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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

#661

Post by dangus »

wtallis wrote: post #486
dangus wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not hidden it’s right there in the exclusions list.

If the user didn't put it there, it's hidden. Nobody routinely inspects the detailed configuration settings of their backup system, especially when it does appear to be working if you see it transferring data to the cloud and spot-check a file or two. Any addition to the exclusions list that wasn't added by explicit user action is a hidden change and a data loss bug.

At some point the user is responsible for verifying their backups, right? You can’t just buy a product, login, and close your eyes.

I’ve witnessed my parents’ Time Machine backups (the simplest backup system of all time) sitting stale because they unplugged the hard drive. They are ultimately responsible for paying attention to the little icon that tells them that the system is overdue for a backup.

I agree that there might be a bug if the exclusion list was modified without user intervention, though I don’t think this blog post convinces me that that’s guaranteed to be what happened. For all we know the author just didn’t notice this exclusion before.

And, again, I think excluding OneDrive and Dropbox is sensible. Most users are not intending to duplicate those backups.

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

#662

Post by cestith »

lelandfe wrote: post #390
cestith wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 5 Gbps symmetric at home. I and my fiancee both work from home, so our backup fiber connection from another provider is 2 Gbps. We can also both tether to cell phones if necessary. We can get 5G home wireless Internet here, too, and we might ditch our 2 Gbps line in favor of that as a backup. We moved from Texas back home to Illinois last year, and one of the biggest considerations was who had service at what…

Here in dense NYC, most apartments I've lived in have but a single ISP available. It's common to hunt for apartments by searching the address on service maps. I'm pretty sure one landlord was cut in by his ISP, as he skipped town when I tried to ask about getting fiber, and his office locked their door and drew their shades when I went there with a technician on two occasions. The final time, we got there before they…

That’s pretty common in apartments to have a single provider, especially in high rise ones or ones built before broadband was common. It’s unfortunate, but the cost of running wiring for multiple providers through old buildings can be prohibitive. The providers won’t pay to install it for a single unit. Other tenants might not like the disruption if they’re not going to use the new service. If you get a big enough block of tenants to pre-sign then it becomes a conversation more worth having for the provider and the landlords.

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

#663

Post by julianozen »

qsi wrote: post #625
julianozen wrote: post #335

We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said “no problem. This is why we pay for backblaze” We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on…

This is very well put, and echoes my sentiments! I had installed Backblaze on my own home machine many, many years ago, and it has saved my bacon a few times. Since then I've also installed it on any family members' machines that required backup and recommended it to friends. And I've been happy to pay for the service. The deal was that Backblaze backs things up and I don't have to worry about it. Learning that it do…

Most people have recommended Arq to me. I will try it next time I visit my parents https://www.arqbackup.com/

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

#665

Post by lobsterthief »

jcgl wrote: post #605
Anamon wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be half OK if it worked, but you can't trust it to. OneDrive, for instance, has an open bug for years now where it will randomly revert some of your files to a revision from several months earlier. You can detect and recover this from the history, but only if you know that it happened and where, which you usually won't because it happens silently. I only noticed because it happened to an append-only text f…

A specific implementation (OneDrive) doing something dumb doesn't invalidate the entire paradigm though. Things work just fine elsewhere (Dropbox, Google Drive, Nextcloud, and Seafile are all solutions I've had good experiences with).

Agreed, I’ve been using Dropbox for 15 years with minimal issues. The key is to ensure it’s running and syncing with the proper settings on both machines.

What can get things into a weird state is if both machines are editing the same file while only one of them is actively syncing. But for basic backup and sync, this is extremely rare.

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

#666

Post by johnthescott »

omnimus wrote: post #420
moffkalast wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bidirectional auto file sync is a fundamentally broken pattern and I'm tired of pretending it's not. It's just complete chaos with wrong files constantly getting overridden on both ends. I have no clue why people still use it and I'd cut my losses if I were you, either backup to the cloud or pull from it, not both at the same time like an absolute tictac.

I also have no clue why people use it. You can build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

or use rsync.net and a cronjob.

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

#667

Post by varenc »

lazide wrote: post #607
varenc wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought you said Dropbox overwrote a file, meaning that file was also being synced by Dropbox, and that Dropbox sync was working. So likely the older file version would also have been synced by Dropbox, which it then overwrote. Dropbox itself keeps old versions of files for 30 days. I think you're saying in this situation Dropbox wasn't syncing though? My comment was pretty orthogonal to all the Backblaze stuff, wh…

I think they’re saying that Dropbox didn’t have the original (old) copy of the file retained, even though the change was just 2 days ago, because the old version was ‘more than 30 days ago’. Which is bonkers.

I don't think that's how the 30 day timer works. Once a file is replaced by a new one, the old copy should persist for 30 days. So if it was overwrote 2 days ago, should have 28 days to recover it. But don't know about this situation

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

#668

Post by qingcharles »

julianozen wrote: post #335

We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said “no problem. This is why we pay for backblaze” We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on…

This is the same reason I always had Backblaze -- stick it on all my computer-illiterate relatives' PCs and then I know there is a fool-proof backup when something invariably goes wrong.

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

#669

Post by 00deadbeef »

tombert wrote: post #371
rsync wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I guess the problem with Backblaze's business model with respect to Backblaze Personal is that it is "unlimited"." The new and very interesting problem with their business model is that drive prices have doubled - and in some cases, more than doubled - in the last 12 months. Backblaze has a lot of debt and at some point the numbers don't make sense anymore.

Yeah, I found that out recently when I had to purchase a new 16TB drive because of them in my RAID died recently. I bought the hard drive used about three years ago for about $130. To replace it I had to shop around and I ended up paying about $270 and I think that was considered a decent deal right now. Oh well, I guess this is why we're given two kidneys.

I bought a 24TB for £365 last June. It's £905 now.

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

#670

Post by lazide »

varenc wrote: post #667
lazide wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they’re saying that Dropbox didn’t have the original (old) copy of the file retained, even though the change was just 2 days ago, because the old version was ‘more than 30 days ago’. Which is bonkers.

I don't think that's how the 30 day timer works. Once a file is replaced by a new one, the old copy should persist for 30 days. So if it was overwrote 2 days ago, should have 28 days to recover it. But don't know about this situation

That it didn’t do that, despite that assumption, is what the op was complaining about.
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