3 ms·

How can you save a bunch of money when Backblaze is dirt cheap?

mkr-hn 5y ago
People are confusing backup and sync. Backblaze will run an incremental backup of 20TB and 20GB for the same price, but you have to have 20TB or 20GB of storage attached to the backed up computer. It won't let you access files not on your computer without awkward workarounds, but it also doesn't charge the huge premium sync services charge for the storage.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Backblaze does actually have caps, even though they don't publish them and they throttle even though they say they don't.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    If they do, it's so high as to not matter for any reasonable use and quite a few unreasonable ones.
  - prirun 5y ago
    In 2018 they published a graph showing a user with a backup over 400TB. If they have space limits, they must be pretty high!
  - 0des 5y ago
    It sounds like there's no cap. Do you have a source to the contrary?
- helloworld11 5y ago
  Im sorry but how does that work? If the purpose of online backup is for your data to be stored online, why would you need 20TB or 20GB (or any amount) of storage attached to the backed up computer? Backblaze, or any other online backup service stores everything on their storage, elsewhere, and that's exactly the point: that if your entire house burns to the ground with all your computers and external drives etc, you have a cloud copy of all their content in a secure, password protected external location, and you can then download them elsewhere from online. As for sync, most online backup service seem to offer at least a basic version by which your local data syncs with your externally backed up data so that they incrementally stay identical. If I'm misreading your comment somehow, please correct me. Maybe I misunderstood something.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    What they're trying to say is "Backblaze backs up an unlimited amount from one computer - but you can't back up more data than you have on one computer. So if you have 1234 GB in Backblaze, you must have 1234 GB of disk space" This is in contrast to other cloud storage services which might (for example) allow you to save space on your phone by uploading your old photos to the cloud and deleting the local copies.
    - mkr-hn 5y ago
      Yep. The nice thing about it is you just run it, log in, and it'll quietly keep an incremental copy of everything on any drive you tell it to back up without you having to think about it. You don't have to know what the heck an r-sink is, it Just Works (in the way most Just Works things do). The catch is they aren't going to back up a drive they haven't seen in 30 days, or 6 months if the licensed system is offline for more than that long. https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-happens-to-my-backups-when-I-m-away-or-on-vacation- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-... If I really need a long-term cold backup, it costs about half as much yearly (with a half terabyte SSD) to copy the whole thing over to a B2 bucket and get rid of the live backup. That's what I'd do if I were going to Mars.
    - helloworld11 5y ago
      Thanks for the clarification!

People are confusing backup and sync. Backblaze will run an incremental backup of 20TB and 20GB for the same price, but you have to have 20TB or 20GB of storage attached to the backed up computer. It won't let you access files not on your computer without awkward workarounds, but it also doesn't charge the huge premium sync services charge for the storage.

encryptluks2 5y ago
Backblaze does actually have caps, even though they don't publish them and they throttle even though they say they don't.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  If they do, it's so high as to not matter for any reasonable use and quite a few unreasonable ones.
- prirun 5y ago
  In 2018 they published a graph showing a user with a backup over 400TB. If they have space limits, they must be pretty high!
- 0des 5y ago
  It sounds like there's no cap. Do you have a source to the contrary?
helloworld11 5y ago
Im sorry but how does that work? If the purpose of online backup is for your data to be stored online, why would you need 20TB or 20GB (or any amount) of storage attached to the backed up computer? Backblaze, or any other online backup service stores everything on their storage, elsewhere, and that's exactly the point: that if your entire house burns to the ground with all your computers and external drives etc, you have a cloud copy of all their content in a secure, password protected external location, and you can then download them elsewhere from online. As for sync, most online backup service seem to offer at least a basic version by which your local data syncs with your externally backed up data so that they incrementally stay identical. If I'm misreading your comment somehow, please correct me. Maybe I misunderstood something.
- michaelt 5y ago
  What they're trying to say is "Backblaze backs up an unlimited amount from one computer - but you can't back up more data than you have on one computer. So if you have 1234 GB in Backblaze, you must have 1234 GB of disk space" This is in contrast to other cloud storage services which might (for example) allow you to save space on your phone by uploading your old photos to the cloud and deleting the local copies.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    Yep. The nice thing about it is you just run it, log in, and it'll quietly keep an incremental copy of everything on any drive you tell it to back up without you having to think about it. You don't have to know what the heck an r-sink is, it Just Works (in the way most Just Works things do). The catch is they aren't going to back up a drive they haven't seen in 30 days, or 6 months if the licensed system is offline for more than that long. https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-happens-to-my-backups-when-I-m-away-or-on-vacation- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-... If I really need a long-term cold backup, it costs about half as much yearly (with a half terabyte SSD) to copy the whole thing over to a B2 bucket and get rid of the live backup. That's what I'd do if I were going to Mars.
  - helloworld11 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification!