[Mac] Arq v4.0 Released – Backup to S3, Glacier, Google Cloud, DreamObjects, SFTP etc

[Arthur]

One of the best Mac backup apps gets a major update.

 

Website: www.haystacksoftware.com/blog/2014/03/arq-4-is-out (Cached Version)

 

New Storage Options

For the first time, Arq can back up to not just Amazon Web Services. You can choose GreenQloud, DreamObjects, Google Cloud Storage or any other S3-compatible target:

 

You can even choose to back up to an SFTP server! If you have a NAS in your home or office that allows SSH/SFTP access, you can back up to that and pay $0 in monthly storage charges. Or back up to a VPS (virtual private server) like Dreamhost for cheap off-site backup.

 

Multiple Backup Targets

Not only can you back up to different types of “targets”; you can back up to more than one! You can choose to back up your files to multiple locations for redundancy, or back up some files to one location and others to another location. On different schedules. With different budgets. Mix and match to your heart’s content.

 

More Control

Several new features are aimed at providing you with more control over your backups:

 

• Backup only on selected wireless networks — prevent upload when tethered to your phone, for instance.
  
• Email notifications — great for monitoring headless/remote Macs and customer Macs.
  
• A unified budget across S3 and S3/Glacier backups (see "A New Approach to Glacier" below)
  
• Optionally specify a “window” of time during the day/night when Arq pauses — useful for networks that are underutilized at night, and for ISPs that charge less at certain times of day
  

A New Approach to Glacier

When Amazon announced their Glacier offering in the fall of 2012, we built Arq 3 to take advantage of it. Some time after Arq 3 was released, Amazon announced an S3 Glacier Lifecycle feature through which Amazon would automatically store certain S3 objects in Glacier. Arq 4 uses this new S3 Glacier Lifecycle feature for Glacier backups (existing Glacier backups made with Arq 3 will continue to use the old Glacier API as Amazon offers no way to move Glacier objects to S3). There are several benefits to using the S3 Glacier Lifecycle feature:

 

• S3 objects with Glacier storage class have all the benefits of regular S3 objects — a known location/name, S3 object query abilities
  
• No more creating Glacier vaults, which are hard to use and even harder to delete.
  
• Restored objects are at known/expected locations, unlike restored Glacier objects which receive a random name.
  
• Restored objects can be persisted for much longer, unlike restored Glacier objects which have a fixed 24-hour expiration.
  
• Restarting a restore with Arq means only requesting restore of objects which haven’t been requested yet because previously-requested objects are at known locations.
  
• Restoring is less complex and much faster — no more creating SQS queues and SNS topics; no more taking the time to read all messages from the SQS queue before beginning to download.
  
• Budgeting is possible using the same logic as the S3 budget feature.
  

Edited March 3, 2014 by Arthur