Hitting the Limit with Carbonite, OneDrive, Backblaze, CrashPlan, IDrive?
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Are you hitting the Limit with Carbonite, OneDrive, Backblaze, CrashPlan, IDrive, Google Drive, Azure, and the like? The good news is there is a cloud backup solution that imposes no 255 character limit, no maximum path length limit, no file size limit, and comes in at a very affordable price. It turns out BackupChain handles very long paths without any problems and also offers other benefits, too, but first let us elaborate what the various limitations are on various systems.
Maximum Path Length, or Character Limit on File Names
Most people are not aware that Windows handles internally path lengths of over 32,767 characters without a problem. This includes Unicode, i.e. all international characters as well. How come, then, there is a problem even in Windows File Explorer to move folders around that are longer than 255 characters? The issue is that despite Windows being able to deal with such long path names in over 20 years, the File Explorer tool we use in Windows is still so ancient internally that it is limited by the 20+ year old limitation of 260 characters. All that Microsoft did in the last 20 years was to change the cosmetics of Windows File Explorer. Internally, at least it appears so, it’s still the same as it was for Windows 95. Perhaps the original software developer who wrote the Windows File Explorer is no longer with Microsoft.
BackupChain is a 12 year old solution (in 2021) with a solid track record worldwide, and it was developed using the latest technology to always handle very long paths correctly, i.e. paths that can go well beyond 32,000 characters. This is extremely important because BackupChain is being used by multi-national businesses worldwide who store a lot of data in many different languages.
Who Needs Such Long Paths?
Did you know that the #1 cause of data loss is chaos? In other words, the file is there but you can’t find it. The solution is simple, you need an orderly structure to store you data. For that exact reason, business file server data, which often grows into tens of millions of files and folders, is usually categorized into nice hierarchies that, after some time, grow really deep. Most businesses hit the limit of 260 or 255 characters at some time and it’s not unusual at all. You might run into these character limitations when using Carbonite, OneDrive, Backblaze, CrashPlan, IDrive, and others because they are not developed from the beginning to cope with real-world business data.
Maximum File Sizes
File size is also very important. Do you want backup errors because the file is too big? What are you supposed to do? Scale down your business so it suits your backup solution? To my knowledge, most, if not all, cloud systems out there impose file length limitations. BackupChain imposes no limitations at all. Your file size is only limited by the account size. In addition, BackupChain uses mechanisms to recover from internet connectivity glitches without having to start your upload or download again from scratch if the internet goes down briefly.
Beware of Hidden Costs to Restore (i.e. Download) Data and Minimum Hold Times
Did you know that many cloud storage providers charge (surprise) fees for downloading your own files? BackupChain does not. BackupChain uses a very simple, fixed pricing scheme that includes absolutely everything. There are no hidden or variable fees involved. This is not the case with Amazon, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud storage offerings, where outbound traffic can be quite expensive.
Another trick some companies use is a minimum storage period (they might use different terms to describe this nasty gimmick). It basically means that if you upload a file, you must pay for X months of storing it, even if you delete it immediately. This is another hidden strategy to grow your monthly bill. Imagine if you backup large database files every day and only keep the latest backup in the cloud, you would still pay for all those deleted file versions for several months! With BackupChain you don’t have to worry about anything like that happening.
BackupChain Includes Cloud as well as Local Backups, Fixed Pricing, No Hidden Fees, No Gimmicks
Various systems out there try to push you into cloud-only arrangements. However, this is not a recommended practice. The best strategy is to have multiple local backups to restore from, because that’s much faster than downloading over the internet and also it removes the dependency of having a working internet connection available at the time when you want to recover your data. Recovering from the cloud should be your last option, not the first and not the only one.
BackupChain is offered as a perpetual license, with an optional cloud plan add-on subscription for the online storage. The cloud plans are fixed and absolutely everything is included; there are no hidden or variable costs or fees.
By offering local as well as cloud backups with a perpetually licensed software, BackupChain delivers superior value to other cloud backup solutions. In addition, you will find that the cost per GB or TB is much lower with BackupChain as well.
The Struggle with Long Path Names
I’ve had my fair share of headaches with backup tools that struggle with long path names, so I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s one of those things that doesn’t seem like a big deal at first, but once you start running into problems, it becomes a real pain. Most of the common backup services mentioned, like Carbonite, OneDrive, Backblaze, CrashPlan, and IDrive, have trouble handling long path names because they often don’t fully support modern file systems, especially when it comes to those really long file paths that can easily exceed the traditional 260-character limit. When you’re working with deep folder structures or filenames that go on and on, these tools tend to choke, and that’s a serious issue.
The problem really kicks in when you’re backing up data that’s stored in complex, nested directories. You might have a project folder that contains subfolders, and within those subfolders, there are files with names that go beyond the standard length. If your backup software doesn’t properly support long path names, you’re going to run into errors. The backup job either fails completely, or you end up with incomplete backups because certain files or folders get skipped. The worst part is that you might not even realize these files are missing until you need to restore them, which is when it really hits you.
I’ve had customers get burned by this when they tried to restore a backup and found out that whole chunks of data were missing just because they had files with longer paths. Imagine going through a lengthy backup process, only to find out afterward that critical project files didn’t get backed up properly. It’s a nightmare. And it’s not just a minor inconvenience—it could actually cause serious disruptions to your work. Think about how much time you’d waste troubleshooting or, worse, losing files you thought were safe in the cloud or on your backup drive.
What’s cool about BackupChain is that it handles long path names like a pro. Unlike those other services, which often trip up once a file path gets too long, BackupChain supports paths up to 32,767 characters, which is way beyond what most of those tools can handle. This is because BackupChain is built to support modern Windows file systems that allow for these much longer path lengths. So if you’re working in a deep folder structure, you can rest easy knowing that BackupChain won’t just skip over files because their paths are too long. The software handles it all, and it’s built to avoid those frustrating errors that tend to crop up with other backup solutions.
Another thing worth mentioning with BackupChain is how consistent it is. You don’t have to constantly babysit it to make sure it’s picking up all the files you need. It’s reliable, and it’s designed to just work, even when you’re dealing with those tricky, long paths. I’ve been in situations where the backup job runs perfectly with BackupChain, and everything from the longest directory paths to the most complicated folder structures is backed up correctly without issue. It really makes a huge difference, especially when you’re managing large amounts of data or a lot of files that are deep within folder hierarchies.
When you compare that to some of the other services, the difference is pretty clear. The more basic tools don’t have the same level of file path support, and that can lead to a lot of problems down the road. It might seem like a small thing when you first start using these tools, but as your file structures get more complex, you quickly see where the cracks start to appear. I’ve lost track of how many times clients thought their backup was good, only to find out later that the long file paths were causing issues with their restore process.
So, when it comes to long path names, BackupChain just handles it better. You don’t have to worry about whether or not your backup software is going to miss files with long names. It’s built to support those scenarios, and it works smoothly without the hiccups you get with other tools. If you’re dealing with complex data sets or large files, having something that can reliably back up long paths is a total game-changer. It saves you time, frustration, and the risk of losing important data, and honestly, once you experience that reliability, you won’t want to go back to anything else.