How I Saved Myself $1200 A Year In Cloud Storage - In 5 Sobering Steps

1 week ago

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

My unreality retention costs exploded aft unlimited plans vanished.
Backing up everything was costly and unnecessary.
Five strategical changes saved maine complete $1,200 per year.

60 terabytes. I'll ne'er spot that overmuch unreality retention again. I'm relieved - and a small sad.

This communicative began galore chapters ago. It culminated pinch immoderate superior aforesaid and infrastructure examination, difficult conversations, and a fewer reliable decisions.

It's a communicative of online information hoarding successful nan guise of champion practices, wherever excessively overmuch became way excessively much, and nan seemingly elemental task of maintaining backups became an on-call emergency consequence 2nd job.

I changed each that this week.

TL;DR

There's a batch to this story, but if you want a speedy summary of my changes, it's this: I moved from Google Workspace Enterprise to Backblaze B2. I dropped Time Machine and added Backblaze Personal for individual machines. My web of RAID servers thief backmost each different up, and by nan clip I was done, I saved good complete a 1000 dollars.

Also: The champion unreality retention services of 2025: Expert tested

But I had to springiness up a batch to do it. What follows is nan basal backstory, a explanation of nan before-and-after web architecture, costs breakdowns, and an in-depth dive into really and why I made nan decisions that led maine to this caller approach.

Let's excavation in.

The earlier clip

Since nan early 2000s, I've been a large proponent and practitioner of nan tech industry's best-practice 3-2-1 backup strategy. The thought is to person 3 copies of each file, 2 of which are connected different beingness devices, and 1 of which is located off-site.

Before my parents passed away, nan off-site was easy. I'd conscionable shuttle a mates of difficult drives backmost and distant to their spot whenever we went to visit. In turn, they'd put maine to activity removing nan heavy hard-pack of machine viruses my Dad had picked up betwixt visits. It wasn't wholly his fault. He was a jeweler, and backmost then, jewelry sites were infested pinch malware.

In immoderate case, my retention needs were considerable, but not overly huge. When astir group had dial-up, my self-hosted web servers lived successful a converted linen closet. Those aged servers utilized dedicated bandwidth provided by nan only high-speed T-1 net relationship (which ran done my bathroom) betwixt Rutgers and Princeton. At that time, my retention needs added up to little than a terabyte.

Yes, that was a batch for nan early days. But it wasn't 60 terabytes.

Also: Why immoderate companies are backing distant from nan nationalist cloud

Over time, my activity moved maine into 3 data-intensive areas: networked virtual machines, 3D modeling, and video. My section retention needs ballooned and person been increasing ever larger for nan past decade.

Beyond nan terabytes of networked VMs utilized for what we would now telephone AI supplier development, I person each nan video elements progressive successful producing reasonably high-quality YouTube. A azygous YouTube video tin travel adjacent to a terabyte during production. My multi-camera surveillance strategy astir nan location besides eats up storage.

Right now, I'm operating 4 section at-home record servers, pinch a full retention of 139.04 terabytes.

That's a batch much than nan 60 I person successful nan cloud, but there's a batch of nan "2" portion of nan 3-2-1 backups connected those servers.

A small complete 10 years ago, storing successful nan unreality became not only applicable but besides cheap. You could bargain all-you-can-store plans from a assortment of online backup providers. And that's what I did. But by 2017, nan never-ending feast of online retention came to an end.

As vendor aft vendor unopen down their unlimited offerings, I recovered myself spending weeks moving my information to nan adjacent subordinate still offering unlimited storage. I was trapped successful a unusual crippled of information storage Whac-A-Mole.

Also: The champion NAS devices of 2025: Expert tested

Until I deed a wall. There came a clip erstwhile those deals were nary longer available, isolated from for 1 offering from Google.

In 2018, Google's G Suite (the earlier sanction for Google Workspace) offered an unlimited retention plan. If you bought 5 aliases much seats connected a $12/mo business plan, $60 a period would get you unlimited storage.

So, that's what I did.

Then, successful 2020, Google rebranded G Suite to Workspace and tightened its retention offerings. You could "request" unlimited storage, but having your petition granted was different matter.

