4 ms·

Backblaze use Reed Solomon / Erasure Coding for their data, plus checksumming with healing, which means that it should be very safe. Their main disadvantage is

by olavgg 10y ago

Backblaze use Reed Solomon / Erasure Coding for their data, plus checksumming with healing, which means that it should be very safe. Their main disadvantage is that they only have one datacenter, unless they have gotten a second one recently.

mjevans 10y ago
I was suitable impressed with their description of the singular (I believe) data center they own. Even though it is in an area that is at risk for a major earthquake it seems to be at the upper end of engineering specifications. Having said that, if your data is absolutely critical then I agree that even further geographic diversity would be desirable. Most likely you want to avoid the Pacific Rim, and volatile countries. A central European site/company would be good for this. Obviously you should expect to pay more to store your data in more than one place.
- brianwski 10y ago
  Brian from Backblaze here so I'm biased. :-) > if your data is absolutely critical then I agree that even further geographic diversity would be desirable I think geographic distribution is absolutely critical if you need "uptime". But for pure durability I think multiple geographic regions is a red herring. What you need much more than multiple geographic regions is having your data stored in two profoundly different formats with two profoundly different vendors with source code written by two separate teams. Furthermore, I would pay for those with two separate credit cards. The same software bug (or lack of payment resulting in Backblaze B2 or Amazon S3 deleting ALL copies of your data) will delete your data flawlessly across geographic regions. Every time. Backblaze carefully chose our main datacenter to not be in an earthquake zone, and on a hill (flood proof), and not in tornado zone, and no hurricanes. I suppose that in the case of a meteor strike on a datacenter or terrorist attack some geographic regions would help, but that is really diminishing returns compared with software or human error. If you truly value your data, two regions won't save you -> two vendors will.
  - dyu- 10y ago
    > If you truly value your data, two regions won't save you -> two vendors will. Never thought of that. It is costly but still, great advice!

by olavgg 10y ago

mjevans 10y ago

I was suitable impressed with their description of the singular (I believe) data center they own. Even though it is in an area that is at risk for a major earthquake it seems to be at the upper end of engineering specifications. Having said that, if your data is absolutely critical then I agree that even further geographic diversity would be desirable. Most likely you want to avoid the Pacific Rim, and volatile countries. A central European site/company would be good for this. Obviously you should expect to pay more to store your data in more than one place.

brianwski 10y ago
Brian from Backblaze here so I'm biased. :-) > if your data is absolutely critical then I agree that even further geographic diversity would be desirable I think geographic distribution is absolutely critical if you need "uptime". But for pure durability I think multiple geographic regions is a red herring. What you need much more than multiple geographic regions is having your data stored in two profoundly different formats with two profoundly different vendors with source code written by two separate teams. Furthermore, I would pay for those with two separate credit cards. The same software bug (or lack of payment resulting in Backblaze B2 or Amazon S3 deleting ALL copies of your data) will delete your data flawlessly across geographic regions. Every time. Backblaze carefully chose our main datacenter to not be in an earthquake zone, and on a hill (flood proof), and not in tornado zone, and no hurricanes. I suppose that in the case of a meteor strike on a datacenter or terrorist attack some geographic regions would help, but that is really diminishing returns compared with software or human error. If you truly value your data, two regions won't save you -> two vendors will.
- dyu- 10y ago
  > If you truly value your data, two regions won't save you -> two vendors will. Never thought of that. It is costly but still, great advice!