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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

#161
post #88

Arq doesn't get the publicity it deserves. It's a reliable, provider-independent backup solution that YOU control. Data gets encrypted locally, then sent over to storage providers. When new storage providers appear, Arq implements APIs and lets you use them. Most importantly, when restoring, you don't enter your decryption password/key into a browser window. I don't understand how online-backup companies can talk abo…

Can you compare CrashPlan and Arq performance please? I use self-hosted CrashPlan for several years, it's great, but restores and thinning archives feel slow (like half a day for cca 1 TB of backups).

Well arq 4 was slow, but now arq 5 is much faster, uploading at 10MB/s from my macbook over wifi to amazon cloud drive.

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

#162
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).

https://ax64.com/

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

#163
post #138
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to keep them connected periodically otherwise if you lose it without reconnecting... lost . For backblaze it's even less time.

"You need to keep them connected periodically otherwise if you lose it without reconnecting... lost. For backblaze it's even less time." No way. What ? You're saying that if I dutifully pay my $X/mo for unlimited backup space, but fail to connect, or perform an update, the remote data is removed ? What ?

Yeap, most if not the overwhelming majority of backup services work like that. Some like Mozy have as low as a 30 day counter. [1]

--

[1] At least they had that 30 days limit a few years ago, I haven't used them in a while.

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

#164
Trying to buy my upgrade now - but it keeps telling me my Arq 4 license key is invalid.

I've tried both the licenseKey field, and the hash field from the license XML file I got when I bought Arq 4.

Has anybody else had success buying an upgrade license?

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

#165
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree with you - I think CrashPlan/BackBlaze are acting entirely reasonably when they delete old hard drives, particularly if they give a bit of grace after sending the email that they are about to nuke them. It's that just for some of us, who like to archive something like a 100 GB Hard Drive onto Amazon Glacier, for $0.007/GB/Month. (Roughly $0.70/month + $5 upload fees for a 100 GB Hard Drive Archive) -…

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…

Thanks for the clarification.

These pages make it clear how it works and it seems reasonable:

https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665398-Backi...

https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-...

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

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Window's folks generally refer to this as "ghosting", after the discontinued Norton Ghost. I have used Acronis in the past, but there are alternatives:

http://alternativeto.net/software/norton-ghost/?platform=win...

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

#167
post #142

Any of you know how to get your license code for an upgrade? I have the original email from when I bought Arq 4 in 2014, and it contains a license file. This is an XML with sections like 'id' and 'licenseKey' but neither of those are working.

I don’t know, but why not just contact the author? He’s very pleasant to deal with in my experience.

I've emailed, but no response yet (I figure the support folks are very overwhelmed with a new release) so I thought I'd ask here as well.

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

#168
Been using Arq since version 2 (2010) on multiple machines. Very happy with Arq and with Stefan's support. I use it with dual destinations for my offsite backup - about 9Tb. I also use it to provide family in another country with a viable offsite backup. Restores just work.

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

#169

Hmm, there's nothing on the announcement about how to upgrade your existing backups? Say you have a large backup stored on S3 or Google Drive - has anybody used this, and can tell me if it upgrades it seamlessly to take advantage of the new features (e.g. LZ4 compression), or if you need to do a fresh upgrade?

Yeah, I also curious about this one.

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

#170
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).

I could not recommend Carbon Copy Cloner enough. It makes your external hard disk bootable and verbatim has the same files as your mac. This is for Mac only. Think of a dd with a nice interface. Costs $40.

https://bombich.com/

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