# A question concerning MANUAL & INEXPENSIVE DTP3 backups **URL:** \ **Category:** DEVONthink\ **Created:** [January 20, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/a-question-concerning-manual-inexpensive-dtp3-backups/69093 "2022-01-20T17:57:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 47

**Author:** ![chrk](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@chrk](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/chrk)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2022, 6:48pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/a-question-concerning-manual-inexpensive-dtp3-backups/69093/47 "2022-01-28T18:48:58Z")

> [@DCBerk](#): > > My question for the group: Arq? As is my wont, I looked up most recent reviews and Arq doesn’t do very well. And nobody here mentioned Backblaze (which I learned about here), which gets very good reviews. Something I’ve missed? I’ve used Arq and Backblaze in the past. I dropped Backblaze a while ago. Arq had issues with version 6. Version 5 and 7 never caused issues for me. Restores work as expected. Backblaze spends a lot on marketing, but their software quality seems to have an amateurish touch (bugs, longstanding security issues, questionable design decisions and other things giving them a really bad look) that several people/engineers highlighted while I was looking on Twitter and Hackernews a while back (examples linked in the comment below): > [@Confused on the correct way to backup all my devonthink data, advice appreciate slight\_smile](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/confused-on-the-correct-way-to-backup-all-my-devonthink-data-advice-appreciate/53255/30): > > I used both Backblaze Personal and Arq in the past, but stopped using Backblaze recently. They were always very political in what they didn’t back up (Finder tags…), but given their low pricing I kept using the product in addition to Arq (I would never have been comfortable with Backblaze as my main remote backup). Due to missteps stacking up over the last 12 months or so, I canceled my subscription. The main issues bothering me are related to security & software quality and their politcal sta… In addition to those issues, they don’t really back up all your data: > [@Backblaze backup of metadata...are forum warnings still valid?](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/backblaze-backup-of-metadata-are-forum-warnings-still-valid/68494/5): > > I second @Blanc 's assumption. When I was still using Backblaze, restores lost metadata like Finder tags, but that applied to single files, like PDFs. The image or even a regular Devonthink database backup should work without losing metadata of the files contained in that package. However, I would certainly test it again in your case. If you search the Backblaze subreddit, they are quite opinionated about not supporting metadata like Finder tags, because, according to them, they serve no go… Here is a comment quoting Backblaze themselves on this: > [@Backblaze backup of metadata...are forum warnings still valid?](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/backblaze-backup-of-metadata-are-forum-warnings-still-valid/68494/7): > > FWIW, here’s the response from Backblaze support: “Extended attributes aren’t included in the backed up files. This means no finder comments, no finder tags, no quarantine information, and a few other items. Permissions and modified dates are retained. Creation dates are technically backed up as well but they aren’t retained when restoring a file so they’re essentially not backed up as well. You might also find modified dates to be changed to the date that files are restored via zip restore a… Encrypted DT databases can’t be backed up unless open. Some other issues I encountered while using Backblaze: - No zero knowledge encryption because restores aren’t possible without giving them your password. - Web restores have to be divided in dozens of parts because of some limitation. - You have to request the restores, which can take days if your backup size is bigger than a few hundred GB. - No real search feature for all your backups. You have to reload the restore website, navigate to a date, look for your data and then reload the whole page if you need to navigate to another date. - Their downloader app crashes a lot while restoring files. - I often had to force quit their backup agent process because Backblaze didn’t see changes. - Their backup is said to run constantly, but in reality it was mostly every 4-6 hours. In comparison, Arq has better features: - Immutable backups. - You can schedule as needed. - Snapshot based backups. - Zero knowledge encryption. - Restores without any delay. - Restores to a chosen folder or the original location. - Search that finds all versions of your files easily, no navigation in a calendar view necessary. - Multiple destinations, remote and local backups. - Smaller CPU footprint and more responsive software. - No limitations with external drives. - NAS support. - … --- _[View the full topic](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/a-question-concerning-manual-inexpensive-dtp3-backups/69093)._