3

I have about 800GB of files in hundreds of sub-folders on a computer with a flaky internet connection. Each file is roughly 4-8MB in size. I would like to Sync these to the cloud as a backup solution.

Here are the issues thus far:

  • Google Drive: no native Linux client, and every third-party client I've tried (GRive, RClone, InSync) have failed spectacularly (InSync deleted half my files before I pulled the plug.)
  • Dropbox: has potential, and I've used it for personal use flawlessly for years -- but I am turned off by the pricing structure (if multiple people need to access the data, it gets rather expensive)
  • I'm happy with using a roll-your-own cloud storage solution, but the client seems to be the trick: it needs to continually monitor changes, and be able to handle frequent internet drops / slow / flaky connection (see note about Grive, RClone, etc)

In short, has anyone found an easy click-and-forget solution for backing up (one-way sync) massive amount of data to the cloud?

Zanna
  • 70,465
Trees4theForest
  • 250
  • 3
  • 6
  • I use NextCloud on my server but if its just files you want synced across your main PC and your "server" for backup ... you can use a program called Syncthing, It works with linux android and windows, I use syncthing to sync my .bashrc across several systems so my terminal is always consistent between the different boxes... with a combo of syncthing and nextcloud .. you can have all your files available anywhere with an internet connection but i do notice that with nextcloud if you use syncthing and new files are added, nextcloud wont see them unless you run a command to rescan your nextcloud – John Orion Mar 28 '18 at 16:21
  • i believe nextcloud can be set up as a "folder" on your main pc and you can access the files from the "backup" so .. you will have a copy on your main pc that wouold be synced with they nextcloud server ... i dont have it set up that way because ... I dont actually want all that data in my nextcloud taking up space on my main pc too but I guess it can be set up that way too and then I think it would be a one way set and forget sync.. actually i believe its two way .. if you delete a file on the nextcloud it would delete disappear from both nextcloud storage and your main storage. – John Orion Mar 28 '18 at 16:28
  • @JohnOrion please post answers in the answer section... – Zanna Jul 09 '18 at 19:37

2 Answers2

1

Having used multiple flavors of linux for many years and a similar number of cloud storage providers (dropbox, onedrive, gdrive, etc.), I too have run into this many times and tried almost all solutions. I would suggest you give Insync another try, maybe in a safer environment. I have used it for about three years at this point and it has become a staple for me as they have improved the gui/reliability/support.

Insync has worked well for me because:

  1. Most importantly is that it is linked to google drive (better product than onedrive or dropbox), which easily links files to your phone/chromebook/linux/windows in seconds. Insync specifically allows me to access google files on my linux machines as if they are local files (makes coding easier. Google specific files, such as "google docs" will launch a browser if you click on it through your normal file explorer. Also, if you like it will convert all google files to ods format.
  2. It works well with many different linux flavors (fedora, ubuntu, pi, etc.) and even non-linux computers (windows)
  3. Can work with multiple google accounts (especially nice if your personal is different than your school/work). I had it working with three different google accounts for some time.
  4. Insync has fairly good support (I have personally gotten feedback on about 3-4 issues over the past two years)
  5. Lastly, it has a fairly good gui where you can click to accept or block incoming shares, choose folders to include locally, and inspect errors. You can also set notifications to see who and when files are being modified

In your specific case, due to the large amount of files you want to upload at once and the spotty internet connection, I would suggest that you upload batches of files at a time through choosing the certain files to include in the sync through the gui and add other files to be monitored as those finish. I would actually suggest this method regardless of which method you chose to go. Also always keep a backup of your files before uploading to any 'cloud'.

Cheers.

izk9
  • 121
  • 1
  • 6
1

In my opinion the best is SpiderOak. Sometimes they have great deals where they offer unlimited backup, but honestly 2 to 5TB is probably more then what you need.

You can literally back up the entire drive and forget it and security is excellent. https://spideroak.com/one/

I am sure others exist, but the polish on this one is top notch. If you have a small main os drive just remember to move your cache drive to a larger disk.

Goddard
  • 4,724
  • 2
  • 33
  • 51