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Arq for Windows finally available (arqbackup.com)
55 points by bvrlt on May 10, 2015 | hide | past | favorite | 30 comments


I really like the philosophy of Arq:

- especially: owning the encryption keys [1].

- agnostic of the storage (S3, Glacier, Dropbox etc. can be used)

- documented backup format

[1] https://www.haystacksoftware.com/blog/2014/10/its-not-about-...


(I'm the guy who wrote Arq) If you have any questions or run into issues, please let me know, either here or via email: support at arqbackup.com


Would you consider also creating a linux, preferably CLI, version?


Ys, it's on the to-do list.


That's the best news I've read in a while, thank you. Looking forward to it very much!


I'd use that in a heartbeat. +1


seconded, i think it would be a good alternative to duplicity


I love arq but run into an issue where my laptop fans spin up every time a backup is run. Is there an option to `nice` the daemon so it uses less cpu but takes a little longer? Arq on os x


It's always been nice'd to the lowest possible priority. It's on my to-do list to figure out how to make it not spin your fans up. Sorry about it.


Is there any chance of ever getting an IOS client to browser backups again?

I love arq, but I always have to keep a 2nd kind of cloud sync going to be able to view files from backups while on the go.


Don't know, sorry. Haven't gotten that many requests for it and lots of other stuff on the list.


Are things progressing with the Amazon Cloud Drive (Unlimited Everything) support? I think would get you a bunch of new users. I'm really eager to try it out.


Yes, working with Amazon on it.


That's incredibly nice to hear. When/if that's working I'm on the Arc bandwagon!


Hi, do you have an estimate when the SFTP option will be available in the Windows version? I have heard it exists in the OSX version.


As soon as possible. It's high priority on the to-do list.


This is great news! Any chance I can use this to backup to Hubic's service? In theory I could mount Hubic on a Rapsberry and then sftp to the Raspberry from Arq, but it would be great if I could do it directly.


Not right now, sorry.


Thanks, no problem.

Do you think the mounting 'trick' would work or is that just a dumb idea? :)


Don't know enough about what you're describing. If you can mount Hubic as a drive, then maybe mount it to your Mac, and then tell Arq to SFTP to localhost. (Backing up to a local folder is on the to-do list but the SFTP approach is a workaround.)


I still use Backblaze to backup my media server (several TBs of data), but I recently switched to Arq on my laptop. It is fast, reliable, and at least if your data requirements aren't too vast, very cheap.


As a long time crashplan user, I backup a few Tb of data and use the key based encryption. Does arq fall flate in comparison to anyone? I like the sound of this, but I am wondering if I gain anything versus using cradhplan to just write the files locally instead of sending to crashplans storage.


Open format.


I wonder. Assume you do not have arqbackup, and--for the sake of your short open format comment--arq_restore is outdated. You have downloaded all the data chunks (the many, many, many arq creates), how do you go by to decrypt it and get the original data in working state?


I'm not sure what you mean by outdated; it seems to work fine. If not, you read https://www.arqbackup.com/s3_data_format.txt and write your own. In contrast, what do you do with your Crashplan data if you don't have access to Crashplan? It's lost.


I don't really care much for the Windows version, but I'm a user of Arq on Mac OS. I used CrashPlan and Backblaze before that, for a couple of years, but had issues with both.

I would like to point out something many people overlook. If you use an online backup service, check how decryption is done. If you have to supply your decryption password to an on-line form, somebody has access to your data, and all the encryption has been for nothing (this was my problem with Backblaze).

Arq is great, because it decouples storage from backup. You pay for Arq, which buys you a backup program, and you buy storage separately, from any of the supported providers. You can also switch storage providers over the long term. I am very happy with this approach.

Arq has also proven to be much more reliable than either Crashplan or Backblaze's client app.


Arq's client app was much less reliable for me than Backblaze on OSX. But it has been over a year since I switched.


Where's the key file saved on the Windows' directory?


In C:\ProgramData\Arq\keychain.


Arq is one of my favourite pieces of software.




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