Rclone, a command-line program for cloud storage, offers versatile solutions for backups. While Mega provides a user-friendly interface for file sharing and link sharing, its limitations regarding timestamp preservation led us to explore alternative storage providers for long-term archiving. Our primary need was secure, cost-effective storage without the emphasis on frequent file access or sharing.
We ultimately chose iDrive e2 S3 storage, an Rclone sponsor, due to its competitive pricing, robust technical capabilities, and flexible egress policies. This decision aligned with our core requirement of long-term storage rather than active file sharing. While platforms like Mega and pCloud excel at providing accessible interfaces for sharing, our existing pCloud setup sufficiently addressed those needs. Supporting the Rclone project by utilizing their sponsor’s service was an added benefit.
Mega does offer a dedicated command-line interface (CLI) capable of preserving original file timestamps during uploads. However, introducing another tool felt redundant since Rclone already handles our core backup tasks efficiently. A known limitation of Rclone with Mega is its inability to retain original timestamps, a point discussed in various online forums. Although Mega’s beta S4 storage might address this in the future, relying on a beta system for critical backups was not a viable option for us.
Our testing involved both encrypted and unencrypted scripts using Rclone and its built-in encryption feature, crypt, with iDrive. Setting up encrypted and unencrypted buckets within iDrive and configuring Rclone to interact with them streamlined the entire workflow.
iDrive’s performance proved consistently fast within our region. Notably, we observed performance variations based on the selected bucket region. We recommend experimenting with different regions during setup, as geographically closer locations didn’t always guarantee optimal speeds.
