Dennis Gorelik (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dennisgorelik) wrote2018-11-11 07:41 am
dennisgorelik) wrote2018-11-11 07:41 am
Entry tags:
How to backup large databases: Dropbox vs Google Drive
Dropbox
Our databases backup archive is ~110 GB (22 *.7z archive volumes 5 GB each).
Every day our scripts create new databases backups, archive them and put into Dropbox folder.
Dropbox uploads these archives and every couple of months we download these archives to our development environment to test that our database backup is still operational.
We run regular Dropbox client application wrapped into service. It mostly work.
However once in several months that "Dropbox service" stops producing backups.
In this case we RDC to our server, stop the service, run Dropbox client application in regular "UI" mode. That allows Dropbox client application to update itself. After that update "Dropbox service" starts working again.
Because of these occasional problems, I decided to give Google Drive another chance and see if we can replace Dropbox.
Google Drive
After about a week of struggle with Google Drive we gave up and returned back to Dropbox (Dropbox works).
Here is how Google Drive retrial went:
1) We learned that Google Drive team rebranded their client app as "Download Backup and Sync".
It allows backup large files, but does not allow automatically download these files on another computer (we would have to download backups through browser, which is a weird exercise for 22 5 GB files we have).
So, instead of "Backup" option in "Download Backup and Sync" we had to choose "My Drive" option.
2) Google Drive successfully uploaded 3 large files (~15 GB) and stopped at the 15 GB limit on free account.
I upgraded our account to ~$200GB limit (~$30/year).
After 1 day I discovered that I upgraded wrong account (not googledrive@postjobfree.com, but my personal account). Google can sneakily switch between accounts and sometimes it is hard to notice.
Unfortunately, Google Drive does not offer refunds.
With more careful investigation I found out that it is not possible to upgrade storage on individual account, so I had to create another account (like "gdrivepjf@gmail.com") and upgrade it to 200 GB too.
3) After 2 more days of experimenting we found out that Google Drive is not able to upload couple of our archive files. Download stuck at 99% and then after ~an hour (when 2-3 99% files stuck simultaneously) download starts again from 0%.
That makes Google Drive a useless tool for backing up large archives.
Lessons learned
1) Good products are rarely rebranded. "Dropbox" name does not change. "Google Drive" is rebranded as "Download Backup and Sync" out of shame for the low quality of the product. But rebranding does NOT improve the quality of the underlying product.
2) Big well-financed engineering team -- not necessarily delivers well-engineered product.
3) Giving a vendor the second chance is, usually, a waste of time.
I knew that Google released buggy service back in 2012.
If Google Drive team was not able to produce working solution back then and allowed themselves to publish non-working product -- there is no good reason to expect the same team to fix these issues 6 years later.
Our databases backup archive is ~110 GB (22 *.7z archive volumes 5 GB each).
Every day our scripts create new databases backups, archive them and put into Dropbox folder.
Dropbox uploads these archives and every couple of months we download these archives to our development environment to test that our database backup is still operational.
We run regular Dropbox client application wrapped into service. It mostly work.
However once in several months that "Dropbox service" stops producing backups.
In this case we RDC to our server, stop the service, run Dropbox client application in regular "UI" mode. That allows Dropbox client application to update itself. After that update "Dropbox service" starts working again.
Because of these occasional problems, I decided to give Google Drive another chance and see if we can replace Dropbox.
Google Drive
After about a week of struggle with Google Drive we gave up and returned back to Dropbox (Dropbox works).
Here is how Google Drive retrial went:
1) We learned that Google Drive team rebranded their client app as "Download Backup and Sync".
It allows backup large files, but does not allow automatically download these files on another computer (we would have to download backups through browser, which is a weird exercise for 22 5 GB files we have).
So, instead of "Backup" option in "Download Backup and Sync" we had to choose "My Drive" option.
2) Google Drive successfully uploaded 3 large files (~15 GB) and stopped at the 15 GB limit on free account.
I upgraded our account to ~$200GB limit (~$30/year).
After 1 day I discovered that I upgraded wrong account (not googledrive@postjobfree.com, but my personal account). Google can sneakily switch between accounts and sometimes it is hard to notice.
Unfortunately, Google Drive does not offer refunds.
With more careful investigation I found out that it is not possible to upgrade storage on individual account, so I had to create another account (like "gdrivepjf@gmail.com") and upgrade it to 200 GB too.
3) After 2 more days of experimenting we found out that Google Drive is not able to upload couple of our archive files. Download stuck at 99% and then after ~an hour (when 2-3 99% files stuck simultaneously) download starts again from 0%.
That makes Google Drive a useless tool for backing up large archives.
Lessons learned
1) Good products are rarely rebranded. "Dropbox" name does not change. "Google Drive" is rebranded as "Download Backup and Sync" out of shame for the low quality of the product. But rebranding does NOT improve the quality of the underlying product.
2) Big well-financed engineering team -- not necessarily delivers well-engineered product.
3) Giving a vendor the second chance is, usually, a waste of time.
I knew that Google released buggy service back in 2012.
If Google Drive team was not able to produce working solution back then and allowed themselves to publish non-working product -- there is no good reason to expect the same team to fix these issues 6 years later.