the drobo.
I seeded the drobo with an initial backup of both home Macs to start. It works marvellously.
Unfortunately I'm in London so can't help you out.
Hi,
I did a revamp of my (and family and servers) backup solution, at first i was with a mix of jungledisk and carbonite, but the bill was getting bigger and bigger. At the end i got a dedicated hosting machine (4 CPU, 16G ram, 2T disk), put an esxi vmware on it, move all my other 3 vps+dedicated hosting on it, added a linux vps with crashplan, and sync all the "home"s pc from the family to it (4 houses different locations), added a second destination to my own imac from all the others to my Drobo. So each computer have a "all purpose" backup to 2 locations and a very important as small as possible to jungledisk. The very very important pc/imac also have a local external disk. The size of one copy is around 1T. As far as i calculated globally i cut the expense in half.
Don, the dedicated server is in a data-center in France on 100Mbit bw and I'll be glad to offer you some space or help you get a similar hosting for 50e/m (kimsufi dot com)
Ciprian