Arq

[11201ny]

Well, yeah. Stefan Reitshammer is an autistic ******* with zero people skills. He's kinda known for it. Lots of programmers are like that. I think he's recently hired some female to help him out with nicer customer support, though. He can be efficient if your problem is easy, but he personally treats customers as annoyances and hates hearing about bigger problems with his code. But he's still the best there is when it comes to backup solutions, hence why I am still a happy lifetime Arq customer and still gladly recommend it to others. Stefan isn't a very nice person, but his product is great. And that's what matters.

Arq: You can use any backup storage. You won't suddenly lose all backups just because something like BackBlaze ends up closing. And you have total control over your backups, unlimited computer backups, no restrictions placed on you by some company. And the Arq daemon is very efficient and was written with meticulous nerdiness for speed so that it doesn't bog down my computer (unlike most generic backup companies that just slapped together some slow, generic garbage in Java). It's so fast that it's usually faster for me to restore a file via Arq from Amazon Cloud Drive than to wait for my Apple Time Capsule (on the local network)'s hard disk to wake up and find the file (time capsules are dog-slow)! You can even keep permanent copies of deleted files online via Arq; just add a folder, sync it to the cloud, then click the "Detach" button in the GUI to mark that folder as "don't sync it from local anymore". Then delete the local copy. Now you have a permanent cloud copy that you can manually download at any time via Arq's GUI!

Most competitors won't even let you keep YOUR ACTIVE backups for 30 days if you disconnect an external drive, let alone keeping ANY file/folder FOREVER. That is part of why I love Arq! The detached storage feature is great for "cold storage" of unimportant files. You can upload 300 GB of movies or whatever that you want to archive. Then just detach that folder so that it stops syncing from your machine. And delete it locally. Voila. It stays safely encrypted and available online. And if you want something back, just download that again.

As of now it seems like the best solution. We'll see what happens. I was able to backup 7TB on ACD through Arq in a fraction of the time, and a fraction of the headaches of Backblaze. It does seem like it's sustainable.

Is your name really Stefan Reitshammer?? Come on... ?

 

[SteveJobzniak]

As of now it seems like the best solution. We'll see what happens. I was able to backup 7TB on ACD through Arq in a fraction of the time, and a fraction of the headaches of Backblaze. It does seem like it's sustainable.

True. I don't want the headaches of proprietary systems like Backblaze, and all the risks associated with that. Arq was a dream come true. I know that I can change to any other online backup provider whenever it suits me. And I love its strong encryption. The storage provider cannot decrypt my Arq files. (unlike others like Backblaze where we have to trust their word for it).

Is your name really Stefan Reitshammer?? Come on... ?

Nope, his ego is way too big to call himself an autistic *******. ;-) I don't like him at all. Funny story, actually: He branded his website as an enterprise/company, and kept saying "We" about his company. But it was actually only him all along. Someone on HackerNews exposed it. Funny.

 

[TheRealMagoo]

@SteveJobzniak Thanks for all of your commentary on this topic!

I was wondering if you could confirm what I already suspect??

I own/run a small IT Consulting Firm and I've got a few customers that have small "file servers" that house Local Quickbooks Server Client + Files/Data. I'm currently backing this data up locally and then also to the cloud via iDrive.

I'm looking at moving those clients to ARQ + Amazon Cloud Drive.

What I'm thinking is that I can purchase separate ARQ licenses for each client, install said license on the "file server" of each client, and then backup/sync the folders/files necessary to an ACD Folder specific to each customer.

Any thoughts/warning/ideas on this concept?

iDrive wants me to pay $500/year to basically do the same thing lol

I'd love to get your input!


Thanks!!!

.joshua.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

@TheRealMagoo Hi.

Yeah you can buy one Arq license per client and back them all up to a single ACD account, but beware that Amazon Cloud Drive is a single-user/single-login platform.

All backups can be seen (and deleted) by the other clients, although they would need the specific per-client Arq encryption passwords to actually open them, so at least they cannot see what is in them.

