Topic: POLL: Any interest in a Big Drive? (For Backup and Remote Access) (Read 6257 times)

JimH · « **on:** February 02, 2018, 04:24:09 pm »

My own backup is spotty. I rely on putting files on multiple machines, but I'm not always diligent about it.

I think we could make this easy or even automatic. We could probably make it behave like a Handheld so you could sync to it.

We could probably also make playback from another location easy. It might just be another library.

I personally would need about 200GB.

Google charges $2/month for 100GB
or
$10/month for 1 TB.

Thanks for your feedback.

flac.rules · « **Reply #1 on:** February 02, 2018, 04:51:13 pm »

I have my own backup on a separate machine, so probably wouldn't use such a service.

JimH · « **Reply #2 on:** February 02, 2018, 04:59:26 pm »

Quote from: Elvis133 on February 02, 2018, 04:51:13 pm

I have my own backup on a separate machine, so probably wouldn't use such a service.

Is it off site? Is it accessible from other locations? Maybe that doesn't matter.

flac.rules · « **Reply #3 on:** February 02, 2018, 05:06:45 pm »

Quote from: JimH on February 02, 2018, 04:59:26 pm

Is it off site? Is it accessible from other locations? Maybe that doesn't matter.

It is off site, I have a backup-server at a friend of mine, he has backup-server at my place, and we backup over the network. It is in the same city, but it takes a little time for me to get there if i need physical access.

kr4 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 02, 2018, 05:14:55 pm »

Judging on what is already available, I cannot imagine it being affordable. I need about 30Tb.

jmone · « **Reply #5 on:** February 02, 2018, 05:43:30 pm »

I have 2 x 60TB nodes connected by 10Gbit Fibre (those BD's and UHD take up a lot of space). They are physically separated to provide some insurance against fire/flood/theft. I'd like to put one of the nodes at someone else's premises but until unlimited 1Gbit+ WAN connections are available for us in Oz it may be a challenge.

JimH · « **Reply #6 on:** February 02, 2018, 06:13:08 pm »

That must dim the lights in the neighborhood when you power it up.

steff · « **Reply #7 on:** February 02, 2018, 06:20:29 pm »

Quote from: jmone on February 02, 2018, 05:43:30 pm

I have 2 x 60TB nodes connected by 10Gbit Fibre (those BD's and UHD take up a lot of space). They are physically separated to provide some insurance against fire/flood/theft. I'd like to put one of the nodes at someone else's premises but until unlimited 1Gbit+ WAN connections are available for us in Oz it may be a challenge.

EMC Avamar is the solution whenever you can not afford very high speed WAN

JimH · « **Reply #8 on:** February 02, 2018, 06:26:29 pm »

Snapshot after 10 votes:

1 person might

9 people said it was a stinky idea

syndromeofadown · « **Reply #9 on:** February 02, 2018, 06:29:54 pm »

If I used 100% of my allowed monthly data it would take me 190 years to backup my data online.
All of my video is backed up and offsite, my audio is backed up in duplicate and offsite. Most audio and video is also backed up via the original discs as a last resort. I find it easy to do backups due to the nature of growing disc sizes. Throw a new 8TB hard drive in and use the old 4TB drives as backups.

I can see the convenience of having a music library that's easily accessible anywhere but I also think you would have to babysit everyone using it. What happens when someone shares their music library with 100,000 people?

~OHM~ · « **Reply #10 on:** February 02, 2018, 07:13:09 pm »

Quote from: kr4 on February 02, 2018, 05:14:55 pm

Judging on what is already available, I cannot imagine it being affordable. I need about 30Tb.

ditto

jmone · « **Reply #11 on:** February 02, 2018, 07:44:59 pm »

Quote from: JimH on February 02, 2018, 06:13:08 pm

That must dim the lights in the neighborhood when you power it up.

Don't get me started! I use a bit over 30Mwh per year. Already done the the simple stuff like swapping to LED lights etc in the house. I've also put as much as I can on the Off Peak (Controlled Load) circuit (1/3rd the cost but this circuit is only energised around 8 hours per day). I've also put in a Automatic Transfer Switch (which feeds my UPS) so the main compute gear will switch to the Controlled Load circuit when it is available. Helps keeps the cost down but we now have some of the highest costs for power in the world.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #12 on:** February 02, 2018, 07:46:12 pm »

Snapshot
1 says maybe
12 say no interest, including me.

