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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

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.
  - SpikeDad 9y ago
    Thi is a nice ego boost for you but I wish you had answered some of the questions that folks have posted. What good is a backup tool if you a) can't restore using the native tool and b) you can't restore files from more than 30 days.
    - brianwski 9y ago
      > What good is a backup tool if you a) can't restore using the native tool I am so confused by your question? With Backblaze, you can get 100% of you data back in two ways: 1) you can get a free external USB hard drive sent to you with all your data on it, or 2) You can prepare a free ZIP file with all your data and download it. We provide a restartable native bzdownloader to help you download the recovered files. > What good is a backup tool.... Isn't the goal to get all your data back? Backblaze does that. Maybe I'm mis-understanding your question? > you can't restore files from more than 30 days. With Backblaze, you can recover files for more than 30 days. You can ALWAYS get "the most recent version" even after 9 years. What you cannot do is get all the "intermediate versions" (like if you change a text document, we retain all versions for 30 days, then we only keep the most recent version forever). I do agree that would be a better product (retain infinite versions of every file). Unfortunately we would need to charge more for that, and many customers only want the most recent copy of all their documents. I understand if Backblaze is not a good solution for you. I just want to be absolutely clear what we provide and what we do not provide.
      - geostyx 9y ago
        Wait, if I delete a file you will keep the latest version forever?
      - domador 9y ago
        I just posted a long reply to your original message, without first seeing that you'd replied to this comment (made by someone else). If this is how the 30 day policy works, it is slightly more appealing than what I thought. However, it's still not enough peace-of-mind for me. This means that recent files are vulnerable to corruption during their first month of existence (through accidental overwriting, and some kinds of viruses and ransomware). The "most recent version" that is backed up may end up being a corrupted, useless version. I agree that retaining infinite versions of every file would be cost-prohibitive. However, you may be able to find a healthy compromise. Maybe you could retain a ton of versions of small files and fewer versions of large files. Maybe you could provide users with a space allowance for versioning and allow them to decide which versions of which files to delete (if they reach the allowance limit) or to pay more to increase the allowance. To summarize: You need versioning in order to be an awesome backup service (and an awesome backup service is the only thing I'll happily settle for!)
dylz 9y ago
b2 and backblaze are wholly separate products and services - I'm explicitly not looking for a replacement for S3, I'm looking for unlimited backup for a fixed fee for personal amounts
jacquesm 9y ago
B2 is not a replacement for the backup service, though possibly it could be hacked to serve as one. How about releasing a backblaze protocol spec or the client source code? That way us Linux fans can roll our own.
- brianwski 9y ago
  > How about releasing a backblaze protocol spec... That is all described here: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/ https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/ Now the Mac & Windows Backblaze backup client uses those protocols, but for full disclosure ALSO still uses one or two additional old legacy protocols. But our intention is to move entirely over to using the new B2 protocols, and if it is not possible we plan to extend the B2 protocols to make it possible. One example is that the Macintosh Backblaze backup client has available the ability to push up to 1,000 individual small files in a single protocol request. (The individual setup and tear down of HTTPS for 1 or 2 or 3 byte files hurts performance.) So we'll be adding that to the "official" B2 protocols.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Cool, thank you!
rrauenza 9y ago
I just want a simple, predictable flat fee, not a pricing guide ... https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217667478-Understanding-B2-Pricing-Structure https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217667478-Under...
- brianwski 9y ago
  There is a calculator on this web page: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html (Scroll down to "B2 Cost Calculator") If you type in the size of your hard drive, that will be the "predictable bill" you will get each day.
  - rrauenza 9y ago
    That is pretty awesome (but I'd still rather have a fixed fee). Also -- how do I know my 3rd party B2 backup system isn't going to cause me extra charges from using API's inefficiently?
    - brianwski 9y ago
      > how do I know my 3rd party B2 backup system isn't going to cause me extra charges from using API's inefficiently? Uploads are completely free. I think what you will find is the bulk of your charges will simply be "storage" (at half a penny per GByte per month), the API charges aren't intended to nickle and dime you. We are simply trying to discourage abuse of our API servers. Creating a Backblaze B2 account is totally free, and if you stay under 10 GBytes it is totally free (and we will cap you to that until you give us a credit card). Seriously, try it out! There is a handy "Reports" page after you log in (look for the word "Reports" along the left. It will tell you EXACTLY what API calls have occurred and how many times. If you need more than 10 GBytes and are still worried about cost, as part of your experiment look for "Caps & Alerts" along the left after you sign into your B2 account. You can setup daily "Caps" (like for $1/day) so that you absolutely won't exceed your budget until you are comfortable with the B2 service!
      - 9y ago
demas1252 9y ago
Is there any plans to allow backup mounted disks? I have a small SSD on my notebook (30Gb) and all my data are stored on external NAS. As I know, Backblaze doesn't allow me to backup mounted folders from NAS. This is only reason I don't use Backblaze.