Another danger is that Amazon would detect the multi-IPs concurrently using your non-commercial cloud drive account and ban you for account sharing.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201376540

3.1 Use of Your Amazon.com Account. You may only use your Service Plan in connection with one Amazon.com account. You may not share your Amazon.com username and password with others or use anyone else’s Amazon.com username and password. You are responsible for maintaining appropriate security and protection of Your Files.

If you can trust your clients to not delete each other's backup, and you give them all strong and long Arq encryption passwords, then it will be fine as long as ACD doesn't ban you as I just mentioned.

Arq supports other cloud back-ends and some of them probably allow multi-client usage.

 

[TheRealMagoo]

Hey @SteveJobzniak ! Thanks for that info.

I had not thought through the fact that ACD would probably ban me. Actually, because it's somewhat stated in their terms of service, I don't wanna even go down that path.

Any ideas on what other cloud back-end I should try using? I don't mind doing the legwork, but I like to work smart, not hard, when possible hahaha

I guess, worst case scenario, I could setup each client with an ACD account and it would only be $5/month/client. Not terrible.

From what I gather, your affection for the ARQ + ACD setup is that companies like Backblaze could "go bye bye" anytime leaving clients screwed. With ACD, if Amazon goes belly up, things have gotten so bad that we probably don't care about the data anyway??? lol Just checking to make sure I'm thinking about this correctly.... ARQ + ACD is all about redundancy and longevity???


.joshua.

 

[campyguy]

@TheRealMagoo, chiming in a bit late here, SteveJobzniak is spot on with the ACS "restriction" in that ACS is intended for personal usage, but I'm not here to pick that nit. I use Arq for personal use with ACS, and I also use Arq for my small business - using S3 for the larger file needs and Glacier for smaller file needs. My GF runs her own SMB and uses Google Nearline with Arq and she's has zero issues with that backend. We also use Synology NAS units (using RAID 1) that back up to AWS S3 - a takeaway with cloud backup.

The backbone of Nearline/AWS S3/Glacier has been pretty much bulletproof, and cost-effective.

 

[TheRealMagoo]

@campyguy Thank you, thank you, thank you for the input!!! Currently, all of my clientele needing Cloud Backup have their data stored on NAS Devices in RAID 1 connected to their "file servers" over USB 3.0. The "Windows 7/10 File Servers" allow them to host their Quickbooks and other apps that need an actual device to be able to run SQL etc and the attached RAID NAS devices allow for local redundancy. I was very happy with that setup + backing up their individual NAS to iDrive until iDrive decided to tell me that I need to pay them $500+/year all of a sudden. Craziness!

@campyguy & @SteveJobzniak .... If I'm simply looking to replace iDrive as my carrier and use ARQ to get the data over there, who would you both advise as your TOP suggestion????

I simply need to be able to do a single FULL Backup and then daily incremental backups and be able to recover files if someone in the office accidentally deletes something etc. All of my clients are SMBs (2-5 office personnel at most).

I never really gave any thought to the fact that "vendors" like iDrive, Backblaze etc are all solo companies that could potentially leave me in bad shape if any of them ever call it quits. I really like the idea of using ARQ to backup important stuff to a provider more "redundant" and "recession proof" etc.

I'm all ears, guys!!!


.joshua.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

@TheRealMagoo As I've explained in this thread, the reason to pick Amazon Cloud Drive is to back up multiple large home computers for a very low, fixed cost. I also explained that the cost of alternatives like S3 and Nearline is cheaper until a certain number of gigabytes have been reached, after which point they exceed the $5/month of ACD.

I have researched all providers from a home-perspective. Backing up as many home computers as possible in the family, for as little money as possible. Nothing beats ARQ + ACD for that. The dedicated providers like Backblaze etc can go out of business and they usually only give you a few months to collect your data, if that. And if you miss that announcement it's gone forever. And those dedicated providers have terrible Java backup apps that eat all of your RAM and CPU. And they don't let you keep "detached" (as in Arq) backups that stay forever even when the disk/folder is no longer attached, because those providers do everything they can to cull down the size of your data.

