A bit of a techie question.... any one else using Amazon Glacier (or maybe S3) for offsite backup of personal data?
I've got about 75GB free (for now) space on DropBox so using that as additional backup space for photos but that's all I have space for. Music is secured via sync to Google Play (free). And I have other auto/manual backups (to a NAS manually, between the entire NAS and external USB occasionally, and automatically to Time Machine).
But Glacier offers storage of about $0.011 per GB (plus tax I think) per month. So cheap. You also pay a fee per 1000 transfers into Glacier at $0.055 - so again cheap. The downsides might be said to be:
- Only 5% of stored data is free to retrieve per month otherwise you pay
- It can take 3-5 hours for the data to be ready to retrieve - but it's tape based hence low cost
As a backup of things you want to keep forever (like photos) which don't change then it's ideal because you don't really want to retrieve anything unless there is a big problem. And if you pay to retrieve it all as quickly as possible it's not a huge cost anyway. With other backups it would be theft, fire, etc. you're protecting against.
I'd looked at this when Glacier came out but Amazon give no GUI just the API. But now I realise there are apps out there that do automated backups. On the Mac there's Arq which can use Glacier as well as the original S3 - but S3 is 10x the price and I don't intend retrieving the data.
Just wondered if anyone else has looked into or even use this? Obviously thinking of people like Zero, Smokie, Rattle, etc.... i.e. not the non-techies ;-)
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 1 Feb 14 at 22:17
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Not checked it out, I am a dropbox user (and iCloud of course)
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I use Dropbox, 158GB space all obtained free.
Just recently I've started looking at the photo sites. e.g. Flickr gives 1TB of free storage.
On top of that I've got things such as Skydrive and Google.
So, I'm genuinely curious why, at a personal level of usage/storage, you would think that pay sites are necessary.
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I've got the 75GB (ish) free on Dropbox but a lot of that expires later this year - obtained when I bought a Samsung phone followed by a HTC phone. So planning for when that's not available.
I'm not sure I want photos (plus videos in some of the photo folders) on a photo sharing site. I'm not looking to share any of this via a site. I don't do that on Dropbox either.
Let's say my important files come to 100GB, then on Amazon Glacier, the monthly cost is 100 x $0.011 or $1.10 (plus taxes I am guessing). So for a year call it $16 so about £10 per year for 99.999999999% availability (guessing how many 9's there). There will be some storage request costs each month for incremental uploads but that's $0.055 per 1000.
So yes this is paid, but not a lot paid per annum.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 1 Feb 14 at 22:53
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Of course S3 gives instance access but about 10x more expensive than Glacier. And there's a security bonus - most of the time your data is on a tape somewhere so not so easily accessed by a hacker. And I'd encrypt whatever I uploaded anyway.
And if Glacier is okay I might use more than 100GB. I probably have another 100GB of files that I might store. But they can be recreated with effort (iPhoto, iMovie, etc.)
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 1 Feb 14 at 22:58
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I'm not sure what Dropbox is going to do when their free offers expire; essentially that will tend to show a ramp down of storage usage as fast as their original ramp up. Consequently I suspect that they will try to mitigate the situation which may present opportunities.
A further thing to consider, which I periodically mull over, is that perhaps I should pay for two services, which is after all still only £20 a year or thereabouts, just in case one of them ever drops through the floorboards without warning.
My habit at the moment is to keep my main copies/backups on site and have master copies, which would still involve some data loss, on sites such as Google and Dropbox.
Data storage is a worrying subject. And I don't feel that at present I have a nice, clean and safe approach - part of the issue is my aversion to paying for stuff.
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I think my approach has been like you Mark so far. There are some files that are irreplaceable (photos and video) and some which would cost to replace (music and DVDs but music the main item for now). So I have a few backup things I do now:
- Time Machine on the Mac is always doing backups
- I periodically sync the Mac volume to the NAS
- NAS is sync'd manually every now and then to a USB drive (kept in a fire proof 'safe')
- I sometimes archive photos to BluRay disks too - so corruption in files is not propagated to far - imagine a file ending up corrupt and being backed up or sync'd to all your plans
And also on top of this:
- Music folder is sync'd to Google Play
- Photos are sync'd (using some symbolic links to Dropbox folder) to Dropbox
So pretty sorted and I'd rather not pay. The last time I looked it would cost at least £10/month to have enough storage somewhere online so £120pa forever. I don't want that. It looks like Amazon Glacier is closer to £1/month so I'm thinking of that. Could even do some to S3 and some to Glacier.
My employer is big in cloud stuff but storage is approx the same as S3 and elsewhere and I don't think I get a discount.
My thinking is if I use something cheap but reliable like Glacier then I can then make better use of my Dropbox storage such as syncing photos from phone to there. And holding files (like music or videos) for download to the phone when away. Although my NAS is accessible via VPN.
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Amazon Glacier and S3 - Zero
