Tech Help - Law Firm File Back Ups

[Dendox 102]

we are an all mac environment.

We have about 4TB of data - 2TB of which are "fresh".

We use dropbox for business after running into a lot of issues with sharefile "syncing" via onedrive app on mac.

Dropbox has been very good to us from a usability standpoint.

Once a month we back up our fresh files to backblaze.  This is a true back up and not a sync/merge.  We have been using multcloud website to do this and it works, sort of.

In the old days you could have an external HD be the location of your data for dropbox and it was easy enough to deal with it.  These days, the local storage must be internal.  none of our macbook pros have 2 or 4TB of internal storage (duh).

I am looking for a way to set up something that is simpler, easier, scheduled/recurring that will allow me to do one full back up ever so many weeks and syncs/merges every two weeks to account for new files in between back ups.  

I was thinking about regularly downloading to an external SSD a full copy of each subfolder (by year) of our files that are fresh and then moving them to backblaze manually.  That might work.  However it is 100% manual and there is a file size limit on the GUI for backblaze that forces me to use third party solutions.

I went down a rabbit hole today of rclone, b2, syberduc, blah blah blah.  I am relatively tech savvy, but I am a lawyer with no IT training.  Just a guy who hunts and self studies enough to get the job done when possible.  I think I am beyond my element in trying to figure out the best way to do it.

Yes - we have an "IT Provider" - but they aren't really all that helpful at thinking about things outside of the box, like this.  

Happy to pay for someone's time, buy beers, whatever.  

[thunderlounge 7815]

How is an onsite NAS thinking “out of the box,” exactly?

Use a NAS onsite, then mirror it to a NAS at a partners house who has a multi-gig fiber connection.

[immamac 42838]

I specialize in this professionally and am taking consulting work. Send me a DM. Happy to help. 

[luke duke 6412]

I specialize in this professionally and am taking consulting work. Send me a DM. Happy to help. 

[troph 24781]

Dumb question amnesty - how critical is it to have back ups when you use Dropbox or One Drive etc? 
 

I’ve got 15 years of docs and client files in the Dropbox eco system. 

[immamac 42838]

What happens if the internet goes out? What happens if dropbox decides that your account is banned because someone accidentally uploads something. What happens if dropbox gets too expensive? 

Storage is dirt cheap. Seriously, for the expensive HDD it is 27.50 per TERABYTE and those drives are good for at least 7-10 years. 

[thunderlounge 7815]

58 minutes ago, troph said:

Dumb question amnesty - how critical is it to have back ups when you use Dropbox or One Drive etc? 
 

I’ve got 15 years of docs and client files in the Dropbox eco system. 

You want your “local” copy (to the machine), the “remote” copy (local network nas), and a remote copy (off-site nas), per general guidelines.

Machine crashes, you got the network copy, office has a disaster, you got the off-site.

[troph 24781]

51 minutes ago, immamac said:

What happens if the internet goes out? What happens if dropbox decides that your account is banned because someone accidentally uploads something. What happens if dropbox gets too expensive? 

Storage is dirt cheap. Seriously, for the expensive HDD it is 27.50 per TERABYTE and those drives are good for at least 7-10 years. 

wanna client? halp.

[troph 24781]

1 minute ago, thunderlounge said:

You want your “local” copy (to the machine), the “remote” copy (local network nas), and a remote copy (off-site nas), per general guidelines.

Machine crashes, you got the network copy, office has a disaster, you got the off-site.

we don't have a server, and the amount of files we have no longer make storing on our lap tops efficient. re internet outages or inaccessibility (imma's point), we are set up so dropbox keeps recently accessed files on our local drives so that has never really been an issue.  I'm at least half way through my career and my files are probably priceless at this point - not like a work of art priceless, the value given is probably tree-fiddy, but I would be crippled professionally if I lost my files.

[immamac 42838]

18 minutes ago, troph said:

wanna client? halp.

