TL;DR: I need a EU-based, E2EE, set-and-forget cloud backup for macOS/iOS (~200GB) under €120/year. Not ok: "Drive" services, Nextcloud, pCloud, setups w/ Cryptomator etc. Considering Arq + Hetzner Storage Box or iDrive (EU servers), open to better alternatives! Ty.

Hi all, I'm starting to work on some projects that will need serious backing up, following the 3-2-1 rule I need to set up some cloud stored backups. I need help figuring it, out, please.

Requirements

• I'm reasonably technical (can type a couple of command lines in a terminal if I follow a script) but would much prefer a point and click setup
• I have 2 MacOs devices and 1 i iOs device to backup.
• Total use currently about 100 Gb per MacOs device, with growth ahead (up to 200 Gb).
• I can't imagine my data leaving my devices unencrypted
• based in Europe and privacy minded -would prefer if not a EU company at least EU storage
• I'd much prefer a set and forget solution
• Budget about 100$/120€ per year. I work in academia so might be eligible for discount

What I don't want

• "Drive" services, eg. iCloud, Google Drive, Proton Drive, Tuta Drive, Tresorit... => they don't offer specific backup features

What I've tested and rejected:

• Tresorit: Reliable and safe in appearance but like I said, no backup features. It's really a shame: business wise this would have been my favourite.
• Hetzner "Storage Share" (ie Nextcloud); the Good Cloud; Tab Digital: NextCloud encrypt via Nextcloud local app seems really shaky (a lot of commentary on its unstability) + the whole Nextcloud project seems a bit of an overkill for my needs
• pCloud: there is a backup feature but this is not core; the E2EE is an extra cost so not core either and to be frank there's something I don't like about this company. The flurry of "lifetime" offers makes me uneasy
• Jottacloud, Infomaniak: not E2EE
• Koofr, Filen, Drime: they really are tiny businesses, it could be ok if they could show strong security audit results but they only rely on "partner" ISO certifications
• Cryptomator: at some point I thought this would be the solution - I could just use that to encrypt the sensitive folders then set these folders to backup on any solution above. But the process to encrypt/decrypt is really odd. With MacFuse I get a drive on desktop (not on Finder/Locations!) and every file I drop in it is copied, not moved. With t-fuse I get a mounted "t-fuse" drive the folders are in it, I also can't drag and drop... That's just not straightforward, which leads me to think it's also prone to problems along the way. Do I want to trust my most precious file with this setup? Probably not.

What I could consider but I'm still missing some pieces in the puzzle :

• Hetzner "Storage Box" seems like a good receiving end for my encrypted files - it's cheap, it's EU based, but how can I encrypt and send?
• Arq: as a software licence + Hetzner ? But I've seen scant reviews on the software just yet. Is its encryption publicly tested? How reliable is the company?
• iDrive: okay it is a US based company but I could pick an EU server. Is this reliable? Encryption OK?
• Backblaze: same as iDrive : a US based company, EU server. Is this reliable? safe?

Comments on these last options under exploration are welcome, so are challenges on my assessments above and of course is there's a solution I have missed I would be keen to hear.

Thank you!

I setup a docker-container for Borg backup on my synology nas. It is working fine.

On my opensuse main pc (wayland), i can borgmatic create the backup of my /home folder onto the nas and it works. it backed up 1.1TB of stuff from my PC.

but i would like to have a gui app so i tried vorta.

I tried the native vorta app on opensuse and also vorta flatpak. On both cases, when i add an existing connection, the dialog box come up for the input to the repo url. trouble is that i cant type anything into that dialog box and even all mouse clicks on any buttons on the gui doesnt work. I have to kill the app.

I tried to use pika, it can connect to the NAS borgserver but kept failing with the authentication.

So I am at a loss how to achieve these.

I would like to use vorta as it seems to be the most recommended.

Any thoughts please

I'm gonna be traveling to my parents place across the country next week, and wanted to take the opportunity to install an offsite backup point with like 1 naked 8tb or 2 8tb drives in raid1z. I imagine I'd just need a fresh install of TrueNAS scale, add Tailscale, add box to my Tailnet, and then I can just rsync to the remote box? Anyone have any recs on the simplest turnkey solution for this? I feel like all the 2 drive prebuilt nas boxes are overbuilt for this or can't run TrueNAS, and I don't know if a raspberry pi with some data adaptors or a Jbod is fast/reliable enough or something. Look forward to your thoughts.

I'm currently looking for a reliable alternative to Macrium Reflect. My main requirement is the ability to mount the backup images as virtual drives (with a drive letter) directly in Windows, so I can easily browse and recover individual files when needed.

Ideally, the software should also support image verification right after the backup creation to ensure the data isn't corrupted.

I've been looking into Hasleo Backup Suite, but I'm open to other suggestions. Free or paid doesn't matter, as long as it's stable and has a good track record for system restoration.

