10 ms·

In my mental checklist of evaluating new products and services, Backblaze has always gone above and beyond while Crashplan irritated me enough to make me switch

In my mental checklist of evaluating new products and services, Backblaze has always gone above and beyond while Crashplan irritated me enough to make me switch: * Are they one of the market leaders? * Do they have a company blog? Are they passionate about their product? (Backblaze's technical articles are always a treat; barely a word from Crashplan.) * Do they regularly interact with their users, e.g. on HN? (I often see Backblaze commenting on relevant articles.) * Is their website user-focused, or is it aimed at the enterprise? (Crashplan's website is a confusing mess.) * Do they offer secondary products that relate to their primary offering? (B2 leverages Backblaze's fine-tuned backup architecture.) * Is their software well-built/designed, or is it annoying and bloated? (Crashplan's client forces you to wait for reindexing every time you check a new folder! The tree view is also very annoying, and Backblaze's whitelist just makes a whole lot more sense.) A shame for Crashplan users, but I hope this change ensures BB's longevity for many more years!

marcinzm 9y ago
Sadly Backblaze fails the main criteria of my mental checklist: * Can it backup linux machines?
- sliken 9y ago
  Just use backblaze's B2. There's integrations with dupliciti among others.
  - brianwski 9y ago
    Disclosure: I work at Backblaze. You can see a list of integrations here: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html
rrauenza 9y ago
My main problem with BackBlaze is a lack of a Linux solution: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664628-Is-Backblaze-going-to-offer-Linux-support- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664628-Is-Ba...
- brianwski 9y ago
  Disclosure: I work at Backblaze. For Linux, Backblaze offers "B2 Object Storage". You can choose all sorts of Linux 3rd party clients! The billing is different -> half of 1 penny per GByte per month. This is cheaper for less than a Terabyte, and can be a bit more expensive for more than a Terabyte. Check the "integrations" page for pictures of a penguin: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html Among others, CloudBerry, Duplicity, GoodSync, and HashBackup are all options that can store files on Backblaze's reliable storage in our datacenter.
  - blacktulip 9y ago
    Is there any chance that one day Backblaze will do the same as Crashplan does today?
    - donald123 9y ago
      no one can predict the future.
    - brianwski 9y ago
      Disclaimer: I'm biased because I work at Backblaze. I'm also one of the founders. Backblaze started in my living room in Palo Alto. Backblaze is A LOT LESS LIKELY to exit out of providing consumer online backup anytime soon as it is our primary business. I don't fully understand what just occurred with CrashPlan, but they had two separate "clients" - one for consumers and one for businesses. As far as I can tell, CrashPlan is discontinuing one of their two clients but doubling down on the "business client". I don't understand how they got into that situation, but Backblaze only has one backup client so we can't really abandon the one true client we have. :-) Finally, Backblaze is profoundly different than CrashPlan in that we never really raised any bank financing or VC financing. We're 90% employee owned, and there are no deep pockets. CrashPlan raised something like $150 million which comes with "pressure to grow fast or die". Backblaze is free of any such pressure, we own our own fate. In a final note: I have ALWAYS liked CrashPlan and I am sad to see them go. Realistically they were never a "competitor" to Backblaze. Our biggest competitor was customer apathy and customers not realizing that online backup was a good option. The more money companies like Carbonite and CrashPlan poured into advertising INCREASED Backblaze sales merely by raising awareness of online backup. CrashPlan (and Carbonite) have been absolutely wonderful to Backblaze because we didn't have the gigantic amounts of money to advertise that they had and they essentially advertise on our behalf (for free). We also know some of the CrashPlan people and I believe they are good people who want the best for their customers.
jcurbo 9y ago
Guessing Backblaze is getting a lot of hits right now, their site is slow for me.
jamiemchale 9y ago
The key drawback for Backblaze for me is their lack of decent external HDD support. If you don't connect your external drive for 30 days then the files are marked for deletion. I usually keep my photo library on external HDD and archive every few months from my laptop. I'd be anxious about not remembering to plug back in to keep the files backed up to the cloud. If Backblaze sorted this out and extended the time to a year then I'd happily sign up again.
- archagon 9y ago
  Agreed, it's a bit annoying. Wish they would fix it, or at least extend the limit. (Also, I can't seem to get one of my USB sticks to reset even when plugged in. Do they get queued up if there's a longer backup in progress?)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
5_minutes 9y ago
Their 30 day file retention policy makes all these questions irrelevant. "Do they have a blog"? Really? I'm sorry but when it comes to backups I rather have them working on the product instead of having a marketing machine up and running.
- archagon 9y ago
  There's a pronounced difference between flat-out marketing and posting interesting articles that help promote your product. It's clear to me which side of the divide Backblaze lies on. And I think Crashplan's shuttering bears this out: their tech was always a means to an end for them, and their end simply did not include power users.
  - 5_minutes 9y ago
    There's only so much interesting posts to do about "backups". It's a boring product, like "email". So you don't use gmail because the team doesn't do enough enthousiastic posts about it? This is typically a product you just want to work and are not busy with reading the company's blog as long as things are working fine. You set the settings and can forget about it. That said, your whole post seems somewhat biased.
  - gt_ 9y ago
    This is basically the marketing that got Backblaze it's respect. The service features and GUI experience fall short, and yes I am widely just referring to the 30 day file retention. In practice, this basically means you need yet another plan to make up for that. Once you find that other plan, it should make Backblaze unnecessary if it works in a reasonable way.
- sshanky 9y ago
  I've always been a big fan of BB's blog, and have recommended their approach to friends and clients for their own blogs and sites. Their data, plans, and progress are not only interesting to people who care about the industry, but it's also a window into the kind of people they are. Proud of their accomplishments (their backup servers, which they've open sourced), and their tools (like their server lifts).
zippergz 9y ago
I switched from Backblaze to Crashplan a few years ago, and I've been MUCH happier with Crashplan. The biggest issue is that, at least on Mac, Backblaze noticeably slowed down the machines (multiple machines, not just a problem on one), while Crashplan didn't. Any backup software that makes my computer feel slow, creates regular beachballs, etc. is not something I'm going to pay for. Then the nail in the coffin for them was when I very carefully followed their instructions for migrating to a new computer, and yet it STILL insisted on starting from zero and backing up everything again. I figured if I had to backup from scratch anyway, I might as well do a trial run of something else, and I haven't looked back since. So, this news makes me very sad, but there's no way I'm returning to Backblaze...
- brianwski 9y ago
  Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze, and I'm one of the main people who writes the client. I would encourage you to try the Backblaze client again. We JUST released the 5.0 client (last week) and we continue to make little fixes that improve the customer experience. The client team's MAIN GOAL has always been that the client run in "Continuously" mode and NOT annoy the customer. For example, even up until a year ago we didn't realize how reading certain datastructures from disk that we need to backup were hurting performance in non-SSD based computers. As developers we tend to run with SSDs now, so it went undetected for a while. So we're in the process of making that more and more invisible for customers still on on spinning drives in their laptops. The way we do make this invisible is actually slowing down the reading of those data structures so that it doesn't interrupt what you are doing. > and yet it STILL insisted on starting from zero and backing up everything again If you do an "Inherit Backup State" you will not re-upload everything. However, Backblaze has to read EVERY file off of local disk and compare the checksums (SHA1) and if the files have moved it must deduplicate and record the new location, so this can appear like a massive load on your computer for a few hours. I would encourage you to open the Network control panel and notice no files are actually pushed.
  - gt_ 9y ago
    It's pretty clear in the comments here that all efforts other than solving the 30 day file retention limit are going to be a waste of time until you address this. It simply reduces the utility of the product to the point that you need yet another product that will almost inherently render yor product unnecessary. Until you address this, I can't reason investing time, processor performance, or the tiny monthly payment. Complete backup plans are taken seriously by myself and other HN users and when one tries to put one together and include Backblaze, it just doesn't add up. Maybe you could make a blog post that addresses your recommendations head on. I remain open!
rdtsc 9y ago
* Do they have a Linux client? -No * Do they allow you to recover deleted files? -No (I have used this a few times, it saved some of the digitized family photos which I blew away with an rsync --delete flag) * Do they offer secondary products that relate to their primary offering? Ok, I can read that as they are stretching too thin not focusing on backups enough. Will they announce they are dropping out of consumer backups and moving on to B2 as their main product? * Is their software well-built/designed, or is it annoying and bloated? - Currently is doesn't run at all on my systems.
- skrause 9y ago
  * Do they allow a data restore without you giving them your encryption password? - No: https://www.backblaze.com/backup-encryption.html https://www.backblaze.com/backup-encryption.html
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    Ha, that was surprising indeed: " we decrypt your data on our secure restore servers and we then zip it and send " That seems shady to me

