7 ms·

Backblaze B2 is cheaper than Cloudflare R2 IA. Hmmm

iscoelho 3y ago
This is expected. Like cloud providers, Cloudflare is intentionally not aggressive on pricing as it is a race to the bottom. There are other ways to compete.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Guzba 3y ago
B2 can be great but it is missing a lot of features when compared to other object stores so it isn't a good solution for every scenario. As an example I investigated, to put a custom domain in front of a B2 bucket they suggest using Cloudflare and CNAME-ing a bucket subdomain (eg f000.backblazeb2.com) https://www.backblaze.com/docs/cloud-storage-deliver-public-backblaze-b2-content-through-cloudflare-cdn https://www.backblaze.com/docs/cloud-storage-deliver-public-... Well if f000.backblazeb2.com is used for any other people's buckets too, which appears to be the case, I guess I am now able to serve other people's files from my domain? This seems terrible.
- jdmarble 3y ago
  I'm not sure I understand all of the nuances here (I'm no webmaster), but this is covered in the documentation you linked: > You must configure page rules to allow Cloudflare to fetch only your Backblaze B2 bucket from your domain. ... Otherwise, someone could use your domain to fetch content from another customer's public bucket. To ensure this does not happen, Cloudflare lets you use page rules to scope requests to your bucket.
  - Guzba 3y ago
    The example shows leaving your bucket name in the url as a way to filter out requests to other bucket names. If you want your static site to have http://mysite.com/bucketname/index.html http://mysite.com/bucketname/index.html then I guess that's ok. But again, careful configuration and still not for every situation. I'm sure you can layer more rules to get it exactly right but I'd not be eager to layer on complex configuration through multiple service providers when it is avoidable, unless there is some very compelling overriding reason.
    - gfs 3y ago
      As far as I know, bucket names must be unique at other providers like AWS as well. [0] I'm no expert but to try and protect my own domain, I use a transform rule to match a subdomain and append "/file/$MY_BUCKET_NAME" to each request. This should return a 404 for anybody who tries to inject their own bucket in the path. I could be wrong of course. [0]: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/bucketnamingrules.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/bucket...
      - eropple 3y ago
        Bolting a Cloudfront distribution onto a S3 bucket is pretty well-trod territory, though, and doesn't have these sharp edges. (Has a couple other ones, but they're less common.)
    - radlad 3y ago
      This is an easily solved problem. Backblaze has an example here: https://github.com/backblaze-b2-samples/cloudflare-b2 https://github.com/backblaze-b2-samples/cloudflare-b2
      - Guzba 3y ago
        Does the solution involve using Cloudflare workers? Because, as I said, I'm sure it is possible but maybe we've gone off the deep end a bit. Just how crazy of a configuration do you want just to serve files from an object store? This looks like an awful lot of setup for "easily solved". Easily solved is what S3 does where this isn't even a problem.
        silverlyra 3y ago
        curl -sL https://github.com/backblaze-b2-samples/cloudflare-b2/raw/main/README.md | head -n 1 # Cloudflare Worker for Backblaze B2 yes, it's a worker
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
nchmy 3y ago
and iDrive e2 is even cheaper. https://www.idrive.com/s3-storage-e2/ https://www.idrive.com/s3-storage-e2/
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  Isn't iDrive a BMW trademark for decades? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_iDrive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_iDrive
  - sp332 3y ago
    Trademarks only apply to specific classes of things. https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/goods-and-services https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/goods-and-services
    - jjtheblunt 3y ago
      That's useful: thanks.
  - jjtheblunt 3y ago
    Downvoted for a question? How laughably degenerate.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Yeah it can get pretty ridiculous. Fortunately over time things tend to even out, but for whatever reason a lot of early HN participants downvote everything. My theory is that the people who would downvote a question like this one are the people who go around reading passive aggression in every little thing. Possibly people that assume every question is secretly an agenda to propagate an opinion they disagree with, and that there are hidden implications everywhere.
      - jjtheblunt 3y ago
        Yep, but i have been here long and the non-contributing downvote phenomenon seemed to me to start when HN got more widespread participation. How did you figure out the conversation sniping to be earlier members?
ac29 3y ago
Backblaze is unprofitable and publicly traded, a combination which cant last forever. They raised B2 prices 20% last year, I wouldnt be surprised to see more increases if they continue to burn through cash.
- internetter 3y ago
  > Backblaze is unprofitable and publicly traded So is Cloudflare
  - sophacles 3y ago
    The amount of profit isn't always the most important number anyway. A lot of companies choose to not be profitable while they can spend their bank account growing their business (Cloudflare is one, and Backblaze may be another but I have no idea about their finances, historically Amazon and Salesforce both did this too). If qoq and yoy revenue keeps going up, and cost of revenue stays the same or decreases (as a percentage) in the same time period, it makes sense to spend the bank account on growth. If the growth stops, that's when you start cutting expenses like R&D and operations to get the profit. Reasoning being: getting x% of a bigger revenue is better than getting x% of a smaller revenue.
  - everforward 3y ago
    Cloudflare practically has a stranglehold on the modern Internet. I would bet money they would be immediately profitable if they killed their free tier. There aren't that many competitors, and I don't know if they've got the spare capacity to absorb all the exodus. I'm not so sure about Backblaze. I don't even think they're the biggest player in that space (AWS is, I would guess). I would guess most people could migrate off if Backblaze turned south.
    - no_wizard 3y ago
      if they simply streamlined their sales pipeline and created a mid tier (somewhere between $500-$2500 a month for example) that unlocks some of the features that are behind "contact sales" banner they could boost revenue without changing any existing tiers, I'd wager. I think the platform has a ton of potential and it already shows signs of real progress, but much like fly.io, its rough edges are incredibly rough.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
I can’t get over the fact how storage is still so expensive in 2024. Lowest you can get is probably $5 per tb a month from any of these companies. A new tb hdd is probably $25 today. Where does the money go, into c suite car payments?
- fire_lake 3y ago
  It’s availability that’s expensive.
  - disillusioned 3y ago
    Availability, durability, etc.
- Hamuko 3y ago
  All those nines cost extra.
- godelski 3y ago
  I really believe there's a missing market. I think there would be big business in building servers for homes. Where you prioritize low power usage and low noise, and do not need blazing speeds or frequent/high access. Cloud is great, but some things should still be stored at home. Home NAS systems are a bit odd and difficult to expand (nowhere near what a rack is). My argument would be that this would be helpful with the high adaptation of things like Ring doorbells and other camera systems at home. Where people can store their own data and provides better security & privacy given you need not rely on a data connection to store that footage. It also would be extremely worthwhile if we are to see personalized LLMs become common and tools like home assistant. You wouldn't want that running off-site. In fact, I'd rather call home from my mobile LLM than call FAANG (or anyone else with teeth). I just think buying used servers on ebay or trying to throw together a home rig is harder than it needs to be. I'm confident the demand exists but it is unfortunately a field of dreams scenario. Many people will not know they want it until it exists (I can say my parents would love this but they don't understand the first thing about technology so all they can do is complain about Google/Apple having all their data rather than express how they want to store their own).
smileybarry 3y ago
IIRC Backblaze B2 charges for egress, while CloudFlare does not.
- vineyardmike 3y ago
  They do not charge for egress either. https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/landing/ad/use-cases/cloud-storage https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/landing/ad/use-cases...
  - rattt 3y ago
    *Up to 3x of average monthly data stored, then $0.01/GB for additional egress. Or free if you go through Cloudflare since they have the bandwidth aliance.