For a company, you will want to research Google Nearline and Amazon S3. I think they let you create access tokens per-client with access to specific folders. And since you pay per gigabyte, they don't care if you share the account. And if their backups aren't big (book-keeping apps sound like they would be small), it'll be cheaper than ACD.

 

[campyguy]

+1 with what SteveJobzniak wrote. I'm planning to start two more small companies later this year, with S3 as part of my core backend/backbone and having signed up for two AWS Free Tier accounts for them - not much need right now between correspondence with attorneys and my accountant for at least a few months; other files are in the Office 365 Business accounts I set up for each of them (together with the 1TB of storage that goes along with each of them for graphics and such).

One nice benefit of S3 is Amazon Chime Basic - I'm enjoying the use I get out of that video service, no additional cost to the Free Tier plan. Cheers!

 

[TheRealMagoo]

@SteveJobzniak @campyguy

Last night, I created a Businessname@mycompanydomain.com alias email address for each of the clients I need to backup and then created a Gmail account for each of those. Then I created a Google Nearline bucket for the first biz. I then assigned that Businessname@mycompanydomain.com/gmail account name as an Editor on the bucket, installed ARQ on that biz's File Server, opened ARQ + logged into the Nearline Bucket and setup the first backup. Was SUPER simple!



So I kicked off the backup for the first client last night and it looks like it's working just fine.
I hate to sound so cynical and/or incompetent, but the "cost factor" for doing this seems so cheap!
Each of these clients only need to backup less than 100GB each, and once the full backup is there, they only need daily incremental backups.
Could either of you help me to confirm my understanding of how this works?


Using "rounded numbers" for ease, my comprehension of the matter is that with Google Nearline, if I were to backup 100GB of data once a month, and then restore 1GB of data once a month, that would cost $1.01 per Google Cloud Storage Calculator (https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator)

If the above is correct, and I don't need to backup the FULL 100GB of data per customer, each day (only daily incremental), then my cost for each customer is only $1/month for backup!!

These clients only need Daily INCREMENTAL backups, but I can't figure out how to make that happen.
How would I set that up using ARQ? I don't wanna backup the full 100GB EACH DAY @ $1/day lololol.

HALP!

I'm at your mercy!


.joshua.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

Google Nearline pricing is what it says on their site.

Arq only does incremental backups. And it has options to limit max amount of storage, after which it starts deleting the oldest backups. It always keeps at least 1 full backup no matter what the limit is.

Read Arq's help and use Google. Have fun.

 

[campyguy]

Again, agreed with the succinct explanation by SteveJobzniak, the reasoning behind my choosing Arq is the flexibility and focus on incremental backups. I chose S3 for three reasons, I can access the incremental updates via a web browser or an iOS app (as can my attorneys and accountant), and I can choose the server location (Oregon), and S3 is designed with incremental updates in mind (I believe that Dropbox uses AWS, and I do love Dropbox's services…).

My GF is the one in my circle that uses Nearline. She can be a bit of a hothead when tech doesn't function as expected but I've never heard one gripe from her about Nearline. And, Arq's Help is very comprehensive and, um, helpful. Arq backed up my initial folders, and it only backs up incrementally when changes are made. My cost per month is maybe $2 per month per account - dirt cheap - so it reads like you're on the right path! Cheers!

 

[TheRealMagoo]

@campyguy @SteveJobzniak So, I've set this up on two clients using the Trial version of ARQ just to test it out.
I'm noticing that if I close the APP, there doesn't seem to be a service or anything like that running. Furthermore, it doesn't look like my scheduled backup is running at the allocated time. Does the "scheduled backup" portion of ARQ not work in the Trial version?

 

[Weaselboy]

@campyguy @SteveJobzniak So, I've set this up on two clients using the Trial version of ARQ just to test it out.
I'm noticing that if I close the APP, there doesn't seem to be a service or anything like that running. Furthermore, it doesn't look like my scheduled backup is running at the allocated time. Does the "scheduled backup" portion of ARQ not work in the Trial version?

