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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

#171

Post by greggman »

DenisM wrote: post #157
cdumler wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

what part of that didn't you understand?

Yes arq will protect you from ransomware. Time Machine will not.

both backup differences only. So with arq you just pick a backup before everything was encrypted. With Time Machine the problem is your hard drive is on the same machine that's been infected so that hard drive will be encrypted as well.

Arq doesn't have that problem since the data is in the cloud. The ransomeware doesn't have write access to that data, at most it has indirect append access since arq will start backing up the encrypted files. Which is why you'll be able to just pick a version of the backup before anything was encrypted.

---

that is until there is ransomware that checks for arq and tells it to delete all your cloud data :(

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

#172

Post by jonaswouters »

jarrodatCode42 wrote: post #132
beernutz wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe for CrashPlan, this ONLY applies to CLOUD backups. If you backup to local media or across computers, there is no "auto-delete" timeframe.

Hello Everyone, Wanted to jump in here to confirm. This policy only affects devices that have not connected to CrashPlan Central in 6 months or longer. This does not affect volumes that have not connected to the device in that period of time. (i.e. an external hard drive that has not connected in 6 months.) Additionally, there is no minimum connection time for local CrashPlan backups. It’s important for CrashPlan use…

Is this also the case for crashplan business or PROe? (ceejay in europe).

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

#173

Post by rubenfonseca »

larrysalibra wrote: post #107
lobster_johnson wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I now get to the store, but it gets a 500 Internal Error trying to verify my key. Also, the Purchase link does embed my Arq 4 license key, but in the form, the upgrade license key field is empty, and I have to find it from my old .arqLicense file and paste it. I don't even know if I'm copying the right thing.

Having same key verification problems too. Will try again tomorrow!

Still having the same problem today...

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

#174

Post by unhammer »

ghshephard wrote: post #12

Arq, (For backups to AWS - though obviously supports every cloud back end under the sun) and "Data Backup" by ProSoft engineering (For backups to USB) are my goto backup tools for day-day ensuring all my work documents are kept up to date. Yes, I have Crashplan (for the last couple years, backblaze for the three years before that) - but the constant chewing up of CPU cycles gets annoying after a while. And both crash…

How much are you storing for those $3.00/month? Sounds too good to be true :-)

We're currently just rsyncing our pictures and stuff at home to two 3TB USB-drives (one active and one at my parents' place; using LUKS and btrfs with compression, snapshots). But even after running deduplication, they're filling up (raw files …), so I'm always on the lookout for other options. Upgrading to 2x4TB is a bit expensive, but I haven't yet found anything that'll cost me less than that while still having client-side encryption and Linux support. E.g. tarsnap seems to be about $250/TB-month, http://jotta.no/ is unlimited but has no Linux/encryption support, and I never understood Glacier pricing :-)

(and it's really convenient to be able to just restore from a local USB drive instead of having to wait for the network, though of course it's less convenient not having backups when travelling …)

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

#175

Post by ghshephard »

unhammer wrote: post #174
ghshephard wrote: post #12

Arq, (For backups to AWS - though obviously supports every cloud back end under the sun) and "Data Backup" by ProSoft engineering (For backups to USB) are my goto backup tools for day-day ensuring all my work documents are kept up to date. Yes, I have Crashplan (for the last couple years, backblaze for the three years before that) - but the constant chewing up of CPU cycles gets annoying after a while. And both crash…

How much are you storing for those $3.00/month? Sounds too good to be true :-) We're currently just rsyncing our pictures and stuff at home to two 3TB USB-drives (one active and one at my parents' place; using LUKS and btrfs with compression, snapshots). But even after running deduplication, they're filling up (raw files …), so I'm always on the lookout for other options. Upgrading to 2x4TB is a bit expensive, but I…

AWS storage with S3 is $0.03/GB/Month. I have probably around 20 Gigabytes, stored in Singapore and US-East, versioned back 2+ years + another 58 Gigabytes in Personal Photos Backed up on Amazon Singapore (which I really should move to Glacier). It's compressed when stored on S3, so total storage is only 54 Gigabytes on Amazon Singapore, and 12 Gigabytes on Amazon-East.

