Topic: Cloud Storage Options - August 2022

[morst]

Careful... this is how you anger the data backup gods. 

Just chiming in to say that running NAS is really cool, but be sure to have separate backups for it that are not part of the same array. A NAS array can be a single point of failure with a power surge, or more recently, malware.

YES, definitely treat NAS or other RAID array as a single "drive" when planning your backup strategy.

Here's what the 3-2-1 backup rule involves: 3: Create one primary backup and two copies of your data. 2: Save your backups to two different types of media. 1: Keep at least one backup file offsite.

[tedyun]

I found a deal for a site called PrismDrive through StackSocial. It is a one time payment of $89 for lifetime storage of 10 TB. After I signed up, there was a "Wait! There's more!" type of pop up that offered an additional 10 TB for $49, so lifetime 20 TB for a one time payment of $148.

Not bad.

It's pretty no frills as you would imagine. You can basically drag and drop your files from your desktop to the browser, then it will upload the files or folder. There is no slick syncing between a local folder and a cloud folder that updates once a file is changed across your devices, a la Dropbox, Google Drive or MegaSync, etc.

The other downside is that uploading is slow. The transfer is fine, ie., it runs at the speed of your broadband, but then there is a long pause after the transfer is 100%. It doesn't matter if the file is less than a KB or over 4 GB in size. You have to wait after the transfer before it goes to the next one on the queue. It seems like it is registering the file into the system or something, and this process can take maybe 3-5 minutes before it moves to the next file in the queue. You can set multiple uploads through different browsers, different windows or different machines, so that speeds up the process a bit.

Moreover, they say that you can upload files that are 10 GB, but in practice, the larger the file, the greater chance I get of a failure in transfer, then I have to try again. The sweet spot seems to be about 4 GB in size.

I mainly got this for a backup for my photos. Right now, I have a double backups, one that is live on my HDD, and another that is in cold storage. But I know that HDDs are not fool proof, so I wanted the cloud storage. But because I have 1,000's of photos, uploading one by one to PrismDrive just wasn't feasible. What I do is make a segmented zip file, with each segment around 4 GB in size, which is manageable.

For recordings, it could probably work. You can upload the raw WAV file and the processed FLACs one by one, especially if you're diligent about uploading after each show.

Anyway, it seems like PrismDrive has these sales occasionally, so if you're interested in a cost effective, no frills solution, check it out!

Ted

[mountainhop]

how long has that company been around?

[tedyun]

Not sure. I think maybe a couple of years. I get where you're going with this. If they ever go out of business, I figure, it's only $150, and if it works out, great. I still have my local backups if it doesn't work out.

[Scooter123]

Ted

There have been a ton of complaints against the company for slow upload speeds, e.g., a file takes forever to upload/download.  What is your experience? 

Hightail is what I use and typical show which I upload consists of one raw file, one modified file, and the split files with an Info file.  That takes about 45 minutes for a typical 90 minute show to upload. 

[tedyun]

Hi Scooter

Yeah, the uploading time was the thing that was an immediate problem. The transfer proceeds at normal rates (my home broadband has much slower upload speed than download), but after a file uploads, there is a pause when something behind the scenes is happening. It typically takes about 3-5 min before the upload is complete, and it is independent of file size, ie, a 1 KB text file will upload in seconds, but take 3-5 min to register. 4 GB takes several minutes on my broadband (15 min maybe?) then takes 3-5 min to register.

As such, with my intended use as a backup for photos, uploading every single photo was not feasible (I shoot around 3000 photos every year).

What I did to solve this is to archive each month of photos, and segment the archive into 4 GB segments.

The other thing is that I take advantage of my work's upload speed, so I do my uploads when I am at work. Each 4 GB takes 1-5 min, so I just drag and drop 20 (ie., 80 GB) files at a time while I'm working, and it will upload them over an hour or two. The process has been getting better. They seemed to have updated the process, and the upload will proceed to the next item on the queue before the current file is finished its "registration" time.

My other problem with the service is that the larger the file, the more chance there is a failure in the upload, and I will have to repeat it. The 4 GB chunks seem to be the most compatible, even though they advertise that you can upload 10 GB.

Anyway, for music archiving, I think it would be better. My typical unprocessed 24/96 WAVs are around 1 - 3 GB, and processed 16/44 FLACs are around 600-800 MB. So what I would do is zip up the processed files (similar to what people do with the WeTransfer shows), make checksums of all the files I'm uploading, and it shouldn't take more than an hour or so.

PrismDrive is not perfect, but it is cheap! You get what you pay for, I guess. For now, I'm making it work for me.

Best,
Ted