Do you backup your GAfE data?

[flyinghaggis]

One thing I did notice is that versioning only appears to be supported with Google documents. To me this possibly implied if you uploaded a Word document and then re-uploaded an updated version with the same file name (or edited the existing Word Doc) you'd never be able to recover the original? Or would it recognise the file as being different even though the name was identical?

 

As suspected you can only recover the most recent version of a document so if you have multiple 'versions' of non-Google document you can only ever recover the most recent copy which is a bit limiting.

 

To add a bit of balance to the debate there are some valid reasons why Google Vault shouldn't be considered a 'backup' solution.

 

Backupify vs. Google Vault: Features And Functionality

 

Google Vault and Spanning Backup: Two Great Products. Two Different Purposes. | Spanning

 

In addition to the 'versioning' issue above the other risk regarding Vault is that all it's doing is linking to copies of files stored in Google Drive so if anything happens to Google's storage system or there's any kind of data corruption/malware/ransomware there isn't a separate backup to recover the files from. Also, any recovered files will lose their directory structure and sharing permissions.

 

However given that Vault is free and the alternatives carry hefty annual subscriptions I'm still mulling over whether it's feasible to just go with Vault. Probably a case of taking it to the IT Director / Bursar to letting them make the call.

 

I'd be interested to know what other school's thoughts are on whether Vault could be used as an effective 'Backup' solution?

Edited March 29, 2017 by flyinghaggis

[ZeroHour]

You could use rclone to do a cloud-to-cloud backup of important data stored on Google Drive. It can do it from a Google Drive on one G Suite domain to another or Google Drive to OneDrive. e.g.

 

rclone --transfers=32 --no-traverse --ignore-existing --no-check-certificate --drive-chunk=256M copy [color="#FF0000"]gdrvA[/color]:/[color="#4B0082"]Stuff[/color] [color="#FF0000"]gdrvB[/color]:/[color="#4B0082"]BackupOfStuff[/color]

 

gdrvA and B and the names of the remote locations you setup when you run rclone config. The folder names are whatever the folders are called on your Google Drives.

 

Best of all this won't cost any money.

 

I am not sure if rclone would be able to access all the user accounts without setting up tokens for each and every account. My rclone can only access my gsuite drive. Another thing to consider is the hugely annoying drive api limits which can be hit very easily stopping the backup process.

[Arthur]

My rclone can only access my gsuite drive.

Yeah. That is the major downside to rclone. Unlike with GAM you can't access everyones files in your G Suite domain.

 

I was thinking it might be useful with Team Drives? Assuming it supports those?

[ZeroHour]

You could use rclone to do a cloud-to-cloud backup of important data stored on Google Drive. It can do it from a Google Drive on one G Suite domain to another or Google Drive to OneDrive. e.g.

 

rclone --transfers=32 --no-traverse --ignore-existing --no-check-certificate --drive-chunk=256M copy [color="#FF0000"]gdrvA[/color]:/[color="#4B0082"]Stuff[/color] [color="#FF0000"]gdrvB[/color]:/[color="#4B0082"]BackupOfStuff[/color]

 

gdrvA and B and the names of the remote locations you setup when you run rclone config. The folder names are whatever the folders are called on your Google Drives.

 

Best of all this won't cost any money.

 

Yeah. That is the major downside to rclone. Unlike with GAM you can't access everyones files in your G Suite domain.

 

I was thinking it might be useful with Team Drives? Assuming it supports those?

 

Not played with Team Drives yet, do they get exposed in normal Google Drive? If not it wont but if it works like Photos where there is a folder show in drive then you will be able to access them like a folder.

 

One nice thing about rclone, I was about to get 80MB/s (yep megabytes) throughput when I was batching files up to drive from home. They were large files though.

Edited March 29, 2017 by ZeroHour

[jmak]

Not played with Team Drives yet, do they get exposed in normal Google Drive? If not it wont but if it works like Photos where there is a folder show in drive then you will be able to access them like a folder.

 

One nice thing about rclone, I was about to get 80MB/s (yep megabytes) throughput when I was batching files up to drive from home. They were large files though.

If Team Drives have been enabled in your domain, they appear in Drive when you log in.

[ZeroHour]

If Team Drives have been enabled in your domain, they appear in Drive when you log in.

 

It really depends if it appears as a folder rather than a menu option as rclone can only see folders listed inside drive. If it creates a "Team" folder like "Google Photos" then you would be able too but without that you probably cant.

[jmak]

It really depends if it appears as a folder rather than a menu option as rclone can only see folders listed inside drive. If it creates a "Team" folder like "Google Photos" then you would be able too but without that you probably cant.

Google drive appears as a network share (in Windows Explorer). "Team Drives" and "My Drive" appear as folders in the next level down. You then click on "Team Drives" and will see the ones you have access to - also add a folder in Windows Explorer.