Reducing backup costs / Backup to pCloud

[eddowding]

I'm spending a small fortune on Backblaze it seems.

1. Is it possible to backup to a cheaper provider? eg https://www.pcloud.com/cloud-storage-pricing-plans.html?period=lifetime

2. What solutions / tips do you have to reduce backup costs?

[nichu42]

@eddowding
Cloudron gives you plenty of protocols to choose from.
I am backing up to https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box via SSHFS. Only paying €3.81 currently (for 1 TB), which is more than fair IMO.
If your VPS is not in Europe, you can also check out IDrive e2 (https://www.idrive.com/e2/pricing). It's an S3 compatible service.

[GregY]

@nichu42 said in Reducing backup costs / Backup to pCloud:

If your VPS is not in Europe, you can also check out IDrive e2 (https://www.idrive.com/e2/pricing). It's an S3 compatible service.

Hetzner also has US-based VPS and storage volumes.

I use Hetzner as my VPS provider and Backblaze B2 to backup data. As I migrate services to self-hosted options, I'm thinking of using Hetzner for both.

[jdaviescoates]

@nichu42 said in Reducing backup costs / Backup to pCloud:

If your VPS is not in Europe, you can also check out IDrive e2 (https://www.idrive.com/e2/pricing). It's an S3 compatible service.

Currently has insanely cheap 90% off prices for the first year, plus EU options. Not powered by renewables though.

I use Hetzner Storage Boxes like many others here. Hard to beat value (cheaper than iDrive e2 standard prices) and 100% renewable electricity too.

[BrutalBirdie]

Also Hetzner Storage Box here, just super cheap and it just works like 95% of the time.
I use SSHFS with the Storage Box.

[eddowding]

FWIW I asked pCloud:

Unfortunately, we do not support SSH but WebDAV. Here are the settings to access your pCloud account via WebDav protocol:
link: https://webdav.pcloud.com (US servers) or https://ewebdav.pcloud.com (EU servers)

[timconsidine]

@eddowding I use Scaleway for Cloudron backups and Hetzner storage box for other archives

[eddowding]

@nichu42 they seem to have sites in the EU too, which is nice - thank you !

I'm confused how to configure it, if you have any tips. I'm trying all sorts of combinations of IP / endpoints, access id, secret, username etc to no avail so far.

[jdaviescoates]

@eddowding pretty sure @marcusquinn is using it for backups so should be able to help

[jdaviescoates]

@eddowding said in Reducing backup costs / Backup to pCloud:

endpoints

often it's just that you're missing an https:// or something

[marcusquinn]

@jdaviescoates I'm using IDrive e2 (S3 compatible) and tarball backups. Seems to be the best speed & cost ratio.

[privsec]

@staff
If may be prudent to list a section in the docs specifically for backup providers with referral links to good service providers that are cheap and use renewable power.

Just a thought

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in Reducing backup costs / Backup to pCloud:

@jdaviescoates I'm using IDrive e2 (S3 compatible) and tarball backups. Seems to be the best speed & cost ratio.

I know, that's why I tagged you, because my old chum @eddowding was looking for support in getting that set up

[johannesjom]

Regardless of the provider, the possibility to copy the backup to a webdav share would be very good!

[Mad_Mattho]

@eddowding Hi there, I am new to cloudron but have it installed, and want to use webdav to send my cloudron backups to my pcloud account as described in your post here, I have a european server pcloud account with 3TB available so this should get me going well, I just need some help setting the webdav to pcloud as my backup choice, can you please post a description of exactly how to do this as I have searched and found no more info on this or using webdav for this purpose in general?
Your help is appreciated!

[girish]

@Mad_Mattho Cloudron does not have a way to backup to WebDav . Afaict, pcloud has no way to be "s3 compatible" either. So, it's not straightforward to backup to pcloud.

[marcusquinn]

@Mad_Mattho Checkout iDrive.com e2 or Hetzner.com Storage Box, both well tested and liked by many here.

[necrevistonnezr]

Enter Shadowdrive, an EU hosted provider with 2TB at € 4.99 / month. Based on Nextcloud. Cheapest privacy minded storage provider I've seen so far.

https://shadow.tech/en-DE/drive

"Hosted in Europe, your files are safe from prying eyes, even our own: we do not commercially exploit any data you choose to host, and it is encrypted both in transit and client-side.
Desktop and mobile clients help you keep your files synced automatically. You can also connect with third-party backup software to ensure that you recover what you need."

[scooke]

@Mad_Mattho and other pDrive customers - The Linux version of pDrive creates "a folder in your [user] directory and use(s) that as a mount point for a virtual drive" (https://www.reddit.com/r/pcloud/comments/13rkrh8/linux_cannot_write_into_pcloud_drive/). If you are on a linux-based server/vm, etc., it sounds like this should work well. I don't know if you would need to start over and install pDrive first, or if you could just install it now post-Cloudron-install without messing up Cloudron. If you give it a try let the rest of us know how it went.

[randyjc]

You could try/experiment with using rclone.
create a config for your desired mount, for example google drive.
Mount that via systemd and then point your backups to that location.

For example:

[Unit]
Description=rclone Service Google Drive Mount
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=notify
Environment=RCLONE_CONFIG=/root/.config/rclone/rclone.conf
RestartSec=5
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone mount google:cloudron /mnt/google \
# This is for allowing users other than the user running rclone access to the mount
--allow-other \
# Dropbox is a polling remote so this value can be set very high and any changes are detected via polling.
--dir-cache-time 9999h \
# Log file location
--log-file /root/.config/rclone/logs/rclone-google.log \
# Set the log level
--log-level INFO \
# This is setting the file permission on the mount to user and group have the same access and other can read
--umask 002 \
# This sets up the remote control daemon so you can issue rc commands locally
--rc \
# This is the default port it runs on
--rc-addr 127.0.0.1:5574 \
# no-auth is used as no one else uses my server
--rc-no-auth \
# The local disk used for caching
--cache-dir=/cache/google \
# This is used for caching files to local disk for streaming
--vfs-cache-mode full \
# This limits the cache size to the value below
--vfs-cache-max-size 50G \
# Speed up the reading: Use fast (less accurate) fingerprints for change detection
--vfs-fast-fingerprint \
# Wait before uploading
--vfs-write-back 1m \
# This limits the age in the cache if the size is reached and it removes the oldest files first
--vfs-cache-max-age 9999h \
# Disable HTTP2
#--disable-http2 \
# Set the tpslimit
--tpslimit 12 \
# Set the tpslimit-burst
--tpslimit-burst 0
ExecStop=/bin/fusermount3 -uz /mnt/google
ExecStartPost=/usr/bin/rclone rc vfs/refresh recursive=true --url 127.0.0.1:5574 _async=true
Restart=on-failure
User=root
Group=root

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
# https://github.com/animosity22/homescripts/blob/master/systemd/rclone-drive.service