I need a new backup plan ...

[thecomputerguy]

Right now in addition to the normal server image backups I like to have file backup in place so that in the event of a single file needed to be restored the file backup would make that very easy.

I was using Crashplan PRO for years, then all the sudden a few months ago the program just completely started crapping out on me. Officially they do not support Servers for their backup program anymore. I'm not sure if that is the reason why I have such a problem with their program now but it's not working for me anymore and I have it on 12 servers.

My issue is that nearly EVERYDAY the Crashplan tray app will crash (the little icon in the tray near the clock). When that tray app crashes, the tray app will disappear or turn red, indicating nothing is being backed up. I will then have to log into the server and have to manually restart the tray app, open the program and manually start the backup. Until it is manually restarted all of my backup reports show that the backup has failed.

I've spent tens of HOURS trying to troubleshoot this and it continues to crash on me and the same exact problem happens on ALL of my servers whether they are 2003, 2008R2, or 2012R2.

I have no idea why I can't keep the program running but I am at the point where I'm ready to dump Crashplan.

Reasons I liked Crashplan:

Clean Interface
Good reporting
Excellent file versioning ability
Extremely low cost ($10 per month per device for unlimited onsite & offsite)
Backup sets
Real-time backup

----

I started looking at options and found iDrive so far. I bought 250GB to test it out and so far:

Likes:
The interface is decent
It does versioning just not as good as Crashplan
It does onsite & offsite
It hasn't crashed on me
Real-time backup

Dislikes:
Uploads are terribly slow
Only able to backup to a single external onsite (no backup sets)
The amount of data storage I would need to purchase 12TB of cloud storage, which costs $3000 per year (non-promotional)
They have a sister company, iBackup which does backup sets but it's even more expensive
I've heard horror stories about this company charging crazy fees in overages if you don't manage your cloud storage properly

Anyone have some options?

 

[Markverhyden]

On the current Crashplan problem, have you modified the service properties so it restarts each time it crashes.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753662(v=ws.11).aspx

 

[thecomputerguy]

On the current Crashplan problem, have you modified the service properties so it restarts each time it crashes.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753662(v=ws.11).aspx

Interesting ... I'll try this on a few of them and report back

 

[glennd]

On the current Crashplan problem, have you modified the service properties so it restarts each time it crashes.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753662(v=ws.11).aspx

If the process actually goes away this would be useful. However, according to the OP, this isn't always the case. Sometimes, it continues to run but fails to do it's job. This is not a crash per se but a change of status in the program.
@thecomputerguy have you been able to identify any kind of pattern to this behaviour? Have you looked into external forces such as a momentary loss of network for example?

 

[thecomputerguy]

If the process actually goes away this would be useful. However, according to the OP, this isn't always the case. Sometimes, it continues to run but fails to do it's job. This is not a crash per se but a change of status in the program.
@thecomputerguy have you been able to identify any kind of pattern to this behaviour? Have you looked into external forces such as a momentary loss of network for example?

Oh man I have tried SO many things ... I can understand loss of network but on 12 different servers in different locations?

I've tried:

Reinstalling
Reinstalling with deleting folders
Rebooting server
Increasing Java memory the app is allowed to use
Letting the program run with it's default installation backup folders
Manually selecting folders for backup
Creating sets
Only backing up onsite
Only backing up offsite
Reformatting all backup drives to start fresh
Manually sifting through their cryptic logs for info
Looking through windows logs for info
Leaving the GUI open and running only to find it gone and tray app disappeared the next day

I just logged into a server whose tray app was still running but it wasn't backing up
I also logged into a server whose tray app was red indicating it wasn't running but the service WAS still running
I also logged into a server whose tray app had disapeared indicating it wasn't backing up but the service WAS still running

I also logged into a server which I installed the Crashplan for HOME version as a test and the tray app was also missing, crashplan service was still running and the backup engine was utilizing 7GB of memory ...

WTF?

 

[glennd]

Oh man I have tried SO many things ... I can understand loss of network but on 12 different servers in different locations?