Do you have this checked in Arq prefs? You should see Arq Agent in login items in users and groups.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

@TheRealMagoo https://www.arqbackup.com/documentation/pages/components.html

 

[TheRealMagoo]

Ok @campyguy & @SteveJobzniak . These machines are Windows machines and I've not seen those options.

This is what I'm seeing:

 

[campyguy]

Ok @campyguy & @SteveJobzniak @Weaselboy. These machines are Windows machines and I've not seen those options.

This is what I'm seeing:

On the Win platform, Arq runs as a Service (in Administrative Tools>Services) and is configured there.

 

[TheRealMagoo]

@campyguy Understood. I'm just wondering, other than checking in services, shouldn't there be a system tray icon etc?

Seems a bit silly to have to go to services to check and see if it's actually running lol

Also, can you help me understand the storage/cost implications of selecting the "Thin backups from hourly to daily to weekly" option ???

 

[campyguy]

@campyguy Understood. I'm just wondering, other than checking in services, shouldn't there be a system tray icon etc?

Seems a bit silly to have to go to services to check and see if it's actually running lol

Also, can you help me understand the storage/cost implications of selecting the "Thin backups from hourly to daily to weekly" option ???

No system tray icon on my two PCs running Arq, I haven't really thought about it. I'm a keyboard "guy", navigating to what I need quicker than I can grab a mouse and navigate with it. Silly, yes…

About cost planning, I don't give it much thought with what I bill per hour, sorry for that. My GF related to me that she's testing and likely moving to S3 at the end of the month. Basically, my costs per month for the "hourly" options are maybe a few cents more than my daily options, I think that any of my options cost more than $2-4 per month, that is, the options for my own small business and personal needs that aren't too different than what you're describing for your own needs. I haven't spent more than $12 on S3 per month for 4 backup setups - period.

 

[TheRealMagoo]

@campyguy Ok. So, not to be silly, but as long as the Service is started and running, whatever options are selected in the "app window" (backup schedule etc) should take effect and run when the schedule is met?

Also, what if I'm understanding correctly, you're stating that backing up via the "Thin Method" only costs a $2-$4 per month for you currently? My understanding is that there's no initial upload costs with Nearline, only "recovery costs" when needing to download/recover something back down from the Nearline storage. If the above is true, I could understand why the "number of incremental backups" would be irrelevant to cost.

Sorry for being so needy. Just trying to have a firm grasp of this before I implement it lol

 

[campyguy]

No worries, needy isn't how I'd describe any of this exchange. I don't know how Arq handles costs with Nearline, however, there's a Preference that addresses costs with AWS, shown in their help:
https://www.arqbackup.com/arq_help/pages/restricted_iam_user.html
to limit storage costs.

And, yes, my S3 costs are generally less than $3 per month per account, generally about $1.50 per month. I'd expect Glacier or Nearline to be less than S3.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

@campyguy @TheRealMagoo

Just fyi Arq is having some trouble with budget enforcement and unreferenced object deletion, but they're working on it. I saw the changelog and this is all I know:

https://www.arqbackup.com/download/arq5_release_notes.html

Release Notes for Arq Backup Version 5.8.5
May 23, 2017

Changes

• Fixed an issue that could cause the remove-unreferenced-objects process to delete data it shouldn't delete for AWS, Google Cloud Storage, and Google Drive backups.

Release Notes for Arq Backup Version 5.8.4
May 21, 2017

Changes

• Disabled budget enforcement until we resolve the issues with it.

 

[Weaselboy]

Just fyi Arq is having some trouble with budget enforcement and unreferenced object deletion, but they're working on it. I saw the changelog and this is all I know:

https://www.arqbackup.com/blog/arq-5-8-5-for-mac-fixes-a-bad-bug/

He made a blog post with more info.