For nan adjacent 5 years, my narration pinch Google retention was rocky, progressively demanding, and progressively much expensive. You tin publication immoderate of my pieces connected this ongoing situation here:

What happens to your G Suite unlimited retention erstwhile Google moves you to Workspace?
Re-homing G Suite storage: Enterprise scheme options look unnecessarily murky
Re-homing G Suite storage: No, you can't find retired really overmuch retention your folders use
Why my two-person institution bought a Google Workspace Enterprise plan
Need to negociate your Google Drive data? Google was nary help, but this instrumentality solved my retention mess
The different footwear yet dropped connected my Google Enterprise unreality retention plan
Google abruptly raised my monthly Workspace Enterprise interest by 38%
Maxing retired your Google unreality storage? How I deleted much than 10TB, acknowledgment to this useful tool

By 2022, my two-person institution was subscribed to a Google Workspace Enterprise plan, which did supply entree to nan retention I needed. It conscionable took a batch of requesting to get Google to fto maine person that storage.

That turned into thing of an extended yearly speech pinch Google's retention capacity gatekeepers. Every twelvemonth aliases so, I'd get a announcement from Google that I was approaching my capacity. Then I'd prosecute successful weeks of back-and-forth support tickets "requesting" much capacity, citing reams of erstwhile support transcripts. And Google reluctantly agreed to a mini capacity increase, on pinch an summation successful really overmuch I had to salary each month.

A fewer weeks ago, I sewage different specified informing notice. Instead of diving erstwhile much into negotiated negotiations pinch nan information overlords, I decided to rethink my life. Or, astatine least, nan retention facet thereof.

Pre-migration retention architecture

My email and retention costs person been linked since I started utilizing Google Workspace. My main email relationship is simply a user Gmail account, configured to nonstop and person utilizing my firm domains. The firm email domain relays are hosted successful Workspace.

The pursuing schematic shows my pre-migration retention architecture. Our superior retention devices are nan various computers my woman and I use, our record server (which holds each our superior documents arsenic good arsenic each my video backups), and a information server (which holds humanities video from our information cameras).

The Macs were backed up to a section backup server utilizing Time Machine. For nan record, I dislike Time Machine. It's ever a bet whether you tin reconstruct thing from a Time Machine backup, and they neglect regularly. Time Machine is an incremental backup. That intends changes are added to nan backup archive, and you (theoretically) tin rotation backmost to a erstwhile time aliases week.

The Macs besides sync to our on-premises backup server (a different container from nan record server) utilizing ChronoSync, a very reliable Mac syncing instrumentality pinch beautiful fantabulous tech support. These backups are syncs, truthful thing that changes connected nan root instrumentality (including deletions) is reflected connected nan server.

Our large record server had 4 backup mechanisms. It backed up incrementally to Google Workspace. It besides synced to Google Workspace, truthful Google Workspace had 2 complete backup architectures utilizing storage.

Also: Is OneDrive moving each your files? How to return backmost power of your Windows retention - 3 ways

The record server besides syncs to nan backup server. Once a week, our offline backup server powers on, and nan record server syncs to it. This provides an air-gapped backup conscionable successful lawsuit nan worse were to happen. That offline record server is besides beautiful overmuch fire and flood proof, truthful it should beryllium capable to grip almost anything.

Keep successful mind that each our servers instrumentality RAID, truthful if immoderate azygous thrust fails, information won't beryllium lost. I besides support spare drives successful stock, truthful if location is simply a failure, I tin switch nan thrust instantly and commencement rebuilding nan RAID.

Here's really our 3-2-1 strategy looked earlier nan caller architecture I've conscionable implemented.

Pre-migration costs

As pinch everything other successful this world, nan costs of unreality retention has been expanding regularly. In summation to nan Google Workspace retention costs of $162.50 per month, we salary an further 2 bucks each to widen nan retention for our individual Gmail accounts. We besides salary astir $30 each period to widen our iCloud retention to 6TB.

Tough decisions

As nan floor plan beneath shows, our mission-critical archive retention takes up only a sliver of nan wide record retention connected our large record server.

The videos successful video accumulation are each videos that person been uploaded to YouTube. Yes, nan earthy footage is stored connected nan server. I do propulsion from that footage from time-to-time. If I mislaid that earthy footage, it would beryllium a bummer, but not catastrophic.

The aforesaid is existent of media. That portion contains each of our imported DVD collection, on pinch euphony files, and different media, including my archive of nan accumulation graphics activity for each of my ZDNET articles. It's an important folder, but arsenic was nan lawsuit pinch video production, astir of it is archival.

Since my woman and I subscribe to a ton of streaming video services, we almost ne'er pat into that media room for video content. We haven't for years.

