How do you back-up your Google Workspace data (UK Based School)

[Jaan]

Hi all,

 

We have a hybrid setup here with a file server and Google Drive/Shared Drives.

 

We want to start using Google to store some of our operational and policy data.

 

I've highlighted the need to back up this data to protect us against cyber threats/malicious intent/human error.

 

What do you use or recommend. Are you able to disclose the cost?

 

Thanks in advance.

[EssentialRug]

Hi all,

 

We have a hybrid setup here with a file server and Google Drive/Shared Drives.

 

We want to start using Google to store some of our operational and policy data.

 

I've highlighted the need to back up this data to protect us against cyber threats/malicious intent/human error.

 

What do you use or recommend. Are you able to disclose the cost?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Synology with their built in tools. You pay for the hardware only and no recurring fees for the backups.

[slugshead]

+1 for Synology NAS with the Google workspace tool

[rogerdnixon]

We use Afi backup at our Trust. Looked at Synology - but not practical for our size and number of sites + has self service restore for users.

[jthompson]

We use Datto Backupify. Licensing is per user per month. You don't have to license all of your users, if you only need data for a subset of your users to be being protected. Thrice-daily snapshots retained for a year or something iirc.

[Jaan]

Thought Synology was now chargeable.

 

We might need to change our QNAP soon then.

 

What about SAAS. I looked at backupify at one point it they all seemed really expensive.

[dmj]

Hi all,

I've highlighted the need to back up this data to protect us against cyber threats/malicious intent/human error.

 

Google vault should cover those things against deletion.

[FN-GM]

Doesn’t workspace have a built in 30 day backup and recovery system?

[DGardiner]

Doesn’t workspace have a built in 30 day backup and recovery system?

 

it does have a 30 day restore, but theres no restore single file or anything. its press on the user and restore anything upto a date, it works but i wouldnt bet on it personally

 

i have managed to recover specific stuff using vault like, but that wouldbe dependant on your retention settings... again wouldnt bet on it but it works if youre stuck

[jthompson]

Vault shouldn't be thought of as a backup & restore tool. It doesn't really give you a "what was the state of this fileset at X date and time?" capability, and there's no in-place, granular recovery.

[RLR]

We use spanning backup. Quite expensive but works well.

[tomviv]

Cubebackup to Wasabi hot storage works well for us.

[timbo343]

Have a look at a company called syscloud https://www.syscloud.com/. UK data center using AWS S3 servers.

 

Very competitve pricing, students are Free of Charge and they backup Google Classroom too. Unlimited storage and unlimited retention.

 

They have a UK GDPR too.

[k-strider]

we also use Synology NAS for this

https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/feature/active_backup_google_workspace

its great and free once you have purchased the hardware.

[Jaan]

we also use Synology NAS for this

https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/feature/active_backup_google_workspace

its great and free once you have purchased the hardware.

 

That looks awesome..... but too good to be true

[Jaan]

Im sure i read somewhere that it was changing to a subscription model.

[TwistedHelixis]

Cubebackup to Wasabi hot storage works well for us.

 

Yep, its something like $2 per user per year and 6$ per TB month.

[flyinghaggis]

We use Afi backup at our Trust. Looked at Synology - but not practical for our size and number of sites + has self service restore for users.

 

Do you know if Afi.ai offer educational pricing. I've contacted them via their website stating we're a school, but they've only offered a per user rate of ~£10 annually which if we have to pay it for pupils would make it more than double the price of other options?

[Arthur]

Do you know if Afi.ai offer educational pricing.

They do, although I was quoted $0.70 (USD) per user per month, so for our school that would work out to $10,500 (or ~£8,400) per year for approx. 14.5TB storage if we wanted to cover everyone.

 

We have around 1,100 students, but they are only using 350GB of storage in total so per user pricing just makes it unnecessarily expensive.

 

Afi.ai can also do a capacity-based subscription at $720/year per 1TB of backup storage which may or may not work out cheaper in your case? One thing to bear in mind though is that you can't mix-and-match the subscriptions (i.e. do per user for staff and capacity-based for students).

 

If you need to be billed in GBP you would need to purchase through one of their UK partners at a 20-30% higher price compared to buying from them directly.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Arthur