Just thought the following mini reviews may be helpful. I was using rclone/rclone browser to ACD before the ban, I have since got a gdrive account as well. I know rclone isn’t traditional backup software, but that is ultimately what I was going to need. I have no need to mount the destination as a usable mount point by other applications.
I have spent the last 2-3 weeks evaluating solutions. My requirements:
- Has a simple to operate GUI, the person performing future maintenance/restores might not be me and likely not at IT expert
- Software must support encryption, and of filenames and folders
- Should support versioning
- Ideally runs on Windows
- Ideally must be free or cost less than £100, fixed one off cost price model
- Must support ACD and GDrive
- Must ‘just work’ (I have enough IT to do in my day job!)
My environment:
- 200/20Mb internet
- Software will run on a VM, single physical low CPU power Hyper-V server with a few VM’s (AMD A6-3670)
Cloudbacko:
Good:
- GUI is ok, relatively intuitive
- Upload maxed out line
- Active support forum
Bad:
- Still seems quite new and needs development
- Backups stopped from time to time, perhaps due to an issue outside of the software (e.g server crash, internet goes down). Upon resuming it appears to insist uploading the data again. Whatever tracking or state mechanism it uses seems to be flawed or needs further development
Cloudberry:
Good:
- Traditional clean and easy to use GUI
- Expensive to get unlimited data version
- Support responds quite quickly
Bad:
- Realised it didn’t support filename or foldername encryption for ACD or gdrive
Duplicati:
Good:
- Free
- Upload maxed out line
- Download approx 100Mb (could have been situational)
Bad:
- Something caused the backup to stop. Upon resume, it was insisting a database repair was needed. Multiple attempt to get data consistent failed. Bottom line, I personally don’t have time to correct data errors unless the ‘repair button’ just works first time, my internet does have a habit of randomly dropping out
Arq 5:
Good:
- Dumbed down GUI, but functional and good if someone inherits this setup
- Upload speeds maxed out line
- Support responds ok, not the fastest but within 48 hours
Bad:
- Download speeds terrible. Support claims this is an ACD issue, it may well be and could have been situational. I wasn’t experiencing this with other software around the same time
Expandrive (to be used with traditional ‘non cloud’ backup software):
I didn’t like the way it caches and uploads later, I think this ‘confused’ some software too. I prefer something realtime so I can measure stats more accurately.
Netdrive (to be used with traditional ‘non cloud’ backup software):
Couldn’t get this to work
Syncovery (Windows):
Good:
- Reasonable cost
- Simple GUI but with lots of options, good for the IT pro. For the non IT pro, once setup I think it is ok to understand for monitoring and with some documentation how to restore etc…
- Support responds quite fast
- Maxes out line for uploads and downloads
- It just works and can tolerate breaking/resuming uploads easily
Bad:
- (Probably just my setup). Encryption and zipping of files larger than approx 500Mb was painfully slow. So slow that there were big periods where my line would be idle with no uploads waiting for the ZIPs to complete locally
Syncovery (Linux):
Good:
- The GUI is web browser based, still quite simple to read and monitor
- zipping issue gone (I use a SMB mount to the Windows server where my files are, this is the ‘source’ in Syncovery). The underlying physical storage is the same… so it must be a ‘Windows efficiency thing’
Bad:
- In the current version (7.84a), the Linux GUI does not allow you to restore individual folders or items. It may be possible in command line, not something I want to entertain if possible
Conclusion:
I have chosen Syncovery for Linux. For restore situations, I will use the Windows version for now, setup with the same encryption details.
