In the months since I posted about backups, I’ve divested myself from CrashPlan and have been backing up the photo library with BackBlaze’s B2 object storage service. I also upgraded my home internet connection to synchronous gigabit fiber, which meant I was able to backup the 3.6 TB of photos in my archive to the cloud in a little less than 3 days. The total cost so far is ~$18/month, which is very reasonable for what I’m storing and how important it is.

It’s been eye opening how much better the management of my data is now that I’m controlling the tools and the files. Even using only the b2 utility, I have far more freedom and control than I ever had with CrashPlan’s client, and I’m secure in the knowledge that my cron jobs work and work correctly.

#!/bin/bash

/usr/bin/find /backups -type f > /backups/contents.txt
/usr/local/bin/b2 sync --noProgress --threads 30 \
    --delete --excludeRegex "^\." /backups \
    b2://<bucket_name>

I’m certain there’s better ways to do this, but considering the time I’ve put into this solution, and the ability to positively affirm it’s working the way I want makes me happy.