Problem Overview

Problem Overview

There are many great archiving solutions, but they specialise in some features at the expense of others. The diagram here is overly simplistic but summarises the 3 main points. 

The main choice is between two-way sync solutions and one-way backup solutions. 

• The sync solutions are easy to use and manage files across multiple systems but can be expensive to run at scale and come at an increased risk of accidental data loss. Some such systems can recover lost data via version history or snapshot recovery features.
• The most popular tools that match this would be Google Drive and One Drive (because they are free for small volumes), but there are many others.
• Backup solutions are often cheaper per TB and have better encryption and protection from data loss, but are much harder to organise data once it is in the archive and generally lack sharing features. 

Backblaze has a more comprehensive explanation on the issue: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/cloud-backup-vs-cloud-sync/

Also, this Existing Tools page provides a list of existing archiving systems.

The other pages on this site aim to describe the problem with various existing digital archival and backup solutions and a potential solution.