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Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation?

Hey everyone,

I've been researching my backup requirements lately, and my requirements are:

* Encrypted, trusted (this implies open source) backups.

* Able to backup to a remote server. Google Drive is a plus.

* Not terribly bandwidth intensive.

* Not terribly expensive, as I'm backing up non-critical photos which are already on RAID and local backups anyway.

I'm currently using SpiderOak, but I don't like the fact that it's closed source. I experimented with Duplicity, but it turns out that it requires me to reupload my entire 50 GB collection every month or so, as it's good sense to have full backups every so often.

The problem is that, even though I require encryption, it shouldn't roll all files into a huge ball of mud, as that will need reuploading every once in a while, it's not easy to sync, etc.

Basically, the ideal for me would be something like Duplicity with per-file encryption, or rdiff-backup with encryption. Is there something that would fit the bill, or would I have to build it myself?

( 11 comments | 4 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by tptacek on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @08:07AM (#5779418)
The only encrypted backup solution I've ever recommended is Tarsnap.
Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by StavrosK on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @09:21AM (#5779797)
Yeah, it sounds like that's the one to use. Unfortunately, it's around 10 times more expensive than Google Drive, so hardly worth it for non-critical data...
Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by conductor on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @07:51AM (#5779372)
You didn't mention your operating system.

I use EncFS and my preferred syncing service, the [1] tutorial was helpful for me.

[1] - http://www.howtogeek.com/121737/how-to-encrypt-cloud-storage...

Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by StavrosK on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @09:23AM (#5779817)
Sorry, Linux. I use EncFS already over Dropbox (as pretty much the only way to use Dropbox), but I don't want to EncFS my entire drive just for backups, it seems like something that should be handled on the tool itself. I'm thinking of writing a thin layer over Duplicity's backends that will EncFS-style encrypt files and store them on the various services.
Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by danielq on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @12:44PM (#5781044)
IIRC, EncFS has this option where you can use it backwards. That is you mount a normal file system say /foo to /bar and then /bar contains the EncFS encrypted files. This might be an option.
Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by StavrosK on Friday May 31, 2013 @09:28AM (#5798437)
This is pretty much exactly what I needed. You win this QA, thank you!
Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by venomsnake on Tuesday May 28, 2013 @08:08AM (#5779428)
Well ... it seems that tarsnap http://www.tarsnap.com/ is the only one I know of that is for the paranoid.
Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by yra on Thursday June 06, 2013 @12:48AM (#5830509)
how about - https://github.com/yradunchev/dbackup

...and it depends how much data you intent to backup...

Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by StavrosK on Thursday June 06, 2013 @07:38AM (#5831740)
That looks simple enough to customize, thank you.
Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by FellowTraveler on Saturday June 01, 2013 @07:22PM (#5806502)
Spider Oak?

Bittorrent Sync?

Re:Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? by StavrosK on Saturday June 01, 2013 @07:24PM (#5806511)
As I said in the description, they're both closed source, which isn't great. BT Sync looks great for syncing, but not backups...