I am currently using a huge NAS storage for backup for my important files (real life documents, code and the like). The NAS uses TrueNAS Scale with a RAIDZ1 ZFS volume (1 parity drive redundancy). However, friends noted that maybe I would want an offsite backup for the backup, in case of fire or earthquakes (the latter is very unlikely).
Now I would want to look at encrypted cloud storage, but that means something else to every person. I would like any cloud storage with local encryption, before it goes to the cloud provider. I am not trusting some cloud provider with my clear data. I would also strongly prefer any company in the EU, the USA is much too shady for something like that.
There’s also always the possibility to backup to a rented virtual machine somewhere like Hetzner (or any other Europe based virtual hardware provider).
Do you fine people backup to any offsite storage? How did you implement that for you? Which provider do you use?
I would recommend buying another NAS system, placing it with a friend in another area, and sync’ing to it.
Otherwise, you pay constantly…forever. Balance ongoing storage costs with one time purchases.
You can check https://ulozto.net/. It should support rest api, web ui or rclone (or windows/android app if that is what you want). I cannot personally vouch for it but it has some good reference in my corner of the world.
Your friend’s electricity costs something too and ISP usualy wants to pay for an internet connection. Just to state the obvious.
The cloud backup should also be in some remote/decentralised location. Your friends probably live nearby for a natural disaster to strike you both.
But still it may be a very good option especialy when you have an old hardware lying around.
I can recommend MEGA as well. I have a ProI plan they recently upgraded to 3 TB space and they offer S4 (S3 like storage) within that if you like.
Most important to me is that they have mega-cmd server - a very capable Linux command shell where you can set up classic folder sync ro real scheduled backups with cron like syntax. etc.
E2EE included.
I tried many others like pCloud, internxt, filen, icedrive, iDrive, … always returnec back to MEGA. Unfortunately they haven’t offered a lifetime plan during Black Weeks yet.
I’m wondering why some are actually recommending mega.nz / mega.io
Even despite the fact that kimdotcom isn’t involved with the business anymore, the company has been acquired by the Hong Kong based company Cloud Tech Services Limited.
Sure, they didn’t moved their company from New Zealand to Hong Kong. And technically, Hong Kong still isn’t China, yet. Instead, Mega as a company relocated their head office to Hungary, and opened offices in Spain as well, besides their original location in Auckland, New Zealand.
There is still their encrypted data policy for every file hosted on their servers. Which isn’t bad directly. But they operated in a grey-zone and enabled the hosting of copyrighted media, just using a “no liability for the company” loophole due to strict user-encrypted uploads and the use of password protection.
Passwords which were essentially shared openly together with the links to the pirated media on the servers of mega. Or, which has been even worse, passwords that could be bought from third parties for the latest releases. Which isn’t just simple software piracy - but piracy as a business which they may have tolerated. At least on the end as a file hoster. Not actively, at least I wouldn’t go that far to accuse them of directly benefiting from it. But my best guess is: They didn’t proactively suppressed such activities on their servers.
But in the end, I can’t really exclude that my perception of that company is still under the influence of my perception of kimdotcom as a person, a self-proclaimed hacker who claimed to have done some hacks - which actually never were his achievements. He has been involved in insider trading at the time when the dot-com bubble bursted. Almost an decade earlier to his involvement in the founding of the company mega.
Mega: I would concur with @1093i3511. Mega looks shady, from the company location to the packages they offer. Googling them shows a lot of pages that try to explain their hidden fees and pitfalls regarding upload traffic and speeds. And they are not EU based, so I would want to rule them out.
Borgbase looks good, and the location in Malta is fine. They also have a monitoring that alerts when backups fail, that sounds very useful. I’ll take a closer look at how the encryption is done locally.
Ulozto is also fine from a location point of view, although the prices for the most basic tier are higher than the other offers.
It looks like the go-to solution will be either the suggestion from @shadow359 or a similar service. The prices are fair (4 bucks a month for 1TB), the location is good, and the name is well-known.
I’m using a Storage Share, a managed Nextcloud from Hetzner hosted on their servers here in Germany. 1 TB for 5 EUR per month … I added accounts for my family and so all of us have their own Nextcloud.
I am using Filen, from Germany. I have a 2TB storage since 2 years, and it works perfectly on Linux. You can set various directories with various options (Full sync between could and local, one way sync, backup to cloud or local, etc….
I use the official AppImage for Filen-Desktop, but there is also a package in the AUR, and a CLI package.