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On 2018-05-28 10:15 AM, Bryan Martin wrote in part:
> 
> On the subject of M-Discs, has anyone else used them? They're not our main archiving solution, I'm using them as a backstop. I'm not usually an early adopter, but I found the testing results impressive. Any thoughts out there?
> 

Hi, Bryan,

I don't know precisely how you are employing the M-Discs, but I've 
really lost interest in media that multiplies by the hundreds or 
thousands. I've become a fan of a variety of storage technologies. 
Currently, I'm experimenting with BackBlaze as my off-site backup 
solution to complement my two RAID-6 on-site NAS units.

BackBlaze will back up one computer for $100 US / year. They 
specifically state that they don't care how large a drive (or drives) 
you have in it. I bought a 12 TB drive... I realize that won't scale (or 
fly) for a professional archive, but they offer professional services as 
well (for more money).

With my small outbound bandwidth of 10 Mb/s, it looks as if it will take 
12-14 weeks to complete (I find their estimates wrong based on the 
history). I started this in mid-April and have backed up 99.4 % of my 
files (767,033 of 771,237) BUT have about 47 % (4,167,028 out of 
8,892,881 MB) remaining. I have been at it about six weeks, hence my 12 
week estimate. It may take a bit longer now that we're home, we may wish 
to upload other things, so I pause BackBlaze when that happens. They 
back up the largest files last.

Here, I am running four 24/7 computers.
--Mail-runs my email and also handles all of the NAS-to-NAS backups (I 
prefer the flexibility of ViceVersa Pro to RSYNC).
--NAS1 "18 TB" of capacity (based on disk sizes)--my main unit
--NAS2 "12 TB" of capacity--backs up many things
--Support (12 TB HDD)--is the "landing pad" for both the boys' Dropboxes 
which are selectively backed up to the NAS units and completely backed 
up to BackBlaze as well as most of the NAS1 content is also copied to 
this for BackBlaze backup.

There is no console on the Support computer--I ONLY remote desktop into 
it. The Mail machine has a console and is also our image scanning 
workstation. I use a 3rd party RDP server (Thinstuff) that permits me to 
log in to the Mail account while a photo account is active at the console.

When BackBlaze is full loaded, I will decommission my two older Netgear 
ReadyNAS units that server as a suitcase off-site backup.

Cheers,

Richard

-- 
Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada                             647 479 2800
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.