Which is the fastest backup destination?
We were curious to see the difference in backup speed to some of the more common backup destinations available in Ahsay v8.
Testing environment
Storage destinations
Local storage
Microsoft Azure blobs (UK)
Google Drive
Dropbox
Backup device
Windows 10 PC, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD
Internet connectivity
BT fibre DSL
Upload: 16Mbps
Download: 53Mbps
Ping 31ms
Testing method
We backed up some standard Windows files which were 87 GB when compressed.
All backups ran concurrently so we could compare upload speed side-by-side.
Misc. notes
Some of the lower cost options are Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive with storage costing less than £0.005 per GB. Very often storage is free because you or your customers will have a lot of free space available within an existing quota. Some flavours of these services will also give you unlimited storage, so the cost is zero.
All of these services were slower than some of the more traditional business services such as Microsoft Azure. Azure is backed by a solid SLA and not surprisingly it performed best in tests. Azure blobs are still well under £0.01 per GB and you only pay for what you use.
One thing we don’t mention in our tests is where Google Drive and Dropbox storage is located. The Azure region we tested is in London.
Result (listed in fastest to slowest)
1. Local storage was the quickest (not surprisingly).
2. Azure. Again this was expected because it is a service used by APPs and databases etc.
3. Dropbox
4. Google Drive