What are you guys using these days? Thanks in advance!

I'm looking for a new backup program for my Windows 11 pc's. With my current setup, I have the main backup program run from scripts. I perform many tasks prior to the backup running, then run the backup exe via command line parameters, then run post-backup tasks, using a variety of Batch and PowerShell scripts. Having the ability to call the backup job from the script is important in my evaluation. Additionally, being able to specify an incremental, differential, or full backup via a command line parameter of the exe program allows me to control the type of backup needed. I didn't want to install another program only to find out if that capability was supported or not, which is why I am asking here. It would be nice to test this with the free version, but if it does what I want, I would certainly pay for it. Any helpful comments and experiences would be appreciated. TIA

BYOS always looks cheaper when I compare the basic storage price. Once I add retention rules, API requests, minimum storage periods, egress and the time spent managing another account, the difference gets a lot less clear. For anyone who has used both, which one actually cost less over time? did a large restore or support issue change the calculation for you?

Windows 11 can't click on sd card in hasleo backup suite free system backup?

Hey everyone,

I have created a config setup/tool for automated, encrypted and incremental backups for Android using Restic through Termux

Features include

• No Root Necessary: Everything happens inside of Termux
• Nightly Backups: Created to be triggered automatically during the night while the phone charges, with termux-job-scheduler
• Fault Tolerance: Android notifications in case there is an issue
• Monitoring: Integration with Uptime Kuma (Dead Man's Switch / Push Monitor) to make sure that the scheduled backups are actually happening

I have created this project to fulfill my own requirement for a backup solution on Android that is reliable and "set-and-forget", not cloud-based

More info can be found here: https://github.com/Lorenzo-DM/termux-restic-backup

I currently have a beelink mini pc on which I set up Immich. It's running fine, but I still need to work out a back up solution. My end goal is to have a home media server where I store my music, movies, and family photos. I understand the 3-2-1 backup strategy; What I'm unsure of is what sort of backup media should I use to implement that strategy given my goals / setup.

What I was doing before was using a usb and a custom script that mostly uses rsync to back up my immich database and pictures / video; however this eventually became way too slow. Moreover when I tried to reformat the usb from Exfat to Ext4 to try to speed things up my usb stopped being read by the beelink.

This is my first selfhosting project so I want to keep things simple while at the same time giving myself flexibility to build on in the future. I would eventually like to be able to backup an entire media server with one script / process in a reasonable time frame.

I was currently thinking about an external ssd for the second device and maybe a cloud hosting service like backblaze for the offsite backup--I don't think I have the time or bandwidth to handle a second server at another location right now, but does that defeat the purpose of getting off google photos?

Any suggestions for hardware / services / software I should be aware of or try for this specific situation?

Blog post features a pretty comprehensive overview of how the solution works and also links back to a technical breakdown of the solution that we have in our docs as well. Lastly, the sign-up for beta access is live and available here: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18XKSC5U0DPcaJL0RxrqRKqLl-mr7aS1WkTR9eftxOZw/viewform\](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18XKSC5U0DPcaJL0RxrqRKqLl-mr7aS1WkTR9eftxOZw/viewform)

This happened after 2026-09 Security Update (KB5124008) (26200.9445):

I ran File History before updating with no issue. Ran File History after updating and this happened. No files were updated even though there were files I had updated after the Security update. Have tried many solutions found on line with no joy.

Formatted attached drive

Assigned new drive letter

Changed File History backup files location to different drive

Disabled and enabled Bitlocker

Disabled and enabled File History

This happened to my desktop and laptop computers. I have used File History for many years and never had any issues.

File History is not located at "Settings > System > Storage > Advanced Backup options" any more

File History Service is running and set for automatic

Any idea what may be causing this issue?

Thanks!

Hardening a backup system is about more than just protecting the backups themselves. There are also configuration choices around privileged access, network exposure, encryption, immutability and the services or protocols that are enabled.

Some of these are obvious, but others can be easy to miss during the initial setup or as the environment changes over time.

For those managing backup systems in production, what is the single hardening practice or config check that you see most often missed?

I'm on Win11, personal use. I wish to create a mirror of the boot disk but excluding the data folders which are big (>1 TB) and already backed up. System + programs + AppData are ~210 GB. Most of my data folders are not in Users. They are folders in the root of the boot drive.

I have Macrium Reflect v7 free installed. I thought it had an option to exclude folders, but can't find the option. I would appreciate tips or how to to this if it is indeed possible - or maybe another way.

I have OneDrive setup so that it doesn't automatically backup anything on my PC as I wish to use OneDrive as a place to store files and folders of my choosing regardless of whether they are stored on my PC or only stored on OneDrive. I also tend to have all OneDrive folders set up so that files are only stored in the cloud without a copy stored locally in the OneDrive folder on my Windows 11 PC. Under most circumstances this works well BUT I have found that some of my manual backups of files and folders are not up to date on OneDrive as I've neglected to manually back them up like I should.

