2021-04-04

Almost free cloud backup

If you're sold on having a full cloud backup of all your data -- and you should be -- but you find the cloud backup services I suggested a bit pricey, there might be an "almost free" option you could use.  It depends, though, on your having access to a lot of space on a cloud storage service like Google Drive, OneDrive, Drobox, iCloud Drive, etc.  You might have this already, say, if you subscribe to Microsoft 365.

This solution will give you as much retention as you want of old file versions and deleted files, and will let you do point-in-time restores.

Here are the pieces of the solution:

  1. A Sync.com Free plan account, which gives you 5 GB for free (and more if you refer other people to the service).
  2. A cloud storage services (as noted above) with enough space for your entire backup. (You'll actually need somewhat more space given the versioning.)
  3. The SyncBackSE backup software, about CAD $62 one-time

Here is what you do:

  1. Divide your files logically -- in your head -- into two piles: Sensitive and Non-Sensitive.
    • Sensitive files are ones that you think need end-to-end encryption (E2EE).
    • Non-Sensitive files are ones that don't need E2EE.
  2. Then separate your files physically -- on your drive -- so that each high-level folder (say, the top level folders under your Documents folder or your Photos folder) contains either Sensitive files or Non-Sensitive files but not both.
    • Sensitive files are limited to the 5 GB or 6 GB or whatever in your Sync.com plan.
    • Non-Sensitive files are limited to whatever you have in your cloud storage plan.
  3. Buy SyncBackSE software (see above).
  4. Configure SyncBackSE to automatically and daily do this:
    • Back up all Sensitive folders to the Sync.com folder, using Versioning
    • Back up all Non-Sensitive folders to the OneDrive folder, using Versioning
If you want to get a bit fancier, you could use SyncBackSE's AES encryption abilities to encrypt files before writing them to the Non-Sensitive cloud storage. Then you don't really need Sync.com.

If you use this referral link to sign up for Sync.com, you'll get an extra 1 GB of storage.  (I will too, but I have no need for any more space.)