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Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

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Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#171
post #78
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? How do you know? If they start excluding random content (eg: .git) without effective notice, maybe they AREN'T backing up everything you think they are.

You don’t do quarterly restore tests?

How do you do that?

My naive idea: Download 100 TB every 3 month to a 2nd device, create a list of files restored, validate checksums with the original machine, make a list of files differing and missing, check which ones are supposed to be missing? That sounds like a full time job.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#172

I can understand in theory why they wouldn't want to back up .git folders as-is. Git has a serious object count bloat problem if you have any repository with a good amount of commit history, which causes a lot of unnecessary overhead in just scanning the folder for files alone. I don't quite understand why it's still like this; it's probably the biggest reason why git tends to play poorly with a lot of filesystem too…

I don’t think this is the right way to see this. Why should a file backup solution adapt to work with git? Or any application? It should not try to understand what a git object is. I’m paying to copy files from a folder to their servers just do that. No matter what the file is. Stay at the filesystem level not the application level.

I'm not saying Backblaze should adapt to git; the issue isn't application related (besides git being badly configured by default; there's a solution with git gc, it's just that git gc basically never runs).

It's that to back up a folder on a filesystem, you need to traverse that folder and check every file in that folder to see if it's changed. Most filesystem tools usually assume a fairly low file count for these operations.

Git, rather unusually, tends to produce a lot of files in regular use; before packing, every commit/object/branch is simply stored as a file on the filesystem (branches only as pointers). Packing fixes that by compressing commit and object files together, but it's not done by default (only after an initial clone or when the garbage collector runs). Iterating over a .git folder can take a lot of time in a place that's typically not very well optimized (since most "normal" people don't have thousands of tiny files in their folders that contain sprawled out application state.)

The correct solution here is either for git to change, or for Backblaze to implement better iteration logic (which will probably require special handling for git..., so it'd be more "correct" to fix up git, since Backblaze's tools aren't the only ones with this problem.)

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure if you're sarcastic or not, never have I've used a ISP that would throttle you, for any reason, this is unheard of in the countries I've lived, and I'm not sure many people would even subscribe to something like that, that sounds very reverse to how a typical at-home broadband connection works. Of course, in countries where the internet isn't so developed as in other parts of the world, this might make sen…

Alas, "isn't so developed" applies to the US: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/cox-slows-intern... My parents have gotten hit by this. Dad was downloading huge video files at one point on his WiFi and his ISP silently throttled him. A common term is "data cap": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_cap

> Alas, "isn't so developed" applies to the US

Wow, I knew that was generally true, didn't know it was true for internet access in the US too, how backwards...

> A common term is "data cap": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_cap

I think most are familiar with throttling because most (all?) phone plans have some data cap at one point, but I don't think I've heard of any broadband connections here with data caps, that wouldn't make any sense.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#174
I can almost almost understand the logic behind not backing up OneDrive/Dropbox. I think it's bad logic but I can understand where it's coming from.

Not backing up .git folders however is completely unacceptable.

I have hundreds of small projects where I use git track of history locally with no remote at all. The intention is never to push it anywhere. I don't like to say these sorts of things, and I don't say it lightly when I say someone should be fired over this decision.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#176
I think the target of the anger here should be (at least in part): OneDrive.

My understanding is that a modern, default onedrive setup will push all your onedrive folder contents to the cloud, but will not do the same in reverse -- it's totally possible to have files in your cloud onedrive, visible in your onedrive folder, but that do not exist locally. If you want to access such a file, it typically gets downloaded from onedrive for you to use.

If that's the case, what is Backblaze or another provider to do? Constantly download your onedrive files (that might have been modified on another device) and upload them to backblaze? Or just sync files that actually exist locally? That latter option certainly would not please a consumer, who would expect the files they can 'see' just get magically backed up.

It's a tricky situation and I'm not saying Backblaze handled it well here, but the whole transparent cloud storage situation thing is a bit of a mess for lots of people. If Dropbox works the same way (no guaranteed local file for something you can see), that's the same ugly situation.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#177
post #25

Hetzner storagebox. 1TB for under 5 bucks/month, 5TB for under 15. Sftp access. Point your restic there. Backup game done, no surprises, no MBAs involved.

Until there is. Backblaze was also trusted years ago. Selfhost, it became easy enough.

Selfhosting Offsite is hard. Accessing services via standard protocols like ssh/webdav and just pushing your encrypted blobs there is a good middle ground. They can't control what you upload, and you can easily point your end-point somewhere else if you need to move.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#178
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company that does the "unlimited*" shenanigans are automatically out from any selection process I had going, wherever they use it. It's a clear signal that the marketing/financial teams have taken over the businesses, and they'll be quick to offload you from the platform given the chance, and you'll have no recourse. Always prefer businesses who are upfront and honest about what they can offer their users, in a s…

> It's a clear signal that the marketing/financial teams have taken over the businesses Or that they're targeting the mass retail market, where people are technically ignorant, and "unlimited" is required to compete. And statistically-speaking, is viable as long as a company keeps its users to a normal distribution.

> And statistically-speaking, is viable as long as a company keeps its users to a normal distribution.

Doing a bait-and-switch on a percentage of your paying customers, no matter how small the percentage is, may be "viable" for the company, but it's a hostile experience for those users, and companies deserve to be called out for it.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#179
The issue with a client app backing up dropbox and onedrive folders on your computer is the files on demand feature, you could sync a 1tb onedrive to your 250gb laptop but it's OK because of smart/selective sync aka files on demand. Then backblaze backup tries to back the folder up and requests a download of every single file and now you have zero bytes free, still no backup and a sick laptop. You could oauth the backblaze app to access onedrive directly, but if you want to back your onedrive up you need a different product IMO.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#180
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also pretty sure 14 points font is a bit outdated at this point, 16 should probably be a minimum with current screens. It's not as if screens aren't wide enough to fit bigger text.

That's good guidelines and all, but meanwhile you are posting it on a site with.. .default { font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color:#828282; } .admin { font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size:8.5pt; color:#000000; } .title { font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color:#828282; overflow:hidden; } .subtext { font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 7pt;…

Haha I keep forgetting that. Fortunately the browser remembers my zoom settings per page. I'm pretty sure the font is now at 16 or something via repeated Cmd +.
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