Best cloud backup/storage option for EX2 Ultra NAS

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud EX2
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Hi All

I could use a little help finding a cloud backup service for my 16TB EX2 Ultra NAS.

The situation is that I have around 5TB of data on the NAS - this consists of home movies, photos, movies, music, time machine back ups, documents and email archives. The computer I use is a MacBook Pro running Sierra. I keep the NAS mounted as volumes on the MacBook Pro (noting that it drops out occasionally but not too often). I have a fast internet connection - it’s FTTB and I just tested the speed at 90.47 Mbps down and 38.04 Mbps up, which is pretty typical - and I use a Netgear Nighthawk X4S D7800 modem router.

I am worried that the house will burn down or I’ll get burgled or such, so I want to back up my NAS to a cloud storage service. Ideally, I want to get something that I could use directly from the NAS (rather than on my MacBook), but I note the options there may be limited. If I can’t do it directly from the NAS, I can settle for running it all through the MacBook. I’m looking for something at a reasonable cost for unlimited storage, noting that the 5TB will grow over time given that I never delete anything!

I started looking 5 months ago and couldn’t find an option for directly backing up from the NAS itself. Dropbox would have been perfect and I could have run it directly on the NAS (and I have used it in the past successfully when I had less than 1TB) - but the problem is that because I have so much data now, I’d have to buy the Dropbox Business plan, which is pricey (it’s around AU$850 per year, which is more than I want to spend).

At the time I settled on CrashPlan installed on my MacBook and backing up the NAS as mounted drives. However, after 5 months, it just hasn’t backed up much at all - I think less than 15 per cent. Yep, it’s very slow, even when I tweaked all the settings to try to speed it up right at the start. The features that I initially liked about CrashPlan is that it is unlimited at a reasonable price (under AU$70 per year), it can back up mounted drives and (hypothetically) it wouldn’t matter if the NAS isn’t connected for a while because the back up doesn’t get deleted after 30 days or such. But given it can’t get through my data, it’s just about useless to me now.

Phew - sorry about all the detail!

Now, my question is, what else is out there that could do the job at a reasonable price?

Are there any services that can run off the NAS directly? Is Backblaze a good 'un? It looks reasonably priced but I’m guessing I’d have to run it off my MacBook…unless someone knows (supported or not) how to get it to work off the NAS…

Any ideas welcome, as I’m a bit stumped!

Thanks!

EDIT: Backblaze is definitely not right for me. It won’t support the NAS. Also, data on an external hard drive is deleted if it’s not connected for 30 days. That’s a problem - if I go on holiday for 2 months, taking my Macbook and leaving the NAS at home, I want to make sure the NAS remains backed up.

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Hopefully an experienced User will be able to assist.

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Hope so too!

I don’t have access to some remote location where I can put a second NAS and back up to that…has to be a cloud service, I guess.

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UPDATED 16/12

OK this is where I’m up to so far…

For those cloud backup services that can run directly off the NAS and cope with the amount of data I have:

  • Dropbox Business is too expensive (for me at least) at US$750 per year because you need to pay for 5 users at a minimum, although it does offer unlimited storage.

  • ElephantDrive is also out based on price. Looks like a good service but 6,000 GB is US$1199.50 per year, so more expensive than DropBox and not unlimited.

  • Amazon S3 will cost $199 per month based on the current amount of data I have.

CONCLUSION: OF THOSE THAT CAN RUN DIRECTLY OFF THE NAS, BASED ON PRICE ALONE GIVEN THE SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OPTIONS, DROPBOX BUSINESS PLAN IS THE WINNER AT $750

There seem to be a few options out there if I continue run off my Macbook with the NAS as a mounted drive, but there are not many that can handle the volume of data I have and some won’t work on a Mac.
CrashPlan, which I have now, is obviously one of them offering unlimited storage and archiving for US$60 per month. Other viable options that I could find are:

  • OpenDrive US$99 per year for unlimited storage. Offers ‘one way’ storage so the NAS can be backed up and files won’t be deleted when it’s disconnected. I trialled the free version, which has a speed limit and it was painfully slow. But customer service just provided me with a free trial of the unlimited plan and it’s far better. I think in 24 hours, it uploaded around 70GB or so.

  • Nomadesk - Nomadesk customer service has advised that 5.2TB would far exceed their fair use policy.

  • SOS Online Backup - US$45 for 50GB, US$300 for 10TB. Offers ‘forever’ storage so it doesn’t matter if the NAS is not connected for a couple of months.

  • Acronis True Image 2017 - If anyone has figured out why there is an app on the My Cloud EX2 Ultra and all the buttons are greyed out, I sure would appreciate it! I was hoping I could run it directly off the NAS, but can’t find out how!!! In any case, apparently you can buy cloud storage once you have the software - still it’s on the pricier side at per year US$41.99 for the software and then US$400 for 10TB of storage. I didn’t look too much further but I think it keeps files for 1-2 years.

  • iDrive - looks like I could get 10TB for US$374.62 per year. I didn’t look further at this one based on price.

  • MozyHome - Cost is prohibitive. It’s $9.99 per month for 125GB and then $2 per month for every extra 20GB on top of that…the math is scary.