I've tried:

Reinstalling
Reinstalling with deleting folders
Rebooting server
Increasing Java memory the app is allowed to use
Letting the program run with it's default installation backup folders
Manually selecting folders for backup
Creating sets
Only backing up onsite
Only backing up offsite
Reformatting all backup drives to start fresh
Manually sifting through their cryptic logs for info
Looking through windows logs for info
Leaving the GUI open and running only to find it gone and tray app disappeared the next day

I just logged into a server whose tray app was still running but it wasn't backing up
I also logged into a server whose tray app was red indicating it wasn't running but the service WAS still running
I also logged into a server whose tray app had disapeared indicating it wasn't backing up but the service WAS still running

I also logged into a server which I installed the Crashplan for HOME version as a test and the tray app was also missing, crashplan service was still running and the backup engine was utilizing 7GB of memory ...

WTF?

sounds the software is out of control, probably a recent update gone bad. has it been updated lately? do you have a record of the software version from when you know it to be working?

 

[timeshifter]

Backblaze B2 is very reasonable on storage costs. Might be worth checking out. You need to bring your own app, for Windows servers I think Cloudberry is the go to for B2.

 

[Markverhyden]

sounds the software is out of control, probably a recent update gone bad. has it been updated lately? do you have a record of the software version from when you know it to be working?

That was going to be my comment as well. I did not pickup it was multiple sites. I'd go into the logs and search for relevant error messages. Go back in time to find the first one, hopefully there is one. Then look at Windows updates to see if maybe something got installed at that time.

My experience with Crashplan Pro has only been in OS X server and it's worked.

iDrive has been fine for my customers but they are all small stores so I go with the 250gb option.

Below are a couple of links I found that mentioned similar symptoms with instructions on adjusting the memory within the app.

http://leftcall.com/6830/technology-the-crashplan-backup-service-entered-the-stopped-state/
http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3978-is-your-crash-plan-crashing/

 

[timeshifter]

Officially they do not support Servers for their backup program anymore. I'm not sure if that is the reason why I have such a problem with their program now but it's not working for me anymore and I have it on 12 servers.

 

[Mainstay]

I've been using Acronis Cloud's new web backup. $8 CAD for 50 GB, $0.12 / GB thereafter. Supports both cloud and local backups. All cloud managed (which is beautiful).

Works on desktop and server OS.

We will be moving all of our clients in this direction as appropriate.

 

[Mick]

Is there something I'm not getting here? In the original post, you say: "I like to have file backup in place so that in the event of a single file needed to be restored the file backup would make that very easy." But Windows built-in server backups allow this (individual file restoration) anyway. Unless maybe you specifically want cloud back-up, not local?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

----

I started looking at options and found iDrive so far. I bought 250GB to test it out and so far:

Likes:
The interface is decent
It does versioning just not as good as Crashplan
It does onsite & offsite
It hasn't crashed on me
Real-time backup

Dislikes:
Uploads are terribly slow
Only able to backup to a single external onsite (no backup sets)
The amount of data storage I would need to purchase 12TB of cloud storage, which costs $3000 per year (non-promotional)
They have a sister company, iBackup which does backup sets but it's even more expensive
I've heard horror stories about this company charging crazy fees in overages if you don't manage your cloud storage properly

Anyone have some options?

I haven't found anything cheaper, cost wise, than iDrive. When you get their promotional times (usually anytime of the year)...you can purchase the "750 gig buckets" for somewhere in the mid or upper 500 dollar/yr range. Comes out well under 3 cents per gig per month.

We use it for our cheap/budget clients for basic file backup only, reselling at a buck per gig starting at 25 bucks/month. although we've tested the image backup, it's not something I have a warm 'n fuzzy with to trust.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Backblaze B2 is very reasonable on storage costs. Might be worth checking out. You need to bring your own app, for Windows servers I think Cloudberry is the go to for B2.

This is the second time I've heard about Cloudberry and I decided to check it out ... I'm REALLY liking it. I like the versatility of being able to do a real-time backup, hourly onsite backup, system image backup, and a cloud backup.

I'm still SUPER confused as to what type of storage I should be getting for backup storage. I know BackBlaze seems REALLY cheap. Amazon & Google have cold, warm, hot, live all as options, and I assume for just straight up backing up data that may need a restore here and there maybe less than once every 3 months I would probably be good with a cold storage container right? Can you shed some light on this?