 

[SteveJobzniak]

Hmm... Here's my current Amazon Cloud Drive usage: 517116 Files 843 GB.

Got an unfunny email today. But their per-terabyte price is still one of the lowest in the business, so I'm POSSIBLY going to stay with them. Worst case, if my storage needs grow, I'd be paying for 2x 59.99 annually, to store 2 TB later.

Google Nearline is about twice as expensive per TB. And Amazon S3 Glacier is a bit cheaper but is INSANELY expensive for retrievals (downloading a terabyte of backups is about $100 per TB).

Glacier is probably the cheapest long-term storage in the world, but even that ends up at $4 per terabyte. So I'd rather stick with Amazon's new $4.99 per terabyte per month, which provides instant access/retrievals at any time.

----

https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16591160011&ref=cds_tpc_w_lm

Frequently Asked Questions
1) What is changing?
Amazon is now providing options for customers to choose the storage plan that is right for them. Amazon will no longer offer an unlimited storage plan. Instead, we'll offer annual storage plans of 100 GB for $11.99 and 1 TB for $59.99, up to 30 TB for an additional $59.99 per TB. Any customer that signs up for storage with Amazon automatically gets 5 GB for free, and Prime members receive free unlimited photo storage. You can see storage plan rates and find additional information here.

2) When will the change happen?
On June 8, 2017. Current customers will keep their existing unlimited storage plan through its expiration date. At the end of their existing subscription, customers with auto-renew turned on and 1TB or less of data stored will be renewed into the 1 TB plan for $59.99 per year. Customers with auto-renew off, or who have more than 1 TB of data stored, will need to visit their account's Manage Storage page to opt in to one of the new plans. Prime members will continue to get unlimited photo storage, so photo storage won’t be counted against Prime members’ storage limits.

3) How much storage am I using?
Customers can visit their Manage Storage page to see how much storage space they are currently using.

4) Do Prime members still get unlimited photo storage?
Yes. Prime members will continue to get unlimited photo storage as a benefit of their membership, as well as 5GB of additional storage for non-photo content, such as videos and documents. Additionally, any customer that signs up for storage with Amazon automatically gets 5 GB for free. You can see storage plan rates and find additional information here.

5) When can I change plans?
Customers can change plans at any time by visiting their Manage Storage page.

6) How do I change into a new plan?
Customers can change plans at any time by visiting their Manage Storage page.

7) How much can be stored under the new plans and how much do they cost?
Amazon now offers storage plans of 100 GB for $11.99, 1 TB for $59.99, and up to 30 TB for an additional $59.99 per TB. Any customer that signs up for storage with Amazon automatically gets 5 GB for free. Prime members will continue to receive free unlimited photo storage and 5 GB of free storage for non-photo content. You can see storage plan rates and find additional information here.

8) What happens to my content if I choose not to renew into one of the new storage plans?
When your paid storage subscription expires, your account will be considered in an over-quota status if your content stored is greater than the free storage quota on your account. If your account is in an over-quota status, you will not be able to upload additional files, and can only view, download, and delete content.

You have a 180-day grace period to either delete content to bring your total content within the free quota, or to sign up for a paid storage plan. After 180 days in an over-quota status, content will be deleted (starting with the most recent uploads first) until your account is no longer over quota. Prime members will continue to receive unlimited photo storage as a benefit of their Prime membership, and their photo content is not subject to the over-quota policy. For Prime members, only non-photo content will be considered over-quota. For more information about your Amazon storage limits and what happens to your content if you exceed storage quotas, please visit our Data Retention Policy.

9) How do I cancel my subscription?
Customers can visit their Manage Storage page to cancel at any time.

10) How can I download my files?
You can download your Amazon Drive files to your computer using the Amazon Drive Desktop Application. You can learn more about Amazon Drive Desktop Application here.

