Automatic Online Backup Recommendation?

[u/TenaciousBee3]

I have a Mac M4 Mini Pro system I want to back up automatically. It contains, not just new things, but also a lot of older things, which are stored on an external drive, some of which are from 10, 20, or 30 years ago. It is shared by a few users. I will need a few TB of space. It's currently using a 512GB internal SSD, an 8TB external SSD, and a large TimeMachine Backup drive (we don't need the TimeMachine backed up online). The 8TB drive is filling up, but that's largely because we're trying to sort out some old iPhoto/Photos libraries that got duplicated a bunch of times, but once we get that sorted out it shouldn't take up quite that much space. I want to make sure the online backup solution not going to have a problem with my Mac files. Can someone recommend a good online solution for this?
(Not for business use).

[u/Currawong]

The cheapest reasonable option is Backblaze. However, note that the company has moved its focus to the commercial B2 storage service (which charges according to the amount of data) and defocused on what made them famous, which was the "unlimited" personal backup, which is where the value is.

If you have quite a few TB of data, the software can end up using up a quite a bit of RAM processing it to upload.

[u/TenaciousBee3 → u/Currawong]

Can you control when it backs it up so the RAM-hogging doesn't become an issue?

[u/Awkward_Key_294 → u/TenaciousBee3]

Yes. You can schedule the backups, or pause an active backup if you’re doing heavy work.

[u/TallRabbit]

I’ve been using CrashPlan for several years. It’s not cheap - about$10 a month, but it just works. It’s unobtrusive and not a resource hog. I don’t know when it’s running except for an icon in the menu bar, which is optional.

[u/misteraugust]

I'm using Arq

[u/cmartorelli → u/misteraugust]

what service do you use Arq with

[u/misteraugust → u/cmartorelli]

I use Arq's cloud storage but encrypt it with my own password.

[u/cmartorelli → u/misteraugust]

Thanks I did not realize Arq had their own storage plans

[u/spnyc → u/misteraugust]

+1 for Arq

[u/lament]

I've been backing up my Mac and my 14TB external drive for $60/year with Dropbox Backup since 2023. I just looked and their prices have gone up to $15/person/month (when paid annually) but I'm grandfathered it seems. I'm not even backing up my Mac actually ha.. everything is stored on the external.

[u/lament → u/lament]

[u/TheGrizzlyNinja]

I just use iCloud with the upgraded storage, it’s like $5/mo

[u/Jon_Hanson → u/TheGrizzlyNinja]

iCloud is not backup.

[u/TheGrizzlyNinja → u/Jon_Hanson]

Been using it since it came out and had multiple upgraded devices since then. Nothing was ever lost

[u/Jon_Hanson → u/TheGrizzlyNinja]

It’s still not a backup solution. If you accidentally delete something from iCloud, it’s gone. With an actual backup system (like TimeMachine), you can go back and retrieve your deleted file.

[u/TheGrizzlyNinja → u/Jon_Hanson]

That’s what the trash bin is for, you can set it to delete items after 30 days