I shoot a ton of pictures with my SLR, but, at the same time, I don't shoot raw, my camera is an EOS 10D (6.3 megapixel resolution) and I'm hyper aggressive about deleting all but the top 5% of my shots each day. I may shoot 300 pictures and keep 10-15.

So, I guess the major difference is I'm backing up about 78 Gigabytes of Data (though 20 of which is in two locations).

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

#176

Post by ghshephard »

cpach wrote: post #134
ghshephard wrote: post #124

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) -…

”On the Flip Side, backing up users two 5+ Terabyte Hard Drives on S3 with Arq gets a little pricey” I send my Arq backups to Amazon Cloud Drive using the ”unlimited” plan. It costs $59.99/year. So far I have only backed up [Edited to correct confusing typo.]

Well, I am fairly certain that Amazon S3 will handle multi-terabyte backups, mostly because their pricing tiers are for 1 TB, 50TB, 500 TB, 1 Petabyte, 4 Petabytes, and 10 Petabytes - and they make more money the more you store. Performance (at least in Singapore) is also pretty awesome if you have a gigabit connection.

I'll be interested in hearing of any experiences (particularly around performance) of someone attempting to backup on the order of 10 TBytes on the Amazon Cloud Drive. My guess is that if more than very few people do this, then either (A) Amazon puts an end to "unlimited" (and yes, I appreciated the scare quotes), or, (B) They rate limit uploads after a certain size to the point at which it just frustrates people.

For some of us, dealing with a vendor who finds greater usage on your part to be a desirable behavior, such that they actually give you price breaks the more you use, creates a business relationship that is worth more than the several hundred dollars/year you'll end up saving. (Of course, this is coming from the guy who has a $36/year AWS bill, $24 of which is S3 storage)

(Side note - When talking about Storage, it's very rare to use GiB/TiB - Data rates and Storage are almost always GB or TB).

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

#177

Post by kaypro »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #69
sreitshamer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about that. Should work now.

Thanks. I now get to the store, but it gets a 500 Internal Error trying to verify my key. Also, the Purchase link does embed my Arq 4 license key, but in the form, the upgrade license key field is empty, and I have to find it from my old .arqLicense file and paste it. I don't even know if I'm copying the right thing.

They just added a "Retrieve license code" link on the web site below the Arq 4 license code field. I was able to upgrade no problem. FYI.

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

#178

Post by c0nsumer »

cpach wrote: post #142
c0nsumer wrote: post #125

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.

To add, they sorted it out by adding an option on the site to retrieve the license code. I've now got an Arq 5 license and lifetime upgrades.

I think that having Arq back up to spare space at a Linode VM is a great way to use it.

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

#179

Post by GrinningFool »

falcolas wrote: post #147
GrinningFool wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If it's encrypted, it can't be read. " Yet. It can't be read yet.

Any agent capable of ever reading AES encrypted files with 256 bit keys is also an agent capable of opening your safe deposit box, requesting your tapes from a data vault provider, or coming over to your house with a rubber hose. Short of a vulnerability in AES (in which case we have more problems than a few copies of the Anarchists Handbook in our backup files), cracking proper encryption is simply not feasible.

What about in 10 years, 20, 50?

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

#180

Post by nowbacktowork »

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).

Do you really need to protect the entire system? Or have you not captured the setup of your system in a provisioning tool like ansible or chef or the like? And then protect only the necessary files to restore the configuration and user data of the system.

Protecting the entire system should be something that is done near line so if you have a catastrophic loss your time to recovery is less than that if everything was stored somewhere in the cloud. Or Just not do it at all and rely on a tool manage the configuration of your system.

Data files and configuration are really the best thing to protect with a tool like this. If you have a total loss your playbook should include something like replacing the failed hardware, Installing and patching the OS, replaying configuration of the system using ansible or chef, restoring data files.

To me this is the fundamental gap that cloud backup solutions need to fill to really capture the consumer market well. The SMB market already has this as you goto IT and get your system reloaded and then restore your user data, its pretty much the standard for larger corps.

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