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Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

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Re: Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

#151

Post by cdumler »

DenisM wrote: post #101

Given the rise of ransomware in the recent months, what protection does Arq offer against that? That thing alone would easily tip the scales for me versus the Time Machine. I see that the AWS S3 IAM user has both read and write access, so if the ransomware authors ever bother with it, they can kill the backups. Would that help if I setup versioning on the bucket? Will Arq be able to restore backups from the older ver…

To answer your question directly:

Both Arq and Time Machine create differential backups. Thus, any particular backup can be restored back in time. However, Arq targets non-file-based media (although you could trick it by a little SSH magic). Time Machine requires file-based access.

If ransomeware finds your file-based backup, it will encrypt it and render your backup useless.

The term backup gets bandied about, so it can mean one or more of the following: high-availability, synchronization, and/or disaster recovery. You'll want to look into these and the concept of the 3-2-1 method.

Re: Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

#154

Post by reiichiroh »

gcb0 wrote: post #59
blue1 wrote: post #15

If I understand well, Arq does not backup the whole computer. I am looking for a tool that allows for recovery of single files, but also that has a backup of the whole machine, so that if the HD crashes it is possible to rebuild it verbatim. What does HN suggest for such a tool? I used Norton Ghost for years (but it has been discontinued).

for disk deaths I'd just settle with raid. life should be simple.

raid isn't for backup. it's for uptime.

Re: Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

#155

Post by atYevP »

DenisM wrote: post #145
atYevP wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yev from Backblaze here -> Absolutely. They key difference is backup vs. archive. Backblaze was designed as a backup solution, it's intended to be a 1:1 copy of your user data, and if your data set changes we change it on our end as well, with a 30-day history for accidental deletes. We need to reclaim that space to keep costs down, and we're not intended nor designed to be an archive (keeping data forever). Backblaz…

I think your comparison is out of date [1], AWS S3 infrequent access has $0.0125 per GB now not $0.022+ that you have listed. Of course yours is still much better with $0.005 per GB. Also, it does not look like you have any kind of consumer offering for it, as I have to contact sales to get anything at all. So there's really no point for Arq to even try adding support. I like your prices though. [1] https://www.backb…

We don't write out the infrequent access pricing as it's not what we're competing with, also why we don't price out Nearline or Glacier, it's not at 1:1 for what we're trying to offer. The consumer offering is available from the docs: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/. You can use the web interface if you want, or tie in with CLIs/APIs. The sales channel is primarily for people that want to integrate it in to the apps that they are building. Hope that clears some things up!

Re: Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

#156

Post by eridius »

DenisM wrote: post #136
eridius wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that tip the scales versus Time Machine? Time Machine should provide the same protection as Arq, i.e. versioned backups from before the ransomware attack should be safe. I know there was some hue and cry a little while ago about Mac ransomware that can encrypt network drives and external hard drives, but there's a reason why the _encrypt_timemachine routine was an unused stub. From what I understand, Time M…

Well, it should, but does it? Time Capsule's drive is just another network drive. The data could be easily erased. There's also a button in the Airport Utility that nukes all data on the drive. There is no reason for me to believe that this button could not be triggered by rouge software. It would be nice if you could provide citations to the opposite.

It's not "just another network drive". It's mounted specially by the OS. Sure, if you mount the drive like a normal network drive then the protections might be lost (but maybe not; it's plausible that the protection takes the form of an xattr that prevents modification, so mounting it using any mechanism that respects xattrs might preserve the same protection. I'm not at home right now or I'd check up on that). But you don't normally mount your Time Machine backup volume as a normal network volume, and the malware shouldn't be able to do it either (since it doesn't know the password).

I'm not familiar with the button in AirPort Utility that you mentioned. I assume you're talking about a Time Capsule? I don't have one of those, I use a Synology NAS as my Time Machine destination, so I'm not familiar with the button in question. That said, presumably triggering that functionality requires having the base station password, and if you want to speculate about the software actually causing AirPort Utility to launch and manipulating its UI in order to try and literally press the button, that kind of functionality would require the user to grant Universal Access permission to the rogue software (the Accessibility permission in the Privacy tab of the Security & Privacy preference pane).

In any case, if you're talking about theoretical attacks where the software figures out how to actively mount a network drive that isn't already mounted in order to wreck it, then you may as well speculate about it figuring out how to delete data from your Amazon S3 bucket (or whatever other cloud provider you use as an Arq destination).

Re: Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

#157

Post by DenisM »

cdumler wrote: post #151
DenisM wrote: post #101

Given the rise of ransomware in the recent months, what protection does Arq offer against that? That thing alone would easily tip the scales for me versus the Time Machine. I see that the AWS S3 IAM user has both read and write access, so if the ransomware authors ever bother with it, they can kill the backups. Would that help if I setup versioning on the bucket? Will Arq be able to restore backups from the older ver…

To answer your question directly: Both Arq and Time Machine create differential backups. Thus, any particular backup can be restored back in time. However, Arq targets non-file-based media (although you could trick it by a little SSH magic). Time Machine requires file-based access. If ransomeware finds your file-based backup, it will encrypt it and render your backup useless. The term backup gets bandied about, so it…

That doesn't answer my question at all.

Re: Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

#158

Post by reiichiroh »

sreitshamer wrote: post #118
PaulHoule wrote: post #22

"Error establishing a database connection"

Fixed now. Sorry. The load from HN was too much for a while.

Can't start a trial account.

Failed to activate. The remote name could not be resolved. store.arqbackup.com

Re: Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

#159

Post by reiichiroh »

leejoramo wrote: post #79
blue1 wrote: post #15

If I understand well, Arq does not backup the whole computer. I am looking for a tool that allows for recovery of single files, but also that has a backup of the whole machine, so that if the HD crashes it is possible to rebuild it verbatim. What does HN suggest for such a tool? I used Norton Ghost for years (but it has been discontinued).

In addition to SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner there is ChronoSync. http://www.econtechnologies.com/chronosync/overview.html SuperDuper is the easiest to use, and I would recommend it to anyone as their first choice. CCC and ChronoSync both have more advanced features: including bootable network copies, and backing the recovery partitions. ChronoSync also offers two-way folder sync's, enterprise features, and more.

What is there for Windows?
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