CONCLUSION:

  • IF BACKING UP THE NAS AS A MOUNTED DRIVE ON A COMPUTER, CRASHPLAN IS THE LEAST EXPENSIVE VIABLE OPTION AT $60.

  • HOWEVER, GIVEN MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF SLOW UPLOAD SPEEDS, OPENDRIVE PERSONAL UNLIMITED PLAN IS THE WINNER AT $99.

So that’s what I could find myself and my personal conclusions based on my experience to date. Others may have had different experiences.

Certainly happy to be challenged and have other options thrown into the mix. In any case, I hope this update helps someone in a similar situation!

[edited to correct typo]

1 Like
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I had the same concerns, so Im now using rclone, with encryption to amazon cloud drive, which costs $60 per year unlimited storage. Im doing this from a raspberry pi, that already was doing other things.

On that last link scroll down a bit, there is a great explanation how to do this.

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You legend!

I’ll give it a whirl when I get home tonight and see if I can get it to work. It’s my ideal solution.

Thanks so much - I’ll post back when I’ve tried it

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It took me a while to get myself into gear…but I finally got it done and it’s working great!

Thanks for giving me the perfect solution - not having to run a back up through my laptop is fantastic and it’s uploading far faster than anything else I’ve tried. Plus, all for a reasonable price through Amazon.

Can’t thank you enough for this!

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Hey!
What will you guys do now when Amazon Cloud Drive removed unlimited storage option?
I’m looking for a solution, but can’t find any… :confused:

Thoughts?

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Oh, I switched to Open Drive a while ago, actually… Works well for me

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i would suggest backblaze. Its cheaper than open drive for year 50 less price still unlimited.

Plus you dont need to maunally backup.

I was wondering if backblaze ever create an app for wd nas.

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I found many many unlimited options in my search but not one reasonably priced one with a WD NAS app - Backblaze doesn’t have one obviously. It was the first one I looked at. Wouldn’t that make life easier though!!!

I’m uploading to Open Drive via a RPi. The benefit to Open Drive is the retention policy…it does one way backup that means that your files don’t get deleted if the nas is offline. That’s a big issue with things like this

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Hi Kishlette, The solution with Raspberry pi is wonderful… but i need your help… How can i setup Opendrive with rclone ? How are you pointing all the content from your WDmycloud to the remote Cloud OpenDrive… I haven’t subscribed to the Service yet. Is it easy to setting up ? Thank you.

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I am so incredibly sorry for not responding. I switched to a Synology so I’ve been skimming WD emails and I missed your post.

I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now (or smashed your Pi on the ground…I know I nearly did several times!)…and it’s been a while since I set it up…but…

From what I recall, it’s not the easiest thing to set up. You need to be familiar with, or get familiar with, Linux. I wasn’t so it was a steep learning curve and it took a lot of fiddling and failed attempts. There are numerous guides that you can find from googling and I suggest you start there - set up your Pi, get rclone working and then automate the backup. I think I remember using Opendrive’s WebDAV.

It did work for me but, as someone who had never used a RPi before, it was a fair bit of effort…and the Pi was clunky and stopped working often…but that could have been the fact that I hadn’t set it up particularly well. If you are familiar with linux, you might find it easier and more reliable.

The other option, which is super simple to set up, is to install Opendrive on your PC, mount your NAS and run it through your computer. No Pi needed. The only downside of that is that it is slower and it means your computer is probably going to have to be on a lot, particularly for the first few weeks/months during the initial backup.

I’ve switched to a Synology DS918+ and it’s made life a lot simpler because it has the oomph and packages to backup directly from the NAS…so I haven’t touched my Pi in some time!

I hope that helps. Again, sorry for not responding sooner.

1 Like
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Don’t worry Kishlette, I found a solution now since awhile.

Thank you for your reply also from so long :joy::joy:

Have a nice Week End…:+1:t2::wink:
Bye bye

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Are you using opendrive? Are you happy with it?
Thanks,

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@erosoft I suspected as much!!! Hope it’s all going well for you. What was your solution? Pi or other?

I’m still using OpenDrive with an encrypted backup.

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Hi, to be honest I’m not using this.

At the end, I figured it out how to sync from my Raspberry pi to Amazon Cloud that was unlimited… And after I transferred almost 10tb… They communicated to me that is no longer unlimited :-1::-1:

So I stopped for a while looking for any alternative.

I would like to back up a big amount of data, probably will take from 5 to 6 months with my upload speeds… So I cannot keep a computer on 6 months :rofl::rofl:

This is the reason I was using Raspberry connected to my cloud WD…

Open drive is an unlimited drive space?

If i find a way to make upload from Raspberry will be great, otherwise… I have to leave my mission… :confused:

Thank you

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OpenDrive is unlimited…but they now have a note on their Personal Plan to say you can’t back up NAS devices or large media folders…

That said, I don’t know how they police that…because I have a sync running directly from my NAS using the OpenDrive WebDAV. It’s slow as you’ve noted - they all are - but it works just fine.

You can replicate what you were doing with Amazon Cloud easily enough

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I will try again…

Thank you. :wink:

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Good luck! :grinning: