Backups 2022 with Nextcloud and WinRAR securely stored for the long term
After I said goodbye to Tresorit, I needed an alternative. I looked at popular solutions like Google Drive, One Drive, Proton Drive, Dropbox and Nextcloud.
Additionally, I looked at the tools Boxcryptor and Cryptomator. I was not satisfied with either tool.
With all cloud providers, I don’t have “zero knowledge” encryption, meaning an attacker could easily view the data there. Nextcloud does try to help somewhat here, e.g. with server-side encryption and even true “zero knowledge” encryption (when using encrypted folders), but Nextcloud regularly fails for me due to the extremely high number of very small files.
I simply ruled out storing the data at Google Drive in the first place and still opted for Nextcloud. Especially since my hoster in Germany stores the data on a multiple mirrored RAID array and also keeps 7-day backups
The problem with the small files and the “zero knowledge” encryption I have solved simply. I create a backup myself with WinRAR and encrypt these backups with WinRAR’s built-in AES 256-bit encryption
With an appropriately strong password of more than 40 mixed characters, the level of protection should be more than high enough – in case a rare incident does occur.
Another advantage of the manual backup is the possibility to split the archives into 2 GB partial packages and add “recovery data”. So if one of the partial archives is damaged, chances are good that the files can still be unpacked.
If you need even more security, you could also first store the data encrypted in a VeraCrypt container and then create a RAR archive of the container (with recovery data). I have also had very good experiences with this combination in the past.
Another problem with Nextcloud for me was always the unreliable client (probably because of the armada of small files). Uploads are also not exactly comfortable via the web interface. Therefore, I decided to buy Filezille Pro without further ado. The Pro version supports WebDAV – with which Nextcloud can be “controlled”. This gives me the comfort of a very good client and I can be sure that all files are transferred even if the upload takes several days.