5 ms·

I think Backblaze is only great if you are looking for something cheap. It is definitely that, and I am reluctant to complain about it when it backs up my 25TB

by veidr 5y ago

I think Backblaze is only great if you are looking for something cheap. It is definitely that, and I am reluctant to complain about it when it backs up my 25TB home server Mac Mini for $60 per year. (Oh, it's $84 now. But whatever, still very cheap.) But I also set up Backblaze for most of my family members, and when my dad's iMac SSD died, even though I physically visited, and even though I had 48 hours there, there was no way to recover the (meager 1TB) contents. I had to use the pretty-trash web UI and could only select something like 25GB at a time, from a super-slow and janky web UI, and then download those files in like dinosaur-time. It did save the day; I could get the most important files (there were like, specific ones on the desktop that my dad was mostly really concerned about). But in my only experience of using Backblaze in actual crisis, it disappointed. I think (though I have never verified) that their option to FedEx a hard disk would have worked, if I had had more time, and that's cool. But I was only there for a couple days, and was trying to set him up with a new Mac Mini to replace the failed iMac. So in the end, we said fuck it, and my dad lost a bunch of his shit. OTOH, 5 or 8 years ago (?), my laptop corrupted my iPhoto library. (Yeah, back in iPhoto time.) I happened to be on a Japanese bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo at the time (editing a Printed Book composition for a gift, and that seemed to be what irrevocably corrupted the iPhoto library). I restored the backed-up iPhoto library (maybe 250GB back then, a tenth of what it is today) to my home Mac and it was restored by the time I got home from the 2.5 hour train ride. But it also cost me something like $180, because I had Arq configured to use AWS Glacier storage, which (at least back then — does it even still exist?) was cheap to put data into and very expensive to get data out of quickly. (IIRC Arq even paused automatically, to avoid this, but I pressed the Continue button.) something something pros and cons

mindslight 5y ago
That's an interesting anecdote about Backblaze, with restoring being such a pain. But could you not have continued downloading 25GB chunks remotely, until everything had been transferred? It seems like you'd only give up if you didn't really care about the rest of the files.
- veidr 5y ago
  Yes, we almost certainly could have. But it would have been a process that stretched out over many days. So in the end we did give up — the files weren't worth the hassle. But the hassle was considerable.
duxup 5y ago
I feel like in the context of backing up important things paying for the data to be fedexed to you on a drive is a given.
- veidr 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree, and even would have done so in this case (despite the files not being that "important") but it wouldn't have arrived in time. While I wouldn't say my dad's "not smart" like the title of this thread, he is 70 or whatever, and not technical, and would probably not be able to convert a fedexed HDD from his old iMac to a working setup on his new Mac Mini.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    I don't know how your relationship is, but when I was in your position, I set up a remote access solution. For me it was tinc+ssh, but I'm sure there are many equivalent solutions in GUI land that will let you login remotely. It's easy to talk someone through physically plugging in a hard drive, and then you can do the copying yourself. This of course relies on your dad not expecting his computer to be private from you, but I doubt there are many people who aren't technically engaged but expect the utmost in digital privacy.
    - veidr 5y ago
      No, he is fine with me having remote access, it's just that he lives in USA and the internet there is so bad (not everywhere, but where he lives there was only AT&T 2.5Mbps DSL and "12Mbps" (it wasn't) Comcast. So the remote option technically did exist, and if my dad was gonna die or something if we didn't recover those files, I could have done it. But there was like 20-30 second menu latency with remote access (partly Apple's fault, the Windows machine is 5x better with the same connection, but it seems macOS can't forego its stupid animations no matter what).
      - mindslight 5y ago
        I didn't mean to continue pushing you on why you didn't restore the backups, just making a general suggestion. As technical people we've got this tendency to think that we can set up systems for people to take care of themselves and then walk away. And that's great, but sometimes you just have to stay fully involved and take things over. On the technical side, it's probably because RDP is well optimized. There has got to be something for Mac that works similarly well, but I can't give you any pointers. I was dealing with DSL as well (6M/384k), so ssh was an advantage.
oneplane 5y ago
For large amounts of data over a slow internet connection, the overnight shipping option is the best choice. Using the web ui to get individual files for individual recoveries works, but it doesn't really help if you want to do some giant recovery (as you found out).
sreitshamer 5y ago
(Developer behind Arq here) Nowadays many folks have lots of free cloud space in Google Drive/Dropbox/OneDrive and use Arq to store their versioned encrypted backups there, which makes restoring/downloading free.
- veidr 5y ago
  Hi Stefan, thank you for saving my photos that day! :) I still use Arq 7, and highly recommend it.
- canada_dry 5y ago
  Arq for Linux in the pipeline?
greedo 5y ago
I think you're making unfair criticisms of Backblaze due to your specific situation. Backblaze offers two primary restore options; one through the GUI and the other by sending you a hard disk in the mail. The GUI isn't really meant for restoring a whole hard drive; it's designed more for file level restores. Your father has a slow internet connection (as you mentioned below), and that makes the GUI even more difficult to use. You should have had Backblaze ship you a drive with his data. It might not arrive as fast as you'd like, but at least you'd have the data.