This is expected. Like cloud providers, Cloudflare is intentionally not aggressive on pricing as it is a race to the bottom. There are other ways to compete.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Guzba 3y ago

B2 can be great but it is missing a lot of features when compared to other object stores so it isn't a good solution for every scenario. As an example I investigated, to put a custom domain in front of a B2 bucket they suggest using Cloudflare and CNAME-ing a bucket subdomain (eg f000.backblazeb2.com) https://www.backblaze.com/docs/cloud-storage-deliver-public-backblaze-b2-content-through-cloudflare-cdn https://www.backblaze.com/docs/cloud-storage-deliver-public-... Well if f000.backblazeb2.com is used for any other people's buckets too, which appears to be the case, I guess I am now able to serve other people's files from my domain? This seems terrible.

jdmarble 3y ago
I'm not sure I understand all of the nuances here (I'm no webmaster), but this is covered in the documentation you linked: > You must configure page rules to allow Cloudflare to fetch only your Backblaze B2 bucket from your domain. ... Otherwise, someone could use your domain to fetch content from another customer's public bucket. To ensure this does not happen, Cloudflare lets you use page rules to scope requests to your bucket.
- Guzba 3y ago
  The example shows leaving your bucket name in the url as a way to filter out requests to other bucket names. If you want your static site to have http://mysite.com/bucketname/index.html http://mysite.com/bucketname/index.html then I guess that's ok. But again, careful configuration and still not for every situation. I'm sure you can layer more rules to get it exactly right but I'd not be eager to layer on complex configuration through multiple service providers when it is avoidable, unless there is some very compelling overriding reason.
  - gfs 3y ago
    As far as I know, bucket names must be unique at other providers like AWS as well. [0] I'm no expert but to try and protect my own domain, I use a transform rule to match a subdomain and append "/file/$MY_BUCKET_NAME" to each request. This should return a 404 for anybody who tries to inject their own bucket in the path. I could be wrong of course. [0]: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/bucketnamingrules.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/bucket...
    - eropple 3y ago
      Bolting a Cloudfront distribution onto a S3 bucket is pretty well-trod territory, though, and doesn't have these sharp edges. (Has a couple other ones, but they're less common.)
  - radlad 3y ago
    This is an easily solved problem. Backblaze has an example here: https://github.com/backblaze-b2-samples/cloudflare-b2 https://github.com/backblaze-b2-samples/cloudflare-b2
    - Guzba 3y ago
      Does the solution involve using Cloudflare workers? Because, as I said, I'm sure it is possible but maybe we've gone off the deep end a bit. Just how crazy of a configuration do you want just to serve files from an object store? This looks like an awful lot of setup for "easily solved". Easily solved is what S3 does where this isn't even a problem.
      - silverlyra 3y ago
        curl -sL https://github.com/backblaze-b2-samples/cloudflare-b2/raw/main/README.md | head -n 1 # Cloudflare Worker for Backblaze B2 yes, it's a worker
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

