I tried iDrive today and found it unsatisfactory and already canceled. I spoke with technical support chat about the issues. They told me that the files I thought are being backed up actually are not and they suggested using Time Machine instead (!), which I already am. That seemed like an odd suggestion from an online backup service.
The site says it backs up everything, but tech support tells me it actually does not back up settings files. The docs say you can change the default settings (only most important files) to whatever you want, but if you do it really doesnāt help.
So the service doesnāt provide what I thought it did. Plus it was taking forever just to scan my Macās SSD. I was wanting to backup my MBP internal SSD with about 500 GB of data and after 5 hours it had only finished āscanningā 1/4 of the SSD. Not backing up mind you - just scanning to see what to backup.
Iām also continuing to try Backblaze and am in the 14 day free trial period, but it has its own issues, like I never know when backups are done and there are no reports or details really at all. In my case I am having trouble backing up and verifying the backup for a couple Parallels virtual machines.
Iām sort of wondering if I should just put my entire drive in Dropbox at the moment!
Iām not overly thrilled so far by Backblaze either. They have limited support hours, and they just donāt seem to backup some things either. Also:
I still donāt understand how I ever know if an itemās backup is complete.
There is no notification.
There is no log or history.
The fact the item appears in the viewer doesnāt mean it was backed up either, because there are huge size discrepancies.
So how do I ever know if something was actually backed up or not?
Wondering what I should do after Crashplan expires. The two mostly highly rated alternatives are Backblaze and iDrive, but both seem to not work that well.
Hi Doug! Yev from Backblaze here -> we tend to run very light on your system, by design, which is why we do not have notifications per file as to when they are backed up. Some other providers put a little check mark or call-out next to the files, but that means they run a bit heavier on disk. We do have system logs that are kept, you can send them to support who can look through them to find specific instances, or explain how you can do that on your end. The best way to find/restore a file is to go to your backup and restore it.
Iāve tested Backblaze a few times since signing up and have been happy with the results. It certainly does run light on my Mac. Youād never know it was running, which is very welcome.
I donāt think notifications per file as to when they are backed up are needed. But notifications when a file fails to backup is, donāt you think?
Thatās what Iām trying to cope with now in the waning days of my 14 day free trial. At this point I still donāt know if Backblaze is a working solution or not. I had to go checking and hunting myself for files which didnāt backup. They seem to appear in the files viewer online, but with large file size discrepancies. Meanwhile the settings panel reassuringly says there are 0 files and 0 MB remaining to backup. A typical person would just assume that means everything is OK. But it isnāt correct. There are 10s of GB of data which never got backed up.
With the help of Backblaze support and some people on Reddit I was able to open logs and look at package contents, etc., and currently the source of the problem seems to be that Backblaze requires a large ātemporary filesā area and there isnāt sufficient space on my internal MBP drive for that area, even though I have 60 GB of free space.
But how is a regular person supposed to know this without notifications of backup failures?
I think Backblaze needs to notify people to let them know, periodically, that everything has been backed up or that there was a failure and what failed.
That would still fall within the meaning of ārunning lightā donāt you think?
Interesting! Iāll bring that up. If the issue was with the scratch-disk we do have a pop-up notification that should have fired stating we needed some more space to make our temporary copies. Iāll forward that to the devs!
I see youāre running into all kinds of concerns over iDrive and Backblaze. Have you tried Arq? Iām curious if you have ruled that out and why since Iām in my Arq trial, and so far so good.
If things donāt work after my current attempt with Backblaze Iāll check it out. At the moment, I created a large volume out of unused disk space on my Carbon Copy Cloner drive and set Backblaze to use that for temporary space and the menu bar item now says it is backing up 1 file that is 55.6 GB in size. So maybe this will solve the problem.
I ended up signing up for an annual Backblaze subscription after all.
I do think Backblaze could have avoided a lot of confusion with such things as:
Notifications when a backup failed because of lack of temporary space (rather than me having to notice it wasnāt working by checking all the files). Adding a volume on an external drive and assigning it to be Backblazeās temporary volume fixed the problem.
Better documentation about what is backed up and what is not (e.g. they exclude certain file extensions even if you remove everything from the excluded list, but the details of exactly what filetypes they skip over isnāt documented anywhere).
More clarity on the units backed up so you can more easily compare their file viewer with the Mac Finder (you can use https://www.convertunits.com/from/bytes/to/mb to confirm that the backed up file sizes are correct)
But I ended up going with them because:
They are just so darn nice! While they donāt have a 24 hour chat, they do respond all weekend long, and no matter how many times I went back to them they patiently replied with more detail and really helped me resolve all the issues.
It does, in fact, work in the end if you have everything set correctly, and have enough temporary space, and are ok with certain hierarchies not being backed up (e.g. Applications and Library).
The backup speed actually seems quite fast to me. I have about 500 GB total backed up between my internal SSD and an external SSD card containing my Photos library, and the initial backup only took a couple of days.
If you go into Settings > Reports > Issues you can get info on problems. So there is info available.
Basically, they seem anxious to be helpful no matter where I posted: here, support, even Reddit!
So I feel Iām in good hands.
I also feel like I spent a ridiculous amount of time checking them out. More than I ever did with Crashplan (which I see now has not been backing everything up I wanted backed up). More than when buying a new car. But itās been an interesting learning experience!
