Backblaze cloud backup version 8 on Mac increases threading and reduced disk load according to 9to5 Mac

Bradley Chambers at 9 to 5 Mac has an article on the latest update to the Backblaze app for Mac. They have increased the threads from 30 to 100 and reduced disk load by 80% which can be nothing but good.

I moved to BackBlaze when my previous backup went corporate only. Now it took me a year to get my backup (and I haven’t backed up most of my video files which are just too big) but I use this and time machine to know that my important files will be safe.

Once you lose a hard drive you will always run a couple of backup solutions and having them run better is always a good thing.

Jason Snell at Six Colors is right, you’re not backing up enough

Jason Snell at the awesome six colors blog has a great article on the fact that you are not backing up enough.

And it is true, you need to be backing up in every way possible and with local and cloud based copies, just in case something happens.

I use both Time Machine and Backblaze and even with that I can’t backup everything. I don’t have a drobo to be able to backup everything locally (my video is on a RAID 5, so if a drive fails I should be able to recover that, but even my Backblaze took the better part of a year to backup everything I had set to backup.

Losing a drive one or a whole computer will be the lesson to get you to start backing up, but you need to backup as much as you can and as often as you can, preferable constantly!

New Cloud Storage service Cloud with 15 GB and if you sign up I get an additional 5 GB

Yet another new Cloud Storage service with 15 GB of free Space, and you get an additional 5 GB for each Referral. It is called Cloud and also has an iOS app and Mac Program, so it can be used on Mac or PC.

As for Pricing for $99 a year or $9.99 a month you get $250 GB of storage, or for $149 a year or $14.99 a month you get 500GB of storage.

Sure is a lot bigger than DropBox, so why don’t you check out Cloud, and give me 5 GB of additional storage.

BitTorrent Sync from BitTorrent Labs

BitTorrent labs has released an alpha of it’s new BitTorrent Sync, which uses 256 Bit encryption to securely sync data between multiple computers using it’s Bittorrent Network. Not truly a cloud sync, but a secure syncing system for free.

Arstechnica has an excellent overview of it and it’s features.

It’s too bad it is doesn’t have higher bit encryption and you have to get your key to whomever you are syncing to by some method other than e-mail to keep it secure, but still a very cool idea.

Decided to give CrashPlan a try, and I don’t think a 1.5 year backup is going to work for me

CrashPlan1-5
1.5 Years! I don’t think so! Though to be fair I do have 5.3 TB of data, and the 1.1 TB music drive is on a NAS connected via 10/1000 ethernet, but still! And the number does change. I see it go down to 6 months sometimes, but I also find that for a good portion of every day it seems to be just scanning my drives, and not uploading. And I am on Fios with 35 Mb up and down so I have a fairly fast connection.

I am thankful for the free 30 day trial so I could learn this, very cool, otherwise I would have purchased and realized I would paying for likely 2 years before I had a full backup! Now way!

Now I went with CrashPlan after reading all about it, and seeing reviews and it does look like an excellent cloud based backup solution. And it’s Java based app is easy to use and free and can be used for local backups as well.

And they have many plans, from 32.99 for 10GB, 59.99 for unlimited on one computer and $149.99 a year for unlimited on 5 computers. Seems reasonable, though you can only download a certain amount and must pay and send a hard drive for more, (EDIT: I was wrong, they don’t charge to download, which is awesome, thanks to the comment) but it does keep your data secure away from your home.

I wanted a cloud backup as I had a drive go down recently and it really screwed me, but I don’t think this is the solution. I am still thinking a large local storage would be better for me, though I certainly can’t afford it right now.

EDIT: And yes I do have a local backup, though not of everything, I just don’t currently have the hard drive space. I have a 3TB backup, and everything on MUSIC is RAID 1, so I have a copy of what is on there, but if things get messed up, they will be messed up in both places.

ADDITIONAL: Been keeping Crashplan running, hoping it will jump forward and have downloaded a lot more by the time the time the demo is over so will then buy it and use it. Lots of the time it seems to spend re-scanning all my drives, and with the amount I have, that takes a lot of time, but yesterday I came home to this:

HA! 10.5 Years huh? And when I tried to snap the picture it was 11.5 years, but I didn’t snap fast enough! Now I know that isn’t the actual time, but that is a long time to say it needs to back up!

I need a big raid as storage, but with redundancy, though I do like the idea of an offsite solution with great encryption, which Crash Plan is. It just isn’t for someone with the storage needs that I have.

Cloud file storage service SugarSync has upgraded it’s web site and desktop to 2.0 Beta

SugarSync
Cloud storage service SugarSync ( a service like DropBox or Box that has folder syncing capabilities) has updated to 2.0 Beta which greatly enhances the experience. I use SugarSync as it was one of the first to offer folder syncing, but now it is much better with drag and drop, easier sharing, cloud search or as SugarSync Drive from the finder, and it has a greatly enhanced Photo gallery. SugarSync starts at $49.99 a year for 30GB of storage. You can check out a video here.

Hopefully they will update the iOS app soon (Android is first).

I kind of wish that the desktop app was just in the widget in the menu bar instead of running an additional app, but it is a powerful app, especially for easy sharing.