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lars_the_bear
Guru
Joined: 05 Jun 2024
Posts: 537
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 Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2024 8:29 am Post subject: Dropbox, pCloud? |
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Hi folks
I've been a long-time user of Dropbox for off-site file sync. Recently I got fed up with both their prices and lack of reliability, and moved to pCloud. That's cheaper but, in my experience, no more reliable.
I'm fed up with how much time I spend fiddling with these things. I'd rather have an off-site sysytem I could just rsync files to and from. These services do exist, but they're very pricey.
What, if anything, do other Gentoo users do, for syncing files to a remote backup site? Is anybody using Dropbox or pCloud without hassle on Gentoo?
BR, Lars. |
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pingtoo
Veteran
Joined: 10 Sep 2021
Posts: 1323
Location: Richmond Hill, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2024 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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Just an idea,
Have you consider find a cloud host system and run a container or VM with rysnc (or unison) and use the cloud system offer storage system for backup? |
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carcajou
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Joined: 10 Jun 2008
Posts: 248
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| Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 5:33 am Post subject: |
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| What are the issues you have with pCloud? I use it for the last 3-4 years on Gentoo, on my mobile and at work without any issues. |
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lars_the_bear
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Joined: 05 Jun 2024
Posts: 537
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| Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 7:50 am Post subject: |
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| carcajou wrote: | | What are the issues you have with pCloud? I use it for the last 3-4 years on Gentoo, on my mobile and at work without any issues. |
- Sometimes it stops syncing, with no warning. That's the main problem.
- Sometimes files that I'm editing appear to disappear. Actually, they get moved or copied to files with 'conflicted' in the name
- Short-lived files like Vim swapfiles raise a heap of error messages in the console
- A load of copies of files get made, with 'conflicted' in the name, even though I haven't opened them on more than one machine.
- pCloud tech support is useless, where Linux is concerned. They keep sending me links to documentation pages about Windows.
The actual 'pCloudDrive' virtual drive thing works fine. It's the syncing that keeps going wrong.
BR, Lars. |
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lars_the_bear
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Joined: 05 Jun 2024
Posts: 537
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| Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 7:53 am Post subject: |
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| pingtoo wrote: |
Have you consider find a cloud host system and run a container or VM with rysnc (or unison) and use the cloud system offer storage system for backup? |
I've considered it, but I don't think I can afford it. Do you have any recommendation? I need about 100Gb of storage, but I could use more.
BR, Lars. |
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Banana
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 1786
Location: Germany
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pingtoo
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Joined: 10 Sep 2021
Posts: 1323
Location: Richmond Hill, Canada
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| Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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| lars_the_bear wrote: | | pingtoo wrote: |
Have you consider find a cloud host system and run a container or VM with rysnc (or unison) and use the cloud system offer storage system for backup? |
I've considered it, but I don't think I can afford it. Do you have any recommendation? I need about 100Gb of storage, but I could use more.
BR, Lars. |
I don't personally do this kind of thing any more. So I cannot say for sure.
However about 10 years ago, I was learning Cloud using DigitalOcean, I think their pricing a reasonable, they charge by hour. If you don't need the compute you can use their S3 storage with net-fs/s3fs. |
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Hu
Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 22809
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| Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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| lars_the_bear wrote: | | I've considered it, but I don't think I can afford it. Do you have any recommendation? I need about 100Gb of storage, but I could use more. |
To make good recommendations, we would benefit from more details:- What kind of budget are you looking at? $1/month? $10/month? $100/month? You can skip answering this, if you don't mind filtering our recommendations later based on pricing.
- You need 100Gb, but what is the turnover rate? If this 100Gb represents say, 30 years of family videos, and you're only generating new content at a rate of 1Gb a year, then your main concern is the at-rest storage cost. On the other hand, if that 100Gb represents an ongoing project and you turn over 75% of it between each backup, then upload efficiency may be a major concern, since you would be uploading 75Gb every time you do a backup. Turnover rate also influences whether you need a tool that is clever enough to only upload changes. If the content is mostly unchanged, then you want a system that is able to do delta uploads efficiently. If the content is almost entirely rewritten every time, then a near-full upload is unavoidable, and you don't need a tool that is good at delta uploads.
- How often are you retrieving files from the service? Dropbox seems to me like it is aimed toward people who want to routinely re-download their data onto other systems. A cloud-based backup may be more optimized to the idea that you will hopefully never need to download this, and will only download files to validate them and to recover from a disaster that destroys all local copies.
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lars_the_bear
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Joined: 05 Jun 2024
Posts: 537
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| Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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@Hu
Thank you. pCloud charges UK£50 per year for 500Gb, Dropbox about £100 for 2TB. rsync.net charges US$103 per year for 800Gb, which is much cheaper than when I last looked a few years ago. I moved to pCloud because it was the cheapest service I could find, that had a Linux client. Also, it is the only service I can afford that offers encryption of data at rest.
And you're right -- I do, indeed, have 30 years of family videos and similar material. I don't need to synchronize that stuff : I just need it to be safe. The stuff I regularly synchronize across machines (source code, documents, drawings...) amount to 'only' about 10Gb, of which I probably update about 500Mb per day.
The great thing about Dropbox and pCloud, when they're working, is the transparency. If I update a file on one computer, it will be updated on all my others, within a minute. I guess this will be less of an issue when I retire, and have fewer computers. Right now, though, having about six computers in my home office and four others for domestic use, the fact that I don't need to take explicit action to synchronize stuff is a real bonus.
When it works, of course.
I have to say that rsync.net looks more appealing than it once did, but I'd have to do all the sync stuff manually, and make my own arrangements for encryption.
BR, Lars |
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pingtoo
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Joined: 10 Sep 2021
Posts: 1323
Location: Richmond Hill, Canada
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| Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Forget about my suggestion. pCloud and alike is different beast. I think my idea will not (or much expensive) for your goal. |
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