Hello everyone,
Just wanted to share my experience. I created SFTP server on Amazon AWS thinking that I could use FreeFileSync feature to sync to SFTP to save my backups on AWS. What is especially valuable about FreeFileSync is that I it supports versioning, unlike most of other backups which can only sync one latest version. So it was my first choice. I wish FreeFileSync supported Glacier folders or at least AWS S3 buckets. Oh well, still a good product overall and I am grateful for all other features.
I tried to make SFTP work with FreeFileSync version 11.25. It did not work, no matter what I did and how I tried to connect to my AWS SFTP server. I looked up feedback about it from every user on every forum I could find. I thought I followed everything precisely, but maybe I did not, and maybe I was mistaken somewhere. I'd appreciate if anyone could share instructions how it actually WORKED for them, including setting up SFTP access on AWS. But that is not the main problem that I wanted to share. It did not work and that is the end of it, I uninstalled FreeFileSync very unfortunately (or fortunately) and I thought it was the end of story.
Now, the actual story.
I did not delete my AWS test account and did not delete SFTP "server" as they call it. Maybe I did not create SFTP "access" as opposed to "server" but that is the only SFTP I could find to try it with
FreeFileSync.
SURPRISE! A month later I got a bill from Amazon AWS for $250 !!! WTF! I never even had a single successful connection from FreeFileSync using SFTP!
I contacted Amazon AWS and found out that apparently that SFTP "server" is charged "PER HOUR". Yes, that is right, something like $0.3 per hour! So roughly in a month or so, plus some pro-rated time, it racked up a $250 for just sitting there idle. I never knew it needed to be started or stopped or even that AWS charges HOURLY!
Now you know! So be careful and act accordingly.
You are welcome :-)
I still don't know what did I do wrong and why it never worked and why I ended up signing up for something that AWS charge hourly, yet I never started or stopped. Just the fact of creating it and leaving idle racked up the charges.
Hope you can do netter and learn from my experience.
Or describe yours if you were able to successfully set it up without ridiculous charges.
FreeFileSync with AWS SFTP disaster
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- Joined: 13 Jan 2020
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- Joined: 8 May 2006
Explain what happened & ask them to credit your account.
- Posts: 8
- Joined: 13 Jan 2020
Yes, thank you, it is in progress.
At first they pointed me to their doc showing prices and that it is charged hourly. I still don't understand how creating an interface (even if they called it a "server") can possibly be charged hourly. For what? For just interface's existence? Think of regular FTP, or FTPS or HTTP or RDP - anything. Plus i never started or stopped it, I simply created SFTP interface at the only place i could find where to create it and left it alone. Does not make any sense to me. There was not a single successful connection to it, not a single file transferred and there were never "keep alive" sessions. Weird and just does not feel right. After a little bit of back and forth presenting AWS with the same arguments they promised to do a refund but as of yet, they did charge my credit card automatically and I don't see any refund yet. So my main point was to share with the public to help others not to get into the same situation.
On another note, if anybody was able to successfully backup local files to Amazon AWS using FreeFileSync, it would be great to see how exactly it worked. S3 Drive is not a solution, unfortunately, because it is leaving the AWS S3 always mounted as a drive, always connected. It means that it is vulnerable to ransomware. If it ever infected the local computer, it will also certainly infect that drive. FastGlacier is not really a backup solution mainly because of no versioning at all. Also hard for end users to automate backups. MSP360 has its own problems too, with versioning and not storing files in their original format within original folder structure.
Also a wish for FreeFileSync developers if then notice this:
It would be great if FreeFileSync could support true versioning. For example, like Windows File History does it - it simply adds a timestamp after the file name for every version of the file. Something like this would be tremendous help, if done in a simplified way.
Thank you everyone for reading.
At first they pointed me to their doc showing prices and that it is charged hourly. I still don't understand how creating an interface (even if they called it a "server") can possibly be charged hourly. For what? For just interface's existence? Think of regular FTP, or FTPS or HTTP or RDP - anything. Plus i never started or stopped it, I simply created SFTP interface at the only place i could find where to create it and left it alone. Does not make any sense to me. There was not a single successful connection to it, not a single file transferred and there were never "keep alive" sessions. Weird and just does not feel right. After a little bit of back and forth presenting AWS with the same arguments they promised to do a refund but as of yet, they did charge my credit card automatically and I don't see any refund yet. So my main point was to share with the public to help others not to get into the same situation.
On another note, if anybody was able to successfully backup local files to Amazon AWS using FreeFileSync, it would be great to see how exactly it worked. S3 Drive is not a solution, unfortunately, because it is leaving the AWS S3 always mounted as a drive, always connected. It means that it is vulnerable to ransomware. If it ever infected the local computer, it will also certainly infect that drive. FastGlacier is not really a backup solution mainly because of no versioning at all. Also hard for end users to automate backups. MSP360 has its own problems too, with versioning and not storing files in their original format within original folder structure.
Also a wish for FreeFileSync developers if then notice this:
It would be great if FreeFileSync could support true versioning. For example, like Windows File History does it - it simply adds a timestamp after the file name for every version of the file. Something like this would be tremendous help, if done in a simplified way.
Thank you everyone for reading.
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 3 Dec 2022
Just a quick note. AWS S3 offers versioning as well. If you were attacked by ransomware, all it could do it create an encrypted version of your existing documents without ever affecting the existing documents. You can also setup lifecycle policies to handle how long you want to keep previous versions of objects/files.
