Non Gdrive for backup

Off Topic
#1

Just wondering if anyone is backing up their Gdrive to another unlimited cloud option that isn't insanely priced? Preferably one that can be used to stream Plex like Gdrive? I'm currently paying for 5 Gsuite users to make sure I meet their ToS so anything around $60/mo or less would be ok. Just looking to have my data in more then one place, 99% of streaming would likely occur from the Gdrive.

I've seen people mention Mega(.nz) and Dropbox business accounts? Not sure what the pros/cons are between those? Or if they're able to be used to stream Plex. Do they have any sort of limits imposed? There any other alternatives that I haven't seen mentioned?

#2

Possible candidates for unlimited drives (+issues):
(assuming 1,000 TB of data with 30 TB /month streamed and 5 TB/month uploaded)

  • Google workspace - (expected to be limited soon. storage increases by request only)
  • Mega.nz - (Account sometimes gets locked when doing continuous hits. Download speeds vary and can drop to 150KB)
  • Box.com (Limited API hits of max 100k per month)
  • Backblaze B2 - (Costs $5,500/month)
  • Amazon S3 - ( $20k/month) - [some discounts due to bulk pricing]
  • Azure - ( $20k/month)
  • Dropbox.com - (storage increases by request only)
  • Opendrive - ("Mass storage of media libraries and NAS/SAN devices not permitted on this plan")
  • Citrix Sharefile - (Has bandwidth limits in uploads and downloads, but amount is not specified in any documentation)

Note: This has been copied from reddit and various discord servers and hasn't been tested by me personally.

#3

I currently have about 180TB on the Gdrive, uploading ~10-15TB/mo right now but I expect that to slow soon. Streaming 30TB/mo sounds about right maybe a a little high.

So it sounds like the only reasonably priced options are Mega.nz and Dropbox business. Dropbox shows the Team Advanced (minimum $75/mo for 3 users) is as much space as your team needs? Is that not unlimited? How are they on API hits for streaming?

#4

The point of the above post was to point out that there are no viable alternatives right now (not even close).

Mega.nz doesn't have any open-source golang library for integration so the current integration rclone has is based on reverse-engineering the C++ library available. That has had various problems in the past. Other than that, the major problem is that mega frequently locks your account for high bandwidth or storage usage and that can sometimes take up to 2 weeks to get your access back.

Dropbox has some pre-defined limit (which keeps on changing), beyond which any storage increases need to be requested via a support ticket a few TB at a time which can take up to 3-4 days to get resolved and there is no guarantee that they will even approve the request.

#5

Dropbox has some pre-defined limit (which keeps on changing), beyond which any storage increases need to be requested via a support ticket a few TB at a time which can take up to 3-4 days to get resolved and there is no guarantee that they will even approve the request.

It appears they've automated it now? I'm currently testing out DB Business Advanced. You start with 5 licenses and 5TB. I added 20 licenses to the test and my storage increased to 20TB. I'll convert it to a paid account once I get my gdrive contents up there and move the licenses back down to 3 and see what happens.

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#6

Try it out and let us know then. I really doubt Dropbox can support that kind of storage for 75$ if Google couldn't do it with the way they burn cash.

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#7

Well for everyone who has 26T up there, there's another business who has 1 or 2T. It probably averages out.

John

#8

Everyone thought the same for Google Drive and we are now at the point of that going away too. Dropbox can't afford to spend that amount of cash if it wants to continue to stay profitable.

Anyway, this is going off-topic now since your question seems to be answered so I will stop here.

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#9

Curious how it works out and what kind of time frame you have before you have to pay for the licenses. I have 160+ TB on my Gdrive so if I have to pay for 160+ licenses until I get all of my data uploaded that would be expensive.

#10

Curious how it works out and what kind of time frame you have before you have to pay for the licenses. I have 160+ TB on my Gdrive so if I have to pay for 160+ licenses until I get all of my data uploaded that would be expensive.

I rented an unmetered vps from black.host to transfer the files from grive to dropbox. 14TB is looking to take about 4 days to transfer. DB gives you a 30 day trail.
I had set my DB licenses to 500 - that's the max you can do from the web ui. My mounted rclone share showed 500T. While in the middle of my mass copy I lowered it back down to 3 license and rclone complained about a lack of space in the destination. I changed licenses back to 500 and rclone was happy again. So it does look like the DB space allocation isn't based on human intervention. Remains to be seen what happens when I'm done with my copy (26T) and I go in for a month @ 3 users.

John

#11

Please report back once you drop it back down as I'd like to have a backup of my Gdrive somewhere just in case.

#12

While in the middle of my mass copy I lowered it back down to 3 license and rclone complained about a lack of space in the destination. I changed licenses back to 500 and rclone was happy again. So it does look like the DB space allocation isn't based on human intervention. Remains to be seen what happens when I'm done with my copy (26T) and I go in for a month @ 3 user

So today was my first full day of paying for DB - it showed that I was out of space just like I expected. I opened a ticket asking for more space and while that ticket is still sitting unassigned and untouched, I got an automated email from DB: "[your] Dropbox was running low on space, so we added another 25TB for free. Your team has been getting a lot done, and we didn’t want anything to distract you."
And just like that, I have double the storage space in my DB.

John

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#13

Thanks for info about DB, are you copying it directly GD -> DB ?
Please give us more feedback about DB and your experience since its only viable alternative for now if google enforces limits even on enterprise plans. Cheers

#14

Any news mr John?

#15

So just to add to the conversation I jumped on a chat with Dropbox support a couple of weeks ago enquiring about a migration from Gdrive. I explained I currently have 5 users with Gdrive and around 150TB of storage and they informed me there would be no issue migrating all of the data over to a 3 user account on DB. As I understand it, you just need to speak to them and explain your requirements and they will adjust the storage for you as necessary. Common sense says they won't make that system to difficult to manage for users as we will quickly migrate to a different platform. It may involve sending the odd message or email to their support teams to boost storage, but that doesn't seem like too much of a hardship for the peace of mind achieved from reliable backup

#16

Well, it's only been a week. Streaming with emby from DropBox is fine - maybe a hair slower than gdrive, but other than that it's been seamless. I had a slight issue with vfs cache not playing well with _async refreshes, but that cleared up magically.
Only real issue with DropBox is that it isn't a polling remote (though there is a github request to implement it) which means if you use your mount across multiple machines (I use it for workstation backups, too) you need to watch it doesn't get out of sync. Refreshing the mount is as easy as running a vfs/refesh command though. Just adds a layer of complexity to whatever process you have.

So with Google's recent announcements of the workspace/gdrive changes (though they still appear unlimited) and the fact that they're cutting down on Google Photo's unlimited storage and changing the way they calculate your Google Storage issue, I really am concerned that the unlimited aspect of gdrive will be going away.

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#17

are you paying for 3 users with dropbox business?

#18

I have created now a dropbox business account with 3 users, but after 5 TB I could not upload anything.
I have wrote the support. Let see...

#19

If you're still on the trial, they won't increase your storage - but you can get around it by adding additional licenses to your account - up to 500TB. Just be sure to remove the licenses before your account transitions to a paid account. I uploaded 26TB to my trial account and once it went paid the system automatically added more space to my account.

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#20

But this is only temporary or?
Later I can use dropbox with 80TB and 3 user?