Ask HN: What is the current state of the art in BIG (>5TB) cloud backups?
22 pointsby jacobwilliamroy5 days ago10 comments
  • monerozcash5 days ago
    This needs more information. 5TB is far from "BIG" when it comes to cloud backups.

    You can probably get away with google drive+rclone+borg/restic/whatever, but it will be rather clunky. Backblaze might be a nicer backend to use.

    I use rsync.net with borg, but not sure about your budget. Their 1TB lifetime plan is very competitive though.

    • KomoD3 days ago
      > Their 1TB lifetime plan is very competitive though.

      I know rsync.net has been around for a long time but I'm always very skeptical of lifetime plans, you'd have to use it ~10 years for it to be worth it. (Comparing with Hetzner's 1TB storage box)

  • ppg_hero14 hours ago
    Take a look at https://pricepergig.com/ and take a look at both eBay and Amazon prices in one place. Then setup alerts and wait? It will allow you to filter and sort quickly
  • hiAndrewQuinn15 hours ago
    I would start by going to https://diskprices.com/?locale=us to anchor my price expectations accordingly.
  • bomewish5 days ago
    If it’s important just use b2 or hetzner storage box. Use restic or rustic for backup and dedupe and encryption. I run this setup for home and work and we’re doing this on 10tb+.
    • Oxodao4 days ago
      +1 on this, i'm running restic with resticprofile and backup to b2 it works flawlessly
  • slipheen5 days ago
    Like so many things, it depends-

    How quickly do you need to be able to restore? Is it commercial or homelab?

    The most cost-effective option by far would be to put a NAS device someplace offsite. You could use tailscale to connect to it remotely.

    After that, depending on your access patterns, either a glacier-style s3 service (aws or backblaze/etc), or a rented bare-metal server with big disks some place inexpensive.

    • jacobwilliamroy5 days ago
      This is for a "warm" backup as opposed to a hot backup so restoration timeline would be like seven days.
  • JustExAWS4 days ago
    Rclone with aws s3 Glacier Deep Archive storage class is about $1 a month per TB.

    I didn’t use rclone. I just used native AWS cli commands. But I’m an AWS guy and already had my own seldom used AWS account.

    Restore takes from 12 (more expensive) to 48 hours (cheaper)

  • aynyc5 days ago
    I was actually talking to my dad the other day. He asked me if there is a way for him to replicate his hard drive to me without touching cloud providers. The contents are family photos & videos, plus paperwork. I couldn't find a simple solution.
    • carstenhag4 days ago
      Syncthing will do a 1 to 1 connection if possible, else it will use a relay server. Traffic is encrypted. Open source. After the initial setup of marrying the devices together, it's just a matter of starting the application. Pretty much what you want?
      • aynyc4 days ago
        Doesn't it still need a public relay server? I understand that's nitpicking, since even with tailscale, I need someone in the cloud to handle the IPs.
        • scorpioxy5 hours ago
          There are community-contributed relay servers that you can use. Check out the syncthing website, they explain how all of this works. It's a very good piece of software.
  • throwaway815235 days ago
    I'm using Borg and Hetzner Storage Box. 5TB is nothing much. Big used to mean petabytes, but maybe petabytes aren't big any more either.
  • Sohcahtoa825 days ago
    5 TB? I don't know how to count that low.
    • jacobwilliamroy5 days ago
      It's just bigger than any amount I've ever dealt with in my whole life (I'm 30) and also it's hard to find solutions to manage it without running into bandwidth caps and also things are running for a very long time on the client side: days or weeks.
    • carstenhag4 days ago
      Probably just above normal b2c backup services, and below company requirements
  • brudgers5 days ago
    Why are you choosing to use the cloud instead of spinning rust under your control?

    Or to put it another way, why is state of the art important?

    • jacobwilliamroy5 days ago
      I need to know what people are doing recently because most of the documentation I'm finding online is from 3-5 years ago and I want the most up-to-date information.
      • monerozcash5 days ago
        People are doing pretty much exactly what they were doing 3-5 years ago, software has been pretty good for a while no so there hasn't been much change.
    • kjkjadksj5 days ago
      Because you want an offsite backup of your local backups.