I can't see JRiver offering the same surety of backup that Google, Amazon, Microsoft or other providers could offer. That needs to be 100% surety, not 99.999999%, provided by proper Data Centers and multiple redundancy storage locations. If JRiver wanted to do it the only rational solution would be to resell the services of an existing provider. Maybe a bulk discount could be negotiated that made it worthwhile for end customers.

I could see it being nice to have access to my library from anywhere, and I'm currently trying to get WOW working on my router at the moment. It is fighting me. But what I really want that for is to check if I already have a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray disc in my library, rather than to play music. I would still need 200GB just for music, and terabytes for everything. No. Just no.

I have a good backup solution for my Workstation and should do more for my HTPC, but it won't be online.

Sparks67 · « **Reply #13 on:** February 02, 2018, 09:11:03 pm »

Here is an alternative method for backup, but it is the Usenet. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/02/bored-with-ho-hum-cloud-backups-use-usenet-yes-usenet-instead/

JimH · « **Reply #14 on:** February 02, 2018, 09:11:23 pm »

Quote from: jmone on February 02, 2018, 07:44:59 pm

Don't get me started! I use a bit over 30Mwh per year. Already done the the simple stuff like swapping to LED lights etc in the house. I've also put as much as I can on the Off Peak (Controlled Load) circuit (1/3rd the cost but this circuit is only energised around 8 hours per day). I've also put in a Automatic Transfer Switch (which feeds my UPS) so the main compute gear will switch to the Controlled Load circuit when it is available. Helps keeps the cost down but we now have some of the highest costs for power in the world.

Careful or they will think you're growing something "medicinal".

JimH · « **Reply #15 on:** February 02, 2018, 09:29:16 pm »

Quote from: RoderickGI on February 02, 2018, 07:46:12 pm

... I'm currently trying to get WOW working on my router at the moment. It is fighting me.

WOL?

RoderickGI · « **Reply #16 on:** February 02, 2018, 11:16:43 pm »

Quote from: JimH on February 02, 2018, 09:29:16 pm

WOL?

Wake On WAN.

I have Wake On LAN working fine, but when I tried to get it working from outside my LAN using Gizmo via my mobile service, it was inconsistent. Worked once, soon after the HTPC went to sleep (although it was slow and took two connection attempts to get it to work), didn't work when the HTPC had been asleep for a while. Probably related to the Router ARP table issue.

Anyway, I haven't got back to it for a week or so. I need to dig a little deeper to see what is going on.

Manfred · « **Reply #17 on:** February 03, 2018, 03:26:00 am »

My Upload speed provided by my Internet Provider is 3 MBit/s. This was the key reason why I excluded any external cloud solution for Backup. If it would be 1 Gbit/s I would Backup all my data in the cloud.

RD James · « **Reply #18 on:** February 03, 2018, 06:06:57 am »

Services like Google Drive are more for "cloud data" than backups.
Actual backup services like Backblaze are $50/year for unlimited data, and I believe there are competitors which offer similar plans.
My music library is a couple of TB, and my video library is approaching 60 TB now too.

It's not that difficult to set up an automatic backup which is saved to a portable drive connected to the PC either - the functionality is built right into Windows.
It would cost you less than $100 to have a pair of portable drives that will store a <1TB library, then you can keep one at home and one in another location for security.

Hendrik · « **Reply #19 on:** February 03, 2018, 06:54:07 am »

I use Backblaze myself as well, their unlimited scheme for a decent price is hard to beat, although I don't backup my full media (movie) library because of upload constraints (even at my decent 40 Mbit that would take a couple months to upload everything) - and I can re-rip my Blu-rays if I ever need to. So its mostly for more important data for me.

tij · « **Reply #20 on:** February 03, 2018, 07:09:12 am »

Quote from: Manfred on February 03, 2018, 03:26:00 am

My Upload speed provided by my Internet Provider is 3 MBit/s. This was the key reason why I excluded any external cloud solution for Backup. If it would be 1 Gbit/s I would Backup all my data in the cloud.

my internet is meager 2Mbps ... and it cost around 50 bucks per month ... so thats the reason i dont use cloud services. Atm i only back up my pictures to separate computer in the house through LAN.