Also: Your Windows PC has a secretly useful backup instrumentality - here's really to entree it

As for nan VMs, I support a fewer unrecorded VMs connected my super-charged M4 Mac Studio. The VMs stored connected nan server are from older projects and were utilized successful monolithic simulations, projects I'm not doing correct now. All of those VMs besides usage very deprecated versions of operating systems from times past. If thing were to hap to them, it would beryllium unfortunate, but it would not effect day-to-day productivity astatine all.

All of those files are stored connected 1 RAID server and backed up to a 2nd section RAID server. It's highly improbable that we'd person catastrophic nonaccomplishment crossed drives connected some servers astatine nan aforesaid time.

So nan existent rumor is what would hap if location were immoderate benignant of disaster. If thing happened to nan location and some servers were lost, past we'd suffer those files. But if we had specified a catastrophe, aged VMs and video accumulation archives would beryllium nan slightest of my worries.

Tough determination #1: Stop backing up older media

So, my first reliable determination was to extremity backing up nan 3 large slices to nan cloud. Remember that I was not only backing each that up incrementally but besides syncing it all. Cloud information retention usage ballooned utilizing that approach.

Tough determination #2: Give up each that Google Workspace retention

My 2nd reliable determination was to move disconnected of Google Workspace for unreality storage. Giving up each that sweet, saccharine retention brought maine immoderate sadness, but nan changeless debates pinch Google support had maxed retired my tolerance meter.

Tough determination #3: Stop utilizing Time Machine

My 3rd reliable determination was to extremity utilizing Time Machine. That's Apple's canonical proposal for backup. It sucks. Since I'm already syncing my section Macs some to iCloud and to our backup server pinch ChronoSync, I felt I could unopen down Time Machine. I past decided to move to Backblaze Personal for my wife's main Mac and mine.

Backblaze Personal charges 10 bucks a period aliases a 100 dollars a twelvemonth for unlimited backups from 1 machine. You tin person locally-mounted USB drives and it will backmost those up arsenic well, but it won't backup web drives.

Tough determination #4: Use Backblaze B2 for server unreality retention

My 4th reliable determination was to spell pinch Backblaze B2 to backmost up conscionable my record server documents. Backblaze B2 charges six dollars per terabyte per month, truthful I surely wouldn't get nan aforesaid retention woody arsenic I was getting from Google Workspace. But if I kept my B2 needs to nether 4TB (which is nan lawsuit for nan documents connected nan record server), I'd person a beautiful coagulated budget-friendly solution.

So far, arsenic a caller customer, Backblaze deserves points. I ran into a self-inflicted snag during my migration and nan Backblaze support folks stepped successful and sewage maine retired of trouble. Nice.

Tough determination #5: No much incremental backups to nan unreality

My 5th reliable determination was to forego incremental backups for nan record server connected nan cloud. This would support my Backblaze B2 costs down considerably. One neat characteristic of Backblaze B2 is that it retains files for a number of days. So I group record retention to 10 days. That intends if I do delete a record I need, and nan deletion syncs to nan cloud, I person 10 days to retrieve it.

Post-migration fund and architecture

So, here's wherever we now stand. This is nan moving architecture for nan caller normal. As you tin see, a batch remains nan same. But nan record server backups to nan unreality are substantially reduced, and Time Machine is nary longer successful nan picture.

Here's really nan caller 3-2-1 backup strategy useful retired pinch this caller approach.

I'm still keeping Google Workspace for firm email relay, but that's a reasonably inexpensive $14/month for our 2 accounts.

And here's really it each nets retired dollar-wise.

As you tin see, I went from $196/month ($2,357 per year) down to $90/month ($1080 per year). That $1,200 yearly savings is beautiful sweet. But it was a beautiful challenging roadworthy getting here. Hopefully, successful a year, I won't person different retention conflict to chronicle. I'm hoping this caller attack provides a fewer years of soft sailing.

Have you had to make difficult choices astir your unreality retention strategy? What services are you utilizing to negociate ample amounts of data? Have you recovered a setup that balances cost, access, and redundancy? Have you considered ditching Time Machine aliases moving distant from Google Workspace? How do you grip backups for media, VMs, aliases information footage? Let america cognize successful nan comments below.

You tin travel my day-to-day task updates connected societal media. Be judge to subscribe to my play update newsletter, and travel maine connected Twitter/X astatine @DavidGewirtz, connected Facebook astatine Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, connected Instagram astatine Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, connected Bluesky astatine @DavidGewirtz.com, and connected YouTube astatine YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.