marcinzm 9y ago

Sadly Backblaze fails the main criteria of my mental checklist: * Can it backup linux machines?

sliken 9y ago
Just use backblaze's B2. There's integrations with dupliciti among others.
- brianwski 9y ago
  Disclosure: I work at Backblaze. You can see a list of integrations here: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html

rrauenza 9y ago

My main problem with BackBlaze is a lack of a Linux solution: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664628-Is-Backblaze-going-to-offer-Linux-support- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664628-Is-Ba...

brianwski 9y ago
Disclosure: I work at Backblaze. For Linux, Backblaze offers "B2 Object Storage". You can choose all sorts of Linux 3rd party clients! The billing is different -> half of 1 penny per GByte per month. This is cheaper for less than a Terabyte, and can be a bit more expensive for more than a Terabyte. Check the "integrations" page for pictures of a penguin: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html Among others, CloudBerry, Duplicity, GoodSync, and HashBackup are all options that can store files on Backblaze's reliable storage in our datacenter.
- blacktulip 9y ago
  Is there any chance that one day Backblaze will do the same as Crashplan does today?
  - donald123 9y ago
    no one can predict the future.
  - brianwski 9y ago
    Disclaimer: I'm biased because I work at Backblaze. I'm also one of the founders. Backblaze started in my living room in Palo Alto. Backblaze is A LOT LESS LIKELY to exit out of providing consumer online backup anytime soon as it is our primary business. I don't fully understand what just occurred with CrashPlan, but they had two separate "clients" - one for consumers and one for businesses. As far as I can tell, CrashPlan is discontinuing one of their two clients but doubling down on the "business client". I don't understand how they got into that situation, but Backblaze only has one backup client so we can't really abandon the one true client we have. :-) Finally, Backblaze is profoundly different than CrashPlan in that we never really raised any bank financing or VC financing. We're 90% employee owned, and there are no deep pockets. CrashPlan raised something like $150 million which comes with "pressure to grow fast or die". Backblaze is free of any such pressure, we own our own fate. In a final note: I have ALWAYS liked CrashPlan and I am sad to see them go. Realistically they were never a "competitor" to Backblaze. Our biggest competitor was customer apathy and customers not realizing that online backup was a good option. The more money companies like Carbonite and CrashPlan poured into advertising INCREASED Backblaze sales merely by raising awareness of online backup. CrashPlan (and Carbonite) have been absolutely wonderful to Backblaze because we didn't have the gigantic amounts of money to advertise that they had and they essentially advertise on our behalf (for free). We also know some of the CrashPlan people and I believe they are good people who want the best for their customers.

jcurbo 9y ago

Guessing Backblaze is getting a lot of hits right now, their site is slow for me.

jamiemchale 9y ago

The key drawback for Backblaze for me is their lack of decent external HDD support. If you don't connect your external drive for 30 days then the files are marked for deletion. I usually keep my photo library on external HDD and archive every few months from my laptop. I'd be anxious about not remembering to plug back in to keep the files backed up to the cloud. If Backblaze sorted this out and extended the time to a year then I'd happily sign up again.

archagon 9y ago
Agreed, it's a bit annoying. Wish they would fix it, or at least extend the limit. (Also, I can't seem to get one of my USB sticks to reset even when plugged in. Do they get queued up if there's a longer backup in progress?)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

5_minutes 9y ago

Their 30 day file retention policy makes all these questions irrelevant. "Do they have a blog"? Really? I'm sorry but when it comes to backups I rather have them working on the product instead of having a marketing machine up and running.

