I'm thinking of going with ATI Premium - here are my questions:

1. What's the best way to have both file and complete disk image backups - both in the cloud and locally? Would I have one job for disk image and another for files - or can it effectively be combined all into one type of backup?
2. How much storage do I need to purchase? I, of course, understand that currently my C/Windows and S/data drives total under 2 TB. My question is do I need to buy more storage (3 or 4 TB total) to account for multiple backup versions saved on the Acronis cloud?
3. If I run out of storage in the middle of the year, can I increase the storage in my plan? Would it be prorated?
4. Regarding the non-stop backup - 
   1. Does it run the disk continuously ("non-stop")?
   2. Does ATI preserve NTFS permissions for file backups?
   3. How often does it check for changes?
   4. How many versions are maintained on the cloud and for how long?

I very much appreciate any guidance in this.
Eliezer

Eliezer, I am not familiar with CrashPlan as have never used it, so not able to make any direct comparison here.

All full disk backup images will contain all files & folders that are present on the drive you have backed up.  Those files & folders are easily accessible via the Windows shell integration provided by ATI where you can just double-click on any .tib file and explore its contents, including using normal copy & paste commands etc.

Any files & folders backup image will always be stored in an Acronis .tib container file, the same as with disk backups.  There is the option of using the Acronis Sync feature but this will only work with either the Acronis Cloud or to another computer running ATI.

The amount of Cloud storage you need really will depend on the  volume of change you expect for your data and the time you want to save versions of data for, but would suggest you may need 3TB based on what you have told us.

Backups to the Acronis Cloud work differently to local or network backups.  For the Cloud tasks, only one Full backup is ever created for a task, after which all further backups are similar to a hybrid between differential and incremental backups, using a delta mechanism to identify changed data to minimise the volume of data to be uploaded to the Cloud.

You would need to speak with Acronis about the details of upgrading your Cloud storage if needed and how this would be applied.

Non-Stop Backup does not run the disk continuously but rather checks for changes regularly and backs up when needed.  You can only have one Non-Stop Backup task.  NTFS file permissions are preserved by default for Acronis backups but this can be changed in the configuration options. NSB is only applicable for local backup tasks, not for those to the Cloud.

I would recommend browsing through the ATI 2019 User Guide which can give you more specific information on all the features of the application.

Thanks, Steve, for your thorough reply, as always.

Any files & folders backup image will always be stored in an Acronis .tib container file, the same as with disk backups. 

So if I am going to always backup all files on a disk, is there any advantage in doing a file backup as opposed to a disk image?

NSB is only applicable for local backup tasks, not for those to the Cloud.

So ATI is unable to continually backup to the cloud? The value of backing up locally is limited... I'm honestly confused what the best way to backup my drives, then. I would ideally like images of C/Windows and S/data drives saved to the cloud. I'd definitely like a NSB on the S/data drive - and preferably of the C/Windows drive - and I'd prefer those saved to the cloud. What's the best way to accomplish this? Should I somehow use the B/staging drive to assist in that - like (locally) backing up to that then having ATI backup that to cloud?
I could really use (and would greatly appreciate) some advice on this one...

Non-Stop Backup does not run the disk continuously but rather checks for changes regularly and backs up when needed.

How often is that check run?
If I save a version of a file every 5 minutes, will it save all those versions to the cloud?
Will each of those versions remain retrievable forever?

So if I am going to always backup all files on a disk, is there any advantage in doing a file backup as opposed to a disk image?

Depends on what else is on your disk?  If this is also your OS drive with lots of installed applications, then making separate Files & Folders backups would be faster and can be actioned more often.

Online backups to the Cloud can be scheduled to run at a minimum of 1 hour intervals as shown in the screen image below:

See the ATI 2019 User Guide: Using Acronis Nonstop Backup - section which has the following information.

How it works

Once you start Acronis Nonstop Backup, the program will perform an initial full backup of the data selected for protection. Acronis Nonstop Backup will then continually monitor the protected files (including open ones). Once a modification is detected, the changed data is backed up. The shortest interval between the incremental backup operations is five minutes. This allows you to recover your system to an exact point in time.

Acronis Nonstop Backup checks file changes on the disk, not in the memory. If, for instance, you are working in Word and do not use the "Save" operation for a long time, your current changes in the Word document will not be backed up.

You may think that at these backup rates the storage will fill in no time. Do not worry as Acronis True Image 2019 will back up only so called "deltas". This means that only differences between old and new versions will be backed up and not whole changed files. For example, if you use Microsoft Outlook or Windows Mail, your pst file may be very large. Furthermore, it changes with each received or sent E-mail message. Backing up the entire pst file after each change would be an unacceptable waste of your storage space, so Acronis True Image 2019 backs up only its changed parts in addition to the initially backed up file.

