I take backup on portable hard-disk, but I wanted online backup/file sync as well.
My requirements were very simple.
- The online service should have linux client (my primary need) as well as Windows client. (for family)
- Phone app would be nice.
- End to end encryption needed, even at client level
- Online service needs to have zero knowledge and they should not be able to decrypt my personal data.
- File versioning is needed.
- Sharing of files with others should be possible. (preferably with an expiring password).
- Free trial plan should be available so that I can test it.
- Pricing should be reasonable. I am ok with paid service. (My first choice is nextCloud, but nobody seems to offer it as a paid service and I was unsuccessful to get it working on my personal server due to timeout issues.)
- I am also concerned where the servers are located. (Not is USA)
- Two factor authentication will be nice, although it won't be deal breaker at this time.
So I started my research to find a suitable online provider and got useful information on wikipedia about comparison of online backup services.
Considering my essential requirement of having Linux client, zero knowlege and server location, I narrowed doen the list to following contenders:
- Cloudberry backup (not considered as it has no phone app)
- Crashplan
- IASO backup
- Infrascale
- Jungle Disk (not considered due to proprietary license for client)
- Mega.nz
- SpiderOak (not considered as phone app is for download only)
- Tarsnap (not considered as it has no phone app)
- Tresorit
That leaves only following choices
- Crashplan (Server in USA although Australia may be an option, free trial possible, but way too expensive for $10 per month per computer)
- IASO backup (Got error as access denied when tried to visit website)
- Infrascale (American company, partners with Google, more geared towards businesses and not individuals)
- Mega.nz
- Tresorit
Tresorit is more expensive than Mega.nz and also has proprietary license wheras Mega.nz source code is available for review; so I have decided to try Mega.nz I will update here how it goes.
It is interesting to note that Mega.nz is based in New Zealand which is part of 5 eyes, whereas Tresorit is Switzerland based and is not part of 14 eyes. However, I did look at transperancy report from Mega.nz and was reasonably satisfied.
Other options I found are Sync.com (No Linux client, so not useful for me) and pCloud (keeps servers in the USA, charges extra for zero-knowledge encryption ) although I have not done any review for these 2 options.