Cloud backup is a common solution for home users to actually have backups of their data. There are a huge number of options in this space if you use Windows or MacOS, all running about $6/month per computer, or pay for storage used. However, most cloud providers only offer “enterprise” storage if you happen to use Linux. This is often pay per GB per month, with charges for download, and often is strictly storage space via an API or CLI offering. i.e. it’s a building block, but not the whole shebang. The other thing to keep in mind is how sensitive your backups are – many cloud vendors do encrypt data, but very few do so in a “zero knowledge” end to end method and at rest. What this means in practice is that while your backup data is private while being backed up, the cloud vendor can look at your files if they want to for any reason. Many, like Google, use photos to train face detect AIs for instance.
If you know me, you know I tend to prefer to get what I pay for and only what I pay for – so less advertising, or AI training, or really anyone but people I explicitly select having access to my files, let alone backups is preferable.
One option that is likely to be the easiest, but more expensive, is SpiderOak One. I just didn’t want to pay their prices.
So, I’m sure many techies are asking why not “object storage” from AWS, Azure or Google Cloud? Well, mostly price. They are pretty expensive for “hot storage”, and Glacier is just more complication that using a competing vendor.
So, the obvious competitor is Backblaze B2. And that would be my second choice. But if I was going to need to deal with third party tools and object storage management, I figured I’d give one more look at cheaper alternatives.
And, I found Jottacloud. They’re based in Norway, so they have GDPR and other privacy regulations that are stronger than in the US. They offer unlimited backup for a personal user for 690 NOK per year, which is around $81. Now, googling will show the “unlimited” is more like 5-10TB, but compare 5TB Backblaze object storage at $26 a month, and it seems like a much better deal. They also offer some Box like picture management and file share and sync tools. What is unclear is how zero knowledge they are. There is conflicting reports, so I’d trust them technically to be like Box, but with better legal protections, and an interest in privacy generally.
What about the third party tools though? Well, here’s where we can (for backup only) take care of most of the issues around privacy and space if we get a little creative. There’s a nice “easy” webGUI tool called Duplicati which can grab files on a schedule and back them up, using AES256 encryption. Just make sure you keep copies locally off your computer(s) of the password for the encryption key. You can also use a gpg install if you want to use that method of encryption. This way, all Jottacloud (or vendor of choice) sees is encrypted 50MB block files.
Now, Duplicati will say it supports Jottacloud, but … well… it doesn’t really. However, it DOES support rclone. And if you get the newest rclone, IT supports Jottacloud (and a lot of other vendors). There unfortunately is also a bug in rclone support in Duplicati where it will ask for a local repository – this is a dummy entry, or it’s a real entry, and you do need to create a local repository in rclone, but it doesn’t point to anything.
The end steps are basically as follows:
- Get a Jottacloud account. 5GB is free for testing.
- get the latest rclone (available as an rpm on their site)
- get the latest Duplicati (available as an rpm on their site.)
- In rclone, create a dummy “local” repository. Note the name.
- in rclone, create a remote repository for cloud vendor of choice – in this case Jottacloud. Note what you called this repository.
- While doing so, make a machine specific API key just to future proof.
- Follow the instructions to get your token from your Jottacloud account settings pages.
- I recommend using the default Archive mount point.
- Test with rclone lsd repositoryname:
- Make sure it can successfully connect. If you get errors, work through the config till it’s correct. Your initial listing will be blank unless you used the web UI of Jottacloud to create folders.
- Run Duplicati. Look in your system tray for a new icon. If it hasn’t opened a local webpage in your browser, right click on the tray icon and select open
- Create a new backup. I recommend using AES256 and the generate function to get a strong password. NOTE this password down. You will need it for restores.
- Select rclone as the backup target.
- Put in the dummy local repository you noted above.
- Put in the Jottacloud repository you noted above.
- Test the connection with the test button. It should succeed. If it doesn’t, you probably need to fix the rclone config.
- Select what you want to back up locally.
- Put in a schedule and time to keep backups. Remember you want to stay under 5TB for best performance, and under 10TB as a hard limit. You can likely split off local folders if you need more space, and buy a second Jottacloud account for an additional 5TB and use a second repository in rclone and second backup config in Duplicati.
- There you go.
Note: This is a basic backup, but a full restore might take a while, and the initial full backups can be slow too – depends on your Internet upload speed. You can pause backups in Duplicati if necessary.