When budget permits will do raid10 on my media ... while can rerip movies and music, it takes lots of time, so hopefully raid10 will minimize that happening

rec head · « **Reply #21 on:** February 03, 2018, 09:19:13 am »

I like the idea of an always ready library. There have been enough times that we (mostly my wife) have tried to access our library from work but Windows did a restart or I was messing with something and our server wasn't up and music wasn't accessible.

My plan, that I have been slacking about, has been to use my NAS's Amazon Glacier app. I want my music and TV shows up there. Re-ripping movies is no biggie but bluray TV shows is a pain.

AT&T gigabit fiber to the house for $80/month has been a pretty sweet deal.

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** February 03, 2018, 06:32:01 pm »

Split Backup Strategies

JimH · « **Reply #23 on:** February 04, 2018, 02:50:00 pm »

Quote from: JimH on February 02, 2018, 06:26:29 pm

Snapshot after 10 votes:

1 person might

9 people said it was a stinky idea

Another snapshot, one quite different:
16 people said they might

29 people said no.

The only way I can explain the swing is that the initial group of votes came from the "regulars" here, and that they are the kind of people who run servers 24x7 and have solved this problem themselves. Later, as more casual users drifted by, the percentage of people who found the idea interesting went up, since they have not solved the problem yet.

flac.rules · « **Reply #24 on:** February 05, 2018, 04:56:13 am »

Quote from: JimH on February 04, 2018, 02:50:00 pm

Another snapshot, one quite different:
16 people said they might

29 people said no.

The only way I can explain the swing is that the initial group of votes came from the "regulars" here, and that they are the kind of people who run servers 24x7 and have solved this problem themselves. Later, as more casual users drifted by, the percentage of people who found the idea interesting went up, since they have not solved the problem yet.

Yeah, that seems reasonable, the "regulars" might not be representative.

drmimosa · « **Reply #25 on:** February 05, 2018, 07:30:00 am »

Interesting. I've been thinking about this idea for a few days.

I have a 2 TB media library, and i use Allway Sync to keep two identical copies on 5 inch 3 TB hard drives. I had a Crashhplan subscription for off-site backup, but it lapsed and I just purchased another disk to keep at work.

While I have a strategy in place that is probably more than adequate, I am starting to grow weary of file management and the inevitable hiccups involved with keeping files organized and backed up. It seems old fashioned, honestly. Remember zip drives, floppy drives, etc? I'd love to move on from keeping track of hard drives and how old they are and what's on what and how to fix problems and file names that are too long etc.

So I'm a yes. If offered, I will sign up because it will greatly simplify my setup.

MusicHawk · « **Reply #26 on:** February 05, 2018, 10:00:24 pm »

I have used automated on-site backups for many years, multiple computers and various external drives that are easy to then carry offsite.

Also, I used Crashplan until they shut off their home user service. Now I use IDrive. They both help the problem of overrunning ISP bandwidth of modified files by only uploading changed file blocks, not the entire files. This can be a significant benefit, if I can believe their claims (hard to monitor). Further, IDrive got me jump-started by shipping a USB drive, which I loaded with my entire music, photo, and video file collections, about 3TB. Once they loaded those files onto their server, I only upload new files, and changed files as smaller blocks, much more efficient. Also, the cost is reasonable. Whether this is a long-term solution, don't know, not impressed with the companies or their apps, but it seems to work. For now, with my music, photo and video files stored in multiple places including offsite, I can sleep a bit better.

What I'm missing is a way to backup AND SHARE (with family and friends) my photos. Google Photos is a type of free backup, but at reduced image resolution. But everything else about it is brain-dead worthless.

stewart_pk · « **Reply #27 on:** February 05, 2018, 11:34:51 pm »

I want my HTPC playback software and cloud backup service to be separate. That way I can change one and not the other.

INTERACT FORUM

Poll

Would you consider purchasing backup space for your photos and music from JRiver if it were easy and cheap?

Author Topic: POLL: Any interest in a Big Drive? (For Backup and Remote Access) (Read 6257 times)