by veidr 5y ago

mindslight 5y ago

That's an interesting anecdote about Backblaze, with restoring being such a pain. But could you not have continued downloading 25GB chunks remotely, until everything had been transferred? It seems like you'd only give up if you didn't really care about the rest of the files.

veidr 5y ago
Yes, we almost certainly could have. But it would have been a process that stretched out over many days. So in the end we did give up — the files weren't worth the hassle. But the hassle was considerable.

duxup 5y ago

I feel like in the context of backing up important things paying for the data to be fedexed to you on a drive is a given.

veidr 5y ago
Yeah, I agree, and even would have done so in this case (despite the files not being that "important") but it wouldn't have arrived in time. While I wouldn't say my dad's "not smart" like the title of this thread, he is 70 or whatever, and not technical, and would probably not be able to convert a fedexed HDD from his old iMac to a working setup on his new Mac Mini.
- mindslight 5y ago
  I don't know how your relationship is, but when I was in your position, I set up a remote access solution. For me it was tinc+ssh, but I'm sure there are many equivalent solutions in GUI land that will let you login remotely. It's easy to talk someone through physically plugging in a hard drive, and then you can do the copying yourself. This of course relies on your dad not expecting his computer to be private from you, but I doubt there are many people who aren't technically engaged but expect the utmost in digital privacy.
  - veidr 5y ago
    No, he is fine with me having remote access, it's just that he lives in USA and the internet there is so bad (not everywhere, but where he lives there was only AT&T 2.5Mbps DSL and "12Mbps" (it wasn't) Comcast. So the remote option technically did exist, and if my dad was gonna die or something if we didn't recover those files, I could have done it. But there was like 20-30 second menu latency with remote access (partly Apple's fault, the Windows machine is 5x better with the same connection, but it seems macOS can't forego its stupid animations no matter what).
    - mindslight 5y ago
      I didn't mean to continue pushing you on why you didn't restore the backups, just making a general suggestion. As technical people we've got this tendency to think that we can set up systems for people to take care of themselves and then walk away. And that's great, but sometimes you just have to stay fully involved and take things over. On the technical side, it's probably because RDP is well optimized. There has got to be something for Mac that works similarly well, but I can't give you any pointers. I was dealing with DSL as well (6M/384k), so ssh was an advantage.

oneplane 5y ago

For large amounts of data over a slow internet connection, the overnight shipping option is the best choice. Using the web ui to get individual files for individual recoveries works, but it doesn't really help if you want to do some giant recovery (as you found out).

sreitshamer 5y ago

(Developer behind Arq here) Nowadays many folks have lots of free cloud space in Google Drive/Dropbox/OneDrive and use Arq to store their versioned encrypted backups there, which makes restoring/downloading free.

veidr 5y ago
Hi Stefan, thank you for saving my photos that day! :) I still use Arq 7, and highly recommend it.
canada_dry 5y ago
Arq for Linux in the pipeline?

greedo 5y ago

I think you're making unfair criticisms of Backblaze due to your specific situation. Backblaze offers two primary restore options; one through the GUI and the other by sending you a hard disk in the mail. The GUI isn't really meant for restoring a whole hard drive; it's designed more for file level restores. Your father has a slow internet connection (as you mentioned below), and that makes the GUI even more difficult to use. You should have had Backblaze ship you a drive with his data. It might not arrive as fast as you'd like, but at least you'd have the data.