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.
- SpikeDad 9y ago
  Thi is a nice ego boost for you but I wish you had answered some of the questions that folks have posted. What good is a backup tool if you a) can't restore using the native tool and b) you can't restore files from more than 30 days.
  - brianwski 9y ago
    > What good is a backup tool if you a) can't restore using the native tool I am so confused by your question? With Backblaze, you can get 100% of you data back in two ways: 1) you can get a free external USB hard drive sent to you with all your data on it, or 2) You can prepare a free ZIP file with all your data and download it. We provide a restartable native bzdownloader to help you download the recovered files. > What good is a backup tool.... Isn't the goal to get all your data back? Backblaze does that. Maybe I'm mis-understanding your question? > you can't restore files from more than 30 days. With Backblaze, you can recover files for more than 30 days. You can ALWAYS get "the most recent version" even after 9 years. What you cannot do is get all the "intermediate versions" (like if you change a text document, we retain all versions for 30 days, then we only keep the most recent version forever). I do agree that would be a better product (retain infinite versions of every file). Unfortunately we would need to charge more for that, and many customers only want the most recent copy of all their documents. I understand if Backblaze is not a good solution for you. I just want to be absolutely clear what we provide and what we do not provide.
    - geostyx 9y ago
      Wait, if I delete a file you will keep the latest version forever?
    - domador 9y ago
      I just posted a long reply to your original message, without first seeing that you'd replied to this comment (made by someone else). If this is how the 30 day policy works, it is slightly more appealing than what I thought. However, it's still not enough peace-of-mind for me. This means that recent files are vulnerable to corruption during their first month of existence (through accidental overwriting, and some kinds of viruses and ransomware). The "most recent version" that is backed up may end up being a corrupted, useless version. I agree that retaining infinite versions of every file would be cost-prohibitive. However, you may be able to find a healthy compromise. Maybe you could retain a ton of versions of small files and fewer versions of large files. Maybe you could provide users with a space allowance for versioning and allow them to decide which versions of which files to delete (if they reach the allowance limit) or to pay more to increase the allowance. To summarize: You need versioning in order to be an awesome backup service (and an awesome backup service is the only thing I'll happily settle for!)

dylz 9y ago

b2 and backblaze are wholly separate products and services - I'm explicitly not looking for a replacement for S3, I'm looking for unlimited backup for a fixed fee for personal amounts

jacquesm 9y ago

B2 is not a replacement for the backup service, though possibly it could be hacked to serve as one. How about releasing a backblaze protocol spec or the client source code? That way us Linux fans can roll our own.

brianwski 9y ago
> How about releasing a backblaze protocol spec... That is all described here: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/ https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/ Now the Mac & Windows Backblaze backup client uses those protocols, but for full disclosure ALSO still uses one or two additional old legacy protocols. But our intention is to move entirely over to using the new B2 protocols, and if it is not possible we plan to extend the B2 protocols to make it possible. One example is that the Macintosh Backblaze backup client has available the ability to push up to 1,000 individual small files in a single protocol request. (The individual setup and tear down of HTTPS for 1 or 2 or 3 byte files hurts performance.) So we'll be adding that to the "official" B2 protocols.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Cool, thank you!

rrauenza 9y ago

I just want a simple, predictable flat fee, not a pricing guide ... https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217667478-Understanding-B2-Pricing-Structure https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217667478-Under...

brianwski 9y ago
There is a calculator on this web page: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html (Scroll down to "B2 Cost Calculator") If you type in the size of your hard drive, that will be the "predictable bill" you will get each day.
- rrauenza 9y ago
  That is pretty awesome (but I'd still rather have a fixed fee). Also -- how do I know my 3rd party B2 backup system isn't going to cause me extra charges from using API's inefficiently?
  - brianwski 9y ago
    > how do I know my 3rd party B2 backup system isn't going to cause me extra charges from using API's inefficiently? Uploads are completely free. I think what you will find is the bulk of your charges will simply be "storage" (at half a penny per GByte per month), the API charges aren't intended to nickle and dime you. We are simply trying to discourage abuse of our API servers. Creating a Backblaze B2 account is totally free, and if you stay under 10 GBytes it is totally free (and we will cap you to that until you give us a credit card). Seriously, try it out! There is a handy "Reports" page after you log in (look for the word "Reports" along the left. It will tell you EXACTLY what API calls have occurred and how many times. If you need more than 10 GBytes and are still worried about cost, as part of your experiment look for "Caps & Alerts" along the left after you sign into your B2 account. You can setup daily "Caps" (like for $1/day) so that you absolutely won't exceed your budget until you are comfortable with the B2 service!
    - 9y ago

demas1252 9y ago

Is there any plans to allow backup mounted disks? I have a small SSD on my notebook (30Gb) and all my data are stored on external NAS. As I know, Backblaze doesn't allow me to backup mounted folders from NAS. This is only reason I don't use Backblaze.