Yes. Send me an email or DM rick@surlyhorns.com

 

[troph 24781]

7 minutes ago, immamac said:

Yes. Send me an email or DM rick@surlyhorns.com

 

sent

[MonkeyDoughnut 10231]

1 hour ago, troph said:

Dumb question amnesty - how critical is it to have back ups when you use Dropbox or One Drive etc? 
 

I’ve got 15 years of docs and client files in the Dropbox eco system. 

I'd really want to have a true backup older copy or two (rotating) to lessen impact of Ransomware scenario where everything gets hosed.  Having backups a month, 3 month, 6 months etc helps protect this greatly.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10231]

On 9/24/2024 at 11:53 AM, Dendox said:

we are an all mac environment.

We have about 4TB of data - 2TB of which are "fresh".

We use dropbox for business after running into a lot of issues with sharefile "syncing" via onedrive app on mac.

Dropbox has been very good to us from a usability standpoint.

Once a month we back up our fresh files to backblaze.  This is a true back up and not a sync/merge.  We have been using multcloud website to do this and it works, sort of.

In the old days you could have an external HD be the location of your data for dropbox and it was easy enough to deal with it.  These days, the local storage must be internal.  none of our macbook pros have 2 or 4TB of internal storage (duh).

I am looking for a way to set up something that is simpler, easier, scheduled/recurring that will allow me to do one full back up ever so many weeks and syncs/merges every two weeks to account for new files in between back ups.  

I was thinking about regularly downloading to an external SSD a full copy of each subfolder (by year) of our files that are fresh and then moving them to backblaze manually.  That might work.  However it is 100% manual and there is a file size limit on the GUI for backblaze that forces me to use third party solutions.

I went down a rabbit hole today of rclone, b2, syberduc, blah blah blah.  I am relatively tech savvy, but I am a lawyer with no IT training.  Just a guy who hunts and self studies enough to get the job done when possible.  I think I am beyond my element in trying to figure out the best way to do it.

Yes - we have an "IT Provider" - but they aren't really all that helpful at thinking about things outside of the box, like this.  

Happy to pay for someone's time, buy beers, whatever.  

Take a look at Synology - Cloud Sync. We do this with our DropBox folders.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/feature/cloud_sync

Depending on how you configure things you can also store version history as well. We then have routines setup to copy to rotating local external drives for "offsite" as well as sending other copies to BackBlaze and such. Everything is available from with Synology for us.

 

[troph 24781]

1 hour ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

I'd really want to have a true backup older copy or two (rotating) to lessen impact of Ransomware scenario where everything gets hosed.  Having backups a month, 3 month, 6 months etc helps protect this greatly.

every year I add something to make things better, this will be this year's add.

[Dendox 102]

Troph - you are in the same place we are in as a concept.  Professionally, I can't lose the data.  I've been trying to cobble together a solution to do what others here are talking about with 2-3 iterations of "back ups" for redundancy in the event of fire/failure/ransom.  My problem is the process to do that and IMMA has excellent ideas on how to deal with this based on my preliminary communications with him.  Looking to flesh it out some more and hopefully pull the trigger to make my life easier.  

[luke duke 6412]

Just post all of your files on Hornfans. No one will ever see them there and they’ll be in the cloud.

[boilerhorn 1375]

On 9/26/2024 at 9:34 AM, immamac said:

What happens if the internet goes out? What happens if dropbox decides that your account is banned because someone accidentally uploads something. What happens if dropbox gets too expensive? 

Storage is dirt cheap. Seriously, for the expensive HDD it is 27.50 per TERABYTE and those drives are good for at least 7-10 years. 

This. Listen to @immamac  

[NeverMarryAStripper 21877]

Print them out and put them in a filing cabinet just to be safe

[RDCanecutter 26402]

Convert all the data into Alexandrine verse, and have a school of blind poets follow you around, declaiming it on command.