This article provides recommendations for users who are weighing the benefits of:
Automatic backup. Wasabi partners with hundreds of different backup and file transfer storage applications that support the S3 API and can be used with Wasabi.
Drag-and-drop file transfer using Wasabi Explorer.
Automatic Backup Applications
With an automatic backup application, you choose the files/folders you want to back up, the backup schedule, and other relevant parameters. Once you have done this, the backup application will bundle up your designated files/folders and send them to Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage.
The advantages of this approach are:
Everything is automatic. Once you set it up, the transfer of files to Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage is automatic (no user intervention is required).
These types of applications generally have advanced scheduling and other types of controls for bandwidth consumption, compute threads, and so on.
These applications enable you to restore all of your files simply.
All file metadata, including date/time information, is preserved.
These applications will generally perform deduplication and encryption functions to help with storage efficiency and security.
Backup applications store file history. You can restore all or a subset of your files from a point in time in the past.
The disadvantages of this approach are:
You cannot use the application to mount Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage as a mounted disk volume.
You cannot access the files outside of the application. This may be a problem if you need to quickly access an individual file outside of the backup application.
Examples of automatic backup applications that work well with Wasabi include Arq Backup and CloudBerry Backup. Refer to backup and file transfer storage applications for a comprehensive list and information about the compatibility of backup applications with Wasabi.
Drag-and-Drop File Transfer Applications
With a drag-and-drop application, you can mount cloud storage as a local disk volume. This allows you to easily write and read to/from Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage just like you would do any other disk volume or network drive.
The advantages of this approach are:
When you transfer files to Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage, the files are left in their native form. This makes it easy to access these files from any other application, including the Wasabi Console. This is in contrast to most automatic backup applications that encrypt and/or zip up all of the files/folders (which makes them unreadable from any application other than the backup application used to send the files to Wasabi).
If you are used to using mountable network drives or portable hard disks, mounting Wasabi cloud storage provides a similar user experience.
The disadvantages of this approach are:
The date/time information of the file is rewritten when you write to cloud storage (as it would if you were writing to any other disk volume). This may or may not make a difference for your use case.
These types of applications generally require some amount of local disk caching to work properly. This often means that if you are trying to transfer (for example) 10 GB to the cloud, you may need up to 20 GB of local disk space. This may be a problem if you are short on disk space on your local host.
These types of applications often do not have robust retry mechanisms. This means that if there is a transmission interruption, you may have to restart the transfer.
Examples of drag-and-drop file transfer applications that work well with Wasabi include Wasabi Explorer for Windows, CloudBerry Drive or Explorer, Cyberduck or Mountain Duck, and Expandrive. Refer to backup and file transfer storage applications for a comprehensive list and information about the compatibility of backup applications with Wasabi.
It is important to note that if you are looking for a file-sharing experience comparable to Google Drive or Dropbox, Wasabi is not a full replacement for this type of service.