----

Here's a table:

100 GB
$11.99(1 Year)

1 TB
$59.99(1 Year)

2 TB
$119.98(1 Year)

3 TB
$179.97(1 Year)

4 TB
$239.96(1 Year)

5 TB
$299.95(1 Year)

6 TB
$359.94(1 Year)

7 TB
$419.93(1 Year)

8 TB
$479.92(1 Year)

9 TB
$539.91(1 Year)

10 TB
$599.90(1 Year)

20 TB
$1199.80(1 Year)

30 TB
$1799.70(1 Year)

----


I guess we can thank all the morons backing up their 30 terabytes of anime porn and warez. I've seen lots of people bragging about storing their entire 4 to 100 TB collections of crap in Amazon Cloud Drive. I was always worried they would bring the whole house down, by consuming hundreds of physical hard disks on Amazon's backend. At least it brings me some slight satisfaction that those moronic locusts who abused the system will now have to pay thousands of dollars if they want to stay online.

PS: There's a community of those f*cking morons online. This is where I read so much of their idiotic bragging: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/. They've got signatures next to their names, bragging about their abuse, such as "TronLightyear (68 TB)" etc. Assuming they use modern 3 TB hard drives, a person like that would use up at least 23 of Amazon's hard drives worth a few hundred dollars each, and they would only pay Amazon $5 per month. It was inevitable that they would force Amazon to end the deal. Sigh.

Here are a ton of threads where they are moaning about Amazon, and talking about what other service to bring to its knees like the locusts they are:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/6g5lv8/acd_crashed_from_mass_migration/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarde...on_cloud_drive_full_refund_even_with_only_14/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarde...h_acd_phasing_out_unlimited_it_may_be_a_good/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/6gf4rj/rclone_acd_is_back_grab_it_while_its_hot/

 

[SteveJobzniak]

I just found out that the datahoarders are now abusing Google's GSuite Business, which has a bug (currently). It's supposed to be 1 TB per user, at $10 per user per month, until you reach 5 users ($50 per month) after which it switches all users to unlimited. But instead, GSuite is bugged out and gives even a single user unlimited. So they're paying $10 per month for unlimited storage and now they're doing a mass exodus from Amazon Cloud Drive to GSuite's bugged system. Which means, there's no point jumping on that bandwagon because they're going to force Google to fix their bug. Sigh. And then it will be $50/month for unlimited at GSuite, as intended.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/5b79w7/is_the_gsuite_business_1tb_limit_enforced/

----

I also looked at other providers, like Jottacloud in norway, which is unlimited for about $8 a month and is super fast. But it turned out that they intentionally have not given 3rd party API write-access, since they want to avoid people abusing the service.

----

But here's where it gets interesting... Arq is adding support for Backblaze B2, which is the general-purpose storage cloud by the Backblaze backup provider:

https://twitter.com/arqbackup/status/871720559838711811

June 5, 2017, they wrote: "If you’d like to help with beta-testing B2 support in Arq, please send email to support@arqbackup.com. Thanks in advance!"

B2 is charging $0.005 per GB per month. And $0.02 per GB downloaded. And they provide instant downloads (no waiting times).

So storing my current 850 GB would be just $4.25 there (as opposed to $4.99 at Amazon Cloud Drive).

And if I hit, let's say 1200 GB, it would be just $6 there since I pay per GB (as opposed to 2x$4.99 (two x 1 TB plan) = $9.98 at Amazon Cloud Drive).

The problem is if I need to restore something. Let's say my main system drive crashes. The restore of ~250 GB (my entire user-folder) would cost $5. Or if I need to restore my entire sample library collection of ~500 GB it would cost ~$10.

But this is really making me think... Why am I storing backups online? The answer is that I am doing it in case ALL of my drives crash, are stolen in a burglary, destroyed in a fire, etc.

I asked myself: When have I ever restored any files? The answer is: Maybe one tiny 50 MB document a month (which would cost $0.001 to restore via B2)! And most of the time, I only used Arq for that because it was faster than waiting for my Time Capsule to wake up.