archagon 9y ago
There's a pronounced difference between flat-out marketing and posting interesting articles that help promote your product. It's clear to me which side of the divide Backblaze lies on. And I think Crashplan's shuttering bears this out: their tech was always a means to an end for them, and their end simply did not include power users.
- 5_minutes 9y ago
  There's only so much interesting posts to do about "backups". It's a boring product, like "email". So you don't use gmail because the team doesn't do enough enthousiastic posts about it? This is typically a product you just want to work and are not busy with reading the company's blog as long as things are working fine. You set the settings and can forget about it. That said, your whole post seems somewhat biased.
- gt_ 9y ago
  This is basically the marketing that got Backblaze it's respect. The service features and GUI experience fall short, and yes I am widely just referring to the 30 day file retention. In practice, this basically means you need yet another plan to make up for that. Once you find that other plan, it should make Backblaze unnecessary if it works in a reasonable way.
sshanky 9y ago
I've always been a big fan of BB's blog, and have recommended their approach to friends and clients for their own blogs and sites. Their data, plans, and progress are not only interesting to people who care about the industry, but it's also a window into the kind of people they are. Proud of their accomplishments (their backup servers, which they've open sourced), and their tools (like their server lifts).

zippergz 9y ago

I switched from Backblaze to Crashplan a few years ago, and I've been MUCH happier with Crashplan. The biggest issue is that, at least on Mac, Backblaze noticeably slowed down the machines (multiple machines, not just a problem on one), while Crashplan didn't. Any backup software that makes my computer feel slow, creates regular beachballs, etc. is not something I'm going to pay for. Then the nail in the coffin for them was when I very carefully followed their instructions for migrating to a new computer, and yet it STILL insisted on starting from zero and backing up everything again. I figured if I had to backup from scratch anyway, I might as well do a trial run of something else, and I haven't looked back since. So, this news makes me very sad, but there's no way I'm returning to Backblaze...

brianwski 9y ago
Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze, and I'm one of the main people who writes the client. I would encourage you to try the Backblaze client again. We JUST released the 5.0 client (last week) and we continue to make little fixes that improve the customer experience. The client team's MAIN GOAL has always been that the client run in "Continuously" mode and NOT annoy the customer. For example, even up until a year ago we didn't realize how reading certain datastructures from disk that we need to backup were hurting performance in non-SSD based computers. As developers we tend to run with SSDs now, so it went undetected for a while. So we're in the process of making that more and more invisible for customers still on on spinning drives in their laptops. The way we do make this invisible is actually slowing down the reading of those data structures so that it doesn't interrupt what you are doing. > and yet it STILL insisted on starting from zero and backing up everything again If you do an "Inherit Backup State" you will not re-upload everything. However, Backblaze has to read EVERY file off of local disk and compare the checksums (SHA1) and if the files have moved it must deduplicate and record the new location, so this can appear like a massive load on your computer for a few hours. I would encourage you to open the Network control panel and notice no files are actually pushed.
- gt_ 9y ago
  It's pretty clear in the comments here that all efforts other than solving the 30 day file retention limit are going to be a waste of time until you address this. It simply reduces the utility of the product to the point that you need yet another product that will almost inherently render yor product unnecessary. Until you address this, I can't reason investing time, processor performance, or the tiny monthly payment. Complete backup plans are taken seriously by myself and other HN users and when one tries to put one together and include Backblaze, it just doesn't add up. Maybe you could make a blog post that addresses your recommendations head on. I remain open!

rdtsc 9y ago

* Do they have a Linux client? -No * Do they allow you to recover deleted files? -No (I have used this a few times, it saved some of the digitized family photos which I blew away with an rsync --delete flag) * Do they offer secondary products that relate to their primary offering? Ok, I can read that as they are stretching too thin not focusing on backups enough. Will they announce they are dropping out of consumer backups and moving on to B2 as their main product? * Is their software well-built/designed, or is it annoying and bloated? - Currently is doesn't run at all on my systems.

skrause 9y ago
* Do they allow a data restore without you giving them your encryption password? - No: https://www.backblaze.com/backup-encryption.html https://www.backblaze.com/backup-encryption.html
- rdtsc 9y ago
  Ha, that was surprising indeed: " we decrypt your data on our secure restore servers and we then zip it and send " That seems shady to me