Thank you very much. Could you please advise regarding this?

So ATI is unable to continually backup to the cloud? The value of backing up locally is limited... I'm honestly confused what the best way to backup my drives, then. I would ideally like images of C/Windows and S/data drives saved to the cloud. I'd definitely like a NSB on the S/data drive - and preferably of the C/Windows drive - and I'd prefer those saved to the cloud. What's the best way to accomplish this? Should I somehow use the B/staging drive to assist in that - like (locally) backing up to that then having ATI back that up to the cloud?

It's not a constant backup. You pick a schedule and it will backup at those intervals. You could do a daily backup... Or an hourly backup... Or a weekly backup. It will backup on that schedule then.

Depending on your plan, you could do something like...

1 backup a week for the entire hard drive

1 backup a day for your windows user profile DATA (my docs, photos, music, etc. ... Data files that can be restored that aren't embedded into the operating system, registry, etc.)

1 backup an hour for an extremely critical data filter that is constantly updating.

This is just an example though of what could be an effective plan with various options for recovery. Any backup could recover data as of the point in time it completed. Any changes nit captured after the last backup would be lost as it is not real time.

I almost forgot about the "Nonstop" backup option... it is available in cloud too.  It backups up approximately every 5 minutes after changes are detected.

I have never used nonstop so can't vouch for how well it works. I'd suggest testing it out yourself and seeing how well it meets your needs.

I'm a little bias on this method as it seemed to have issues in previous versions with local backups.  Issues as in it seemed that the backup job was more prone to corruption which required a new job to be created down the road.  Hopefully, that is resolved now, but it's been at least 2 years since I've played with this feature myself.

Personally, I have trouble with this one. 

1) nonstop, even locally seems resource intensive on the PC side.  Constantly checking the entire system for changes and firing off backups to capture them just feels like it's too good to be true (reliably).  Perhaps I'm wrong though.

2) nonstop to a local drive or local network share has shown to be problematic in the past.  Add the additional need for bandwidth using ISP upload speeds, data limits/caps on top of that seems like additional risk on top.  

If it does work in your environment though, it sounds like this is the option you're looking for.

60619: Acronis True Image 2018: retention rules in Nonstop backup to Cloud

NSB to the Acronis Cloud is only valid for Files & Folders type backups, not for Disk.

Nonstop Backup limitations

• You can create only one nonstop backup.
• Acronis Cloud cannot be used as a destination for a disk-level nonstop backup.
• Windows libraries (Documents, Music, etc.) can be protected with a disk-level nonstop backup only.
• You cannot protect data stored on external hard drives.
• Nonstop Backup and Try&Decide cannot work simultaneously.

So... does this plan make sense?

• Set the highest level folder on my S\data drive (1.75 TB) with NSB saving frequently to the cloud, which would preserve NTFS permissions on those files and folders.
• Weekly, create incremental disk images of each the S\data (1.75 TB) and C\Windows (125 GB) drives - and save them locally to my B\staging drive. (Those disk images are the only thing on the B\staging drive.)
• As soon as the previous step completes, backup the highest level folder of the B\staging drive to the cloud. (B\staging contains: initial backup = ~1.5 TB; weekly increments = 15 GB)
  Is this last step impractical? It would also likely push me from the 3 TB to the 4 TB storage requirement, right?

That seems feasible.

Personally, I would rely on the local storage for recovery and cloud as a secondary/offsite backup "just in case".  It will be immensely faster to recover that entire drive from a local backup than the cloud if you ever need to.  We're talking hours (maybe a day) to do a locally stored recovery vs days (potentially weeks or longer) to recover a disk of that size from the Cloud.

Offsite backups are great for redundancy, especially in case the primary backup is corrupted, lost, damaged or destroyed and are highly encouraged by me.  But the recovery time from the Cloud can be a real killer when there is a lot of data to restore. 

You might be able to avoid upping your online storage cost by using a local backup first (NSB location) and then doing a weekly incremental to the cloud as your offsite (secondary) backup job. 

Really your call on what you think is going to be the best option when you consider $, time and availability of recovery options though.  I imagine that initial backup to the Cloud is going to take quite some time to complete though if it's all being done over the wire.  I have 100Mpbs download / 10Mbps upload (but seem to get about 5 up most of the time) and it took 3 weeks of nearly continuous backup to get 600Gb of photos uploaded to the cloud.  While that was happening, none of the other backup jobs could run so I had to pause it at times to allow the other local backup jobs take place too.  The Cloud is just too slow for me to rely on as a main backup option (at least with the upload speeds available to me and what I'm willing to pay for them).