Arq for Backups On My Macs

I’m diligent when it comes to backing up my computers. I make sure to always have local and offsite copies of everything. Years ago I began using Stefan Reitshamer’s Arq utility for making offline copies (to Amazon S3) and it was great. That is, until ongoing storage costs became prohibitive. S3 was relatively cheap at the time, but I was still paying hundreds of dollars per year for storage. When Backblaze and Crashplan showed up at $5/month for “unlimited” backups, I switched (to Crashplan).

I never got on well with Crashplan. I never felt that I could “see” what was going on with my backups. The interface feels janky and the app would sometimes refuse to run after OS upgrades. But, it did the job and was cheap.

While reviewing my backups after the new year, I took another look at Arq and was reminded what a nice app it is. Arq just feels better. It can back up from anything to just about anywhere and does so quickly and securely. And the costs? One of the targets available is Amazon Cloud Drive, which offers “unlimited” storage for $60/year.

So I’m back to using Arq for my backups and couldn’t be happier.