[relix]

I'm using Crashplan now but when my subscription runs out I will switch to Arq+AWS Glacier. I'm currently around the 300GB mark for backup space. Using glacier this would cost me $3/month, about $36/year or half as much as I'm paying for Crashplan ($60 with a discount).

Even if it was more expensive for me, I would still switch, because I don't trust Crashplan completely. There have been stories from users of backups getting corrupted when they needed to recover, and the upload speed to Crashplan is so slow it took months for the full 300GB to upload (I'm getting around 0.5 - 2Mbps up on my 100Mbps/100Mbps connection, I believe they are artificially throttling it to discourage people from storing a ton of data). This means new data takes a long time to be 100% safe, especially when for example I dump my camera's memory to disk.

On top of that, if their upload speed is this low, their download speed probably is, too. If my data crashes, I need the backup yesterday. I can't wait a week to download the 300GB at 10Mbps.

I believe Amazon's speeds would be much higher.

[archagon]

Don't you need to pay a ton to actually get your data out of glacier?

[dmd]

Not if you're willing to wait a few hours - a delay of the same or smaller order of magnitude as the transfer is going to take anyway.

For example, suppose you're restoring 50 GB. If you want to start the retrieval 4 hours from now (the minimum), you'll pay $97. If you're willing to wait 10 hours, that drops to $43. 20, $25. 40, $16. Goes down to $7 at the limit.

You can play with the cost at http://liangzan.net/aws-glacier-calculator/

[archagon]

For me, the far more likely case would be 500GB, kept for a year. Even with 1000 hours (more than a month!!) for a restore, I'd still have to pay $125. CrashPlan lets me do this for free, and allows me arbitrary access to my backed up data to boot. It just seems like a better deal, unless you're really worried about data corruption in the cloud.

[kl4m]

It's the same price for ~72h retrieval...

[archagon]

Still, it means your monthly price isn't actually what it seems. With 72 hour retrieval, you'll be paying about $14 a month, compared to CrashPlan's $5. And what if you need the data earlier? If you have bad luck and your hard drive crashes a month after you make your backup, you'll end up paying about $100 a month, at least for that month. CrashPlan's flat rate means you don't have to stress out about the fine print.

[relix]

You have bigger problems if you need to recover from backup once a year.

[relix]

That's ok. When that happens I'll gladly pay a premium to get my data fast. That should only happen once every few years though.