----

Time to do some math:

- My current backup system: Arq + Amazon Cloud Drive Unlimited for online backups. An Apple Time Capsule 2 TB for local backups (which will give me a bootable system if I ever need to restore from it). And 2x 2 TB hard disks in RAID-1 for sample library installer backups.
- How safe is my current system?
- Well, let's say my Time Capsule drive dies? Then I just put a new drive in my Time Capsule. My computer keeps working.
- Let's say 1 of the two sample backup drives die? Then I have another. I just get another drive and duplicate the data to the new drive.
- No matter how I look at this, I pretty much never need to restore data. But I want the ability to do it without it costing HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS (a la Amazon Glacier).

----

So okay, let's compare the online storages available, and let's say my data storage needs are 1200 GB (I am SURE I'll reach that when I add the second computer). But I'll also do some math for ~600 GB because I can probably shrink my needs a bit, if I stop backing up my home-user folder's huge sample library folder (I can just reinstall those from my sample library drives or the backups of the installers).

Amazon Cloud Drive:

- Storage Cost (1200 GB): $4.99 (1 TB) * 2 per month = $9.98 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (1200 GB): Free. Instant access without waiting.
- Yearly Cost (1200 GB): $119.76.

- Storage Cost (600 GB): $4.99 (1 TB) * 1 per month = $4.99 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (600 GB): Free. Instant access without waiting.
- Yearly Cost (600 GB): $59.88.

Google Nearline (frequent access, similar to S3):

- Storage Cost (1200 GB): $12 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (1200 GB): $12. Instant access without waiting.
- Yearly Cost (1200 GB): $144.

- Storage Cost (600 GB): $6 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (600 GB): $6. Instant access without waiting.
- Yearly Cost (600 GB): $72.

Google Coldline (infrequent access, similar to Glacier):

- Storage Cost (1200 GB): $8.40 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (1200 GB): $60. OUCH!!! And LONG wait times (a few hours).
- Yearly Cost (1200 GB): $100.80.

- Storage Cost (600 GB): $4.20 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (600 GB): $30. OUCH!!! And LONG wait times (a few hours).
- Yearly Cost (600 GB): $50.40.

Amazon S3 (similar to Google Nearline, but super complex pricing based on data transfers, etc):

- Storage Cost (1200 GB): ~$28.11 per month. JUST FOR THE STORAGE, NOT FOR DATA TRANSFERS IN/OUT.
- Retrieval Cost (1200 GB): Something like $100.
- Yearly Cost (1200 GB): $337.32.
- Amazon is so complex that I am not even sure these numbers include all charges, meaning it could be even worse. They charge for API requests, for data transfer, for data storage, etc.

Amazon Glacier (infrequent access, similar to Glacier):

- Storage Cost (1200 GB): $4.8 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (1200 GB): About $100 per TB. And it's a truly terrible experience which takes a few weeks to complete, because Glacier is THAT slow.
- Yearly Cost (1200 GB): $57.6.

Backblaze B2:

- Storage Cost (1200 GB): $6 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (1200 GB): $24. Instant access without waiting.
- Yearly Cost (1200 GB): $72.

- Storage Cost (600 GB): $3 per month.
- Retrieval Cost (600 GB): $12. Instant access without waiting.
- Yearly Cost (600 GB): $36.

- However, they let you download 1 GB for free per day. So Arq's normal housekeeping actions, or if you do an occasional restore of a single file here and there, would almost always be free.

- Like a lot of other storage providers above, they charge per API calls, but the first 2500 API calls per day are free. And the rest are cheap at $0.004 (0.4 cents) per 10,000 calls: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217667478-Understanding-B2-Pricing-Structure, and Arq doesn't do that many API calls. Maybe the first backup of half a million objects would rack up the biggest charge you'll ever see for API calls. And that'd still only be 50 * 10k API call packages (for the 500,000 API calls); aka 50*$0.004 = $0.2! ;-)

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As I discovered above, it's very unlikely that I'll ever need to restore data from online, since I have so many different drives at home and would need to lose them ALL to ever need my online backup. So restoration prices don't matter as much as the storage prices.