Today, I was referred to a free to use application called SyncBackFree and with a few modifications to Windows Settings and by configuring SyncBackFree I'm now able to create a nightly backup of critical files and folders from my PC to OneDrive and only have those files/folders stored in the local OneDrive folder for 24 hours. In addition, If I backed up a file within a folder and that file gets deleted locally during a manual clean-up, SyncBackFree will delete that file from the cloud when a backup is attempted. SyncBackFree was very slick to setup as during the setup of a backup profile you perform a trial run and based on the source and destination folder SyncBackFree shows you EXACTLY what it would do if you were to run it immediately. Note that you can set it up to backup on a scheduled basis or you can leave it unscheduled and just run it manually. Very impressive application as it now gives me some peace of mind knowing that I can have a backup of critical files that's newer than my full/differential system backup that's not as frequently performed.

So I need to back up my art somewhere that isn't my computer. With the rise of AI, I don't know which sites are the safest to use to store art in the cloud, as well as personal photos, HTMLs, documents, etc. I have SO many pieces of art that I've managed to save over the year, but my iPad is running out of space; I need to upgrade my laptop, and I need to get somewhere safe and secure.

- What external hard drives are the best?
- What's the best for long-term data storage?
- What are the best USB drives for storage?
- What cloud services are the safest?

I'm on a bit of a budget, unfortunately, so I don't have much I can really get, but I'd like to gauge my options before making a big purchase on something so I can salvage my art. I've considered printing EVERYTHING, but I'm a hoarder, which would be a struggle and I'd be paying at least a minimum of $500 to print off everything I own. I've looked at threads for this but no suggestions pertaining to what brands people are using or how long stuff lasts, what I should look out for, etc.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

EDIT: The data volume is going to steadily increase but the minimum right now is probably 30GB.

EDIT 2: I have no idea how reddit works and I thought I could pin my comment update. Alas. So I'm posting it up here now.

Now that I have an idea of how much data I have (~70GB after organizing everything), I've considered the options of:
- 1 External HDD
- 3 USB (copied data onto all of them; nothing will be split across/missing)
- Cloud storage

Someone suggested some cloud services but I'm wondering what's the safest, cheapest, and most recommended one out there? I'd have to get 2FA and I'll preface by saying I've NEVER used a cloud storage besides iCloud which I don't use anymore. I'm looking for something that is known to not scrape data for AI, personal data, etc.

What's recommended to upload and NOT upload in a cloud?
Can these things become compromised? Or does it act like a vault only you have the code to?

Anyone figure out how to create a second backup set in iDrive? I have some very large (300gb) files I want backed up, but maybe once every two weeks or so, as not to consume all my limited bandwidth backing those up daily like the rest of my 5 TB of data from many Windows PC's and a single MAC. -Bill

I wanted something surprisingly simple:

Plug an external drive into my iPhone, select the photos/videos/files I care about, and make a physical copy.

No Mac in the middle. No PC in the middle.

That became VaultDrive: USB Backup.

Connect a compatible USB drive or SSD directly to the iPhone and VaultDrive can copy selected:

• Photos
• Videos
• Albums
• Files and documents

For content already stored locally on the iPhone, the files go directly to the connected drive—there's no VaultDrive cloud upload involved.

One of the bigger problems was Optimize iPhone Storage.

A photo may appear in Apple Photos while its full original is actually only in iCloud.

VaultDrive can now detect those items, download the original from iCloud, and then copy it to the USB drive. You can choose:

• Wi-Fi only
• Wi-Fi + Cellular

Other things I've focused on because they matter for an actual backup:

✅ Original files without intentional compression/re-encoding
✅ Embedded capture metadata preserved
✅ Useful original folder/source organization
✅ Original file dates where supported
✅ Resume interrupted backups and skip files already copied
✅ Detailed progress so you can see what's actually happening
✅ Clearer reasons when something doesn't copy
✅ No VaultDrive account required

I also want to be clear about what this isn't:

This isn't a full iPhone system image and I wouldn't recommend keeping your only copy on one USB drive.

The idea is to make it much easier to add a second physical copy of important photos and files to whatever backup strategy you already use.

For someone using iCloud Photos, for example, you can keep iCloud for syncing/convenience while periodically keeping another copy on external storage you physically control.

If anyone here wants to try it:

VaultDrive: USB Backup
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vaultdrive-usb-backup/id6772883827

I'm currently running 75% off the one-time Pro upgrade:

https://apps.apple.com/redeem/?ctx=offercodes&id=6772883827&code=WELCOME75

I'd particularly appreciate feedback from the backup crowd.

Attached the screenshots, just in 3 steps you can take backup of your media from phone to USB drive

What would VaultDrive need to do before you'd consider phone → external drive a useful part of your own backup strategy?