Backing up the backups to commercial offsite system

general discussion
1

Hi - I’m using urbackup to backup a bunch of pictures from a Windows box to an Ubuntu server. I’m doing files only, no volumes.

I’d like to also have these files backed up offsite on some service like Crashplan.

If I was to do this, would I just set up Crashplan to backup the whole backups directory on the server? Any special considerations?

2

Personal Preference: Have both services backup your computer rather than daisy-chaining from your machine to UrBackup to CrashPlan.

Pros:

  • Redundant Backups; One fails, the other will more than likely succeed.
  • Inconsistent Backups (Pro); If one is set to backup at a different time than another, you may not lose as much work.
  • Less file corruption probability and higher file recovery chances; even if progress may be lost.
  • There’s probably more, but cannot think of any right now.

Cons:

  • Cost (Because of Two Backup Solutions, even if one is free)
  • Strain on infrastructure (If your infrastructure isn’t robust enough to handle both backing up on your network, you may not want them to)
  • Inconsistent Backups (Con); What is on UrBackup may not be what is on CrashPlan.
  • Strain on Computer; Backup times may be rougher on your box if your computer cannot handle the services.

Mitigation:

  • Strain on Infrastructure; Backup in down times that the bandwidth isn’t being heavily consumed
  • Strain on Computer; it really isn’t as bad as it sounds, but just pick times that you can leave your computer on idling while it backs up.

#TL;DR:

Have both UrBackup and CrashPlan back up your machine, in my opinion.

3

Thanks for the well thought out reply. I think that is what I’ll do.