Also I'm a bit confused as to what my costs would be since costs seemed to be billed at storage + how often the data is accessed ... any light on this?

 

[fencepost]

At least for Amazon Glacier, I'd be wary of it unless you have a LOT of data in there. IIRC, restore pricing is based on a combination of how fast you want it and what percentage of your total storage you're retrieving. If I understand it right, you can probably pull a terabyte out pretty cheaply - as long as you have them storing >100TB. If you have 3TB and you need 500GB back out within the next day? You're probably going to be hurting.

Edit:
OK, I popped in a few sample calculations on the Unofficial AWS Glacier Calculator and here's what it looked like (after I threw out my initial wrong reading that included the storage cost):

• 3TB total stored, average time in there 100 days, need 500GB back within 24 hours: $163 retrieval cost
  
• Bump that up to 48 hours and the price drops to $80, but drop it down to 12 hours and it jumps up to $326.
• Prices for retrieval drop some if you have more in there (24 hour retrieval cost drops $15+ if you have 30TB stored!)
• On the other hand if you have 300TB in there the 500GB within 24 hours is within your "free" retrieval tier.

Basically the cold storage is a place to stuff older generations of backups that you have to keep but don't expect to look at. It's also probably a really good idea to make sure you're not storing formats that require you to retrieve an entire disk image just for a few files.....

 

[thecomputerguy]

At least for Amazon Glacier, I'd be wary of it unless you have a LOT of data in there. IIRC, restore pricing is based on a combination of how fast you want it and what percentage of your total storage you're retrieving. If I understand it right, you can probably pull a terabyte out pretty cheaply - as long as you have them storing >100TB. If you have 3TB and you need 500GB back out within the next day? You're probably going to be hurting.

Edit:
OK, I popped in a few sample calculations on the Unofficial AWS Glacier Calculator and here's what it looked like (after I threw out my initial wrong reading that included the storage cost):

• 3TB total stored, average time in there 100 days, need 500GB back within 24 hours: $163 retrieval cost
  
• Bump that up to 48 hours and the price drops to $80, but drop it down to 12 hours and it jumps up to $326.
• Prices for retrieval drop some if you have more in there (24 hour retrieval cost drops $15+ if you have 30TB stored!)
• On the other hand if you have 300TB in there the 500GB within 24 hours is within your "free" retrieval tier.

Basically the cold storage is a place to stuff older generations of backups that you have to keep but don't expect to look at. It's also probably a really good idea to make sure you're not storing formats that require you to retrieve an entire disk image just for a few files.....

So for your regular run of the mill boring client who just stores PDF's, Docs, Pictures etc on their server, I'd want to go with Warm Storage (Amazon) or Nearline (Google)? ??

 

[Magic Miguel]

I'm in the same boat, for $9.99/month that's insanely cheap and it even backed up servers (although not on VSS level or any image type backups) and they have now come out and said going forward they won't support anything greater than I believe Server 2012. In any case I am looking to move those clients possibly to a Datto Alto or if there is a better alternative I'm open to something else.

 

[JoelM]

Could you point me to the announcement of not supporting server 2010 or greater. I don't seem to see that.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Solarwinds BDR is our mid-range option.

 

[Your PCMD]

I've been using Acronis Cloud's new web backup. $8 CAD for 50 GB, $0.12 / GB thereafter.

Wait, what? Price starts from $18.03/month $216/year

 

[Mainstay]

Wait, what? Price starts from $18.03/month $216/year

We use Sherweb in Canada. Their pricing is $8 CAD / month which gives you 50 GB, and then it is $0.12 / GB thereafter.

http://www.sherweb.com/online-backup/

The interface is slick and completely cloud based.

It is stored in Canada.

I get 7% commission on the whole product range. It isn't much and I know I could white label it for much more (which they offer), but I have to get our own systems in place to be able to do that.

This way the customer pays Sherweb and I get a nice monthly cheque without having to do much. We also offer the option of monitoring these backups, which we do charge for....