However, restoration should not be insanely expensive.

So here are my rankings for permanently storing 1200 GB of data online:

1. Best: Backblaze B2! Just $6 per month ($72 per year). Paid per gigabyte, which means no unpleasant jumps as soon as you get to the "next tier" (which happens on Amazon Cloud Drive). Has VERY fast upload speeds (maxes out my 10 Mbit upload, meaning around 1200 KB/s, which means ~100 GB upload per day), because they provide UNTHROTTLED UPLOADS (test speed here https://www.backblaze.com/speedtest/). Can be MUCH cheaper than Amazon Cloud Drive if you need to store less than 1 TB. No wait times to download data. And is getting support in Arq now. And restoring all of the data does cost a bit of money ($24 for 1200 GB) but is cheaper than almost the entire competition. Only Google Nearline is a bit cheaper (which is $12 for for recovery), but B2 compensates for that by being HALF THE PRICE for the ACTUAL STATIC STORAGE ITSELF (which is far more important!), so B2's lower cost over time automatically pays for its own slightly higher recovery costs if you ever need to recover. Two months of B2 subscription has paid for the entire price difference in recovery cost compared to Google Nearline. And I like that Backblaze has a very good reason to keep their data center alive - their entire backup software business depends on it. And they charge per GB so there's no way they'll suddenly end their "unlimited" pricing since there IS no unlimited pricing to end. ;-)

2. Now awful but still pretty cheap: Amazon Cloud Drive. It's almost twice the price of Backblaze B2, but at least it costs less than Google Nearline. And it has no wait times to download data. But seriously, the data upload to Amazon Cloud Drive is abysmal. It has always ranged between 300 KB/sec to 900 KB/sec for me (usually ~450) and it seems like they're intentionally throttling it. And they are horrible now because it's priced in 1 TB increments which means you must ALWAYS pay for more than you need, and anytime you hit for example 1001 GB you'll have to pay for 2000 GB of storage. Sigh.

3. Okay: Google Nearline. It's twice the price of Backblaze B2, but if you constantly need to download data, it may be cheaper over time since it's half the price at downloading. And just like B2 it has no wait times to download data.

4. Awful: Google Coldline. It's a LOT better than Amazon Glacier, it has faster recovery times (3 hours?) and is FAR CHEAPER at recovery, and is also a bit cheaper at the actual static storage itself. It's cheap for long-term storage that you NEVER touch. But overall, it's yet another super-inconvenient, slow-ass storage solution with hours of wait-time to do anything.

5. Truly awful: Amazon S3 (super expensive for static storage) and Amazon Glacier (cheap for static storage but extremely inconvenient and expensive for data recovery).

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You can use this calculator to type in your storage needs and see what Backblaze B2 will cost you:

https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html

(Remember to edit your "Monthly Upload" down from the default of saying that you're going to be adding 100 GB of extra storage per month, to something sane like "10 GB upload per month, 10 GB delete per month", to simulate the fact that Arq uploads new data and simultaneously deletes expired data, which gives you a net-change of almost no additional data at all.)

And I see that the B2 API verifies the checksum of all uploads, meaning it guarantees that whatever data Arq uploads to it was received properly at their side 100% non-corrupt!

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So here's what I'll do now:

1. Demand a full refund of Amazon Cloud Drive, because they changed the terms. Others are getting refunds. Screw them. Maybe I would have stayed if they priced everything in 100 GB increments, but with their new 1 TB increment system I'm always going to end up paying way too much for my storage.
2. Sign up for Backblaze B2.
3. Wait for Arq's B2 support to be officially released. I don't want beta software.
4. Set up a B2 backup in Arq, with tweaked backup rules so that I avoid storing useless data (such as the final, installed versions of my huge music sample libraries; I'll only back up their installers).

Overall, this will give me much faster uploads/downloads. And a lower monthly price.

I guess I can thank Amazon Cloud Drive for pushing me away.

I hope this detailed overview helps others choose their new storage plans!