nchmy 3y ago

and iDrive e2 is even cheaper. https://www.idrive.com/s3-storage-e2/ https://www.idrive.com/s3-storage-e2/

jjtheblunt 3y ago
Isn't iDrive a BMW trademark for decades? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_iDrive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_iDrive
- sp332 3y ago
  Trademarks only apply to specific classes of things. https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/goods-and-services https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/goods-and-services
  - jjtheblunt 3y ago
    That's useful: thanks.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  Downvoted for a question? How laughably degenerate.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Yeah it can get pretty ridiculous. Fortunately over time things tend to even out, but for whatever reason a lot of early HN participants downvote everything. My theory is that the people who would downvote a question like this one are the people who go around reading passive aggression in every little thing. Possibly people that assume every question is secretly an agenda to propagate an opinion they disagree with, and that there are hidden implications everywhere.
    - jjtheblunt 3y ago
      Yep, but i have been here long and the non-contributing downvote phenomenon seemed to me to start when HN got more widespread participation. How did you figure out the conversation sniping to be earlier members?

ac29 3y ago

Backblaze is unprofitable and publicly traded, a combination which cant last forever. They raised B2 prices 20% last year, I wouldnt be surprised to see more increases if they continue to burn through cash.

internetter 3y ago
> Backblaze is unprofitable and publicly traded So is Cloudflare
- sophacles 3y ago
  The amount of profit isn't always the most important number anyway. A lot of companies choose to not be profitable while they can spend their bank account growing their business (Cloudflare is one, and Backblaze may be another but I have no idea about their finances, historically Amazon and Salesforce both did this too). If qoq and yoy revenue keeps going up, and cost of revenue stays the same or decreases (as a percentage) in the same time period, it makes sense to spend the bank account on growth. If the growth stops, that's when you start cutting expenses like R&D and operations to get the profit. Reasoning being: getting x% of a bigger revenue is better than getting x% of a smaller revenue.
- everforward 3y ago
  Cloudflare practically has a stranglehold on the modern Internet. I would bet money they would be immediately profitable if they killed their free tier. There aren't that many competitors, and I don't know if they've got the spare capacity to absorb all the exodus. I'm not so sure about Backblaze. I don't even think they're the biggest player in that space (AWS is, I would guess). I would guess most people could migrate off if Backblaze turned south.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    if they simply streamlined their sales pipeline and created a mid tier (somewhere between $500-$2500 a month for example) that unlocks some of the features that are behind "contact sales" banner they could boost revenue without changing any existing tiers, I'd wager. I think the platform has a ton of potential and it already shows signs of real progress, but much like fly.io, its rough edges are incredibly rough.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

I can’t get over the fact how storage is still so expensive in 2024. Lowest you can get is probably $5 per tb a month from any of these companies. A new tb hdd is probably $25 today. Where does the money go, into c suite car payments?

fire_lake 3y ago
It’s availability that’s expensive.
- disillusioned 3y ago
  Availability, durability, etc.
Hamuko 3y ago
All those nines cost extra.
godelski 3y ago
I really believe there's a missing market. I think there would be big business in building servers for homes. Where you prioritize low power usage and low noise, and do not need blazing speeds or frequent/high access. Cloud is great, but some things should still be stored at home. Home NAS systems are a bit odd and difficult to expand (nowhere near what a rack is). My argument would be that this would be helpful with the high adaptation of things like Ring doorbells and other camera systems at home. Where people can store their own data and provides better security & privacy given you need not rely on a data connection to store that footage. It also would be extremely worthwhile if we are to see personalized LLMs become common and tools like home assistant. You wouldn't want that running off-site. In fact, I'd rather call home from my mobile LLM than call FAANG (or anyone else with teeth). I just think buying used servers on ebay or trying to throw together a home rig is harder than it needs to be. I'm confident the demand exists but it is unfortunately a field of dreams scenario. Many people will not know they want it until it exists (I can say my parents would love this but they don't understand the first thing about technology so all they can do is complain about Google/Apple having all their data rather than express how they want to store their own).

smileybarry 3y ago

IIRC Backblaze B2 charges for egress, while CloudFlare does not.

vineyardmike 3y ago
They do not charge for egress either. https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/landing/ad/use-cases/cloud-storage https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/landing/ad/use-cases...
- rattt 3y ago
  *Up to 3x of average monthly data stored, then $0.01/GB for additional egress. Or free if you go through Cloudflare since they have the bandwidth aliance.