Storage

Backblaze just updated to version 6.0 earlier this week. If you didn't know, Backblaze is possibly the best cloud backup solution that exists for Mac/Windows clients. It also supports a lot of open-source, free and commercial tools for Linux backup (Duplicity, qBackup, etc) via Backblaze B2 solution – plus there's an API you can use for programmatically managing your backups strategy.

Backblaze Hard Drive Stats

Before I start talking about Backblaze Cloud Backup, I just want to mention another great thing Backblaze do – and it's actually how I discovered them many years ago: Backblaze Hard Drive Stats (for 2018).

Because Backblaze are using so many hard disks in their datacentres, they are going through a number of makes and models, so every few months there's an updated chart of how many disks fail. These are enterprise grade disks, so you're unlikely to be buying the same models for your desktop PC, but I found these useful when building my very first home-grown mdadm based RAID arrays. I've moved on to Synology NAS since then but consult Backblaze hard drive stats regularly when shopping for new disks. Highly recommended!

Backblaze backup for MacOS

I've been a Backblaze user for 3 years now, with backed up amount growing steadily over the years. I have yet to require a full restore (fingers crossed!) but have used the Backblaze cloud via desktop and especially on iPhone for quickly accessing a file or two. Because Backblaze is a continuous backup solution, it's a great option for accessing any of my laptops' (backed up) files remotely from my iOS devices.

Backblaze for personal use and small businesses charges per backed up computer and not per amount of data you backup. You can't backup network drives, but can backup any USB disks – so what I do is plugin a 3TB disk every few weeks, make important backups from my network storage to it, and then Backblaze picks it up and puts it into the cloud.

Backblaze 6.0 improvements

• apparently, it's 50% faster app now!
• it's now possible to prevent backups on certain WiFi networks (like mobile hotspot ones) using built-in Network Management
• it's possible to save certain files into B2 cloud (enterprise offering) – this will cost extra ($0.005 gigabyte/month I think – so still pretty cheap at $5 per TB) but should allow API access to your backups and many other really cool things

Why I like Backblaze Cloud Backup

Backblaze Pricing Model

Pricing is per computer system, not per amount of data. So your data needs will grow, but that won't mean you'll have to pay more.

I have 2TB of data stored in Backblaze and think it's a great value for money:

Steady and Fast Performance

Never had any complaints at all, very solid application on MacOS with straightforward interface and easy to read stats. You can throttle network traffic so that backups don't kill your home internet, so it's a well implemented solution.

Backup State Inheritance

This I had used a few times – needed to move from one disk to another. So if I replace my external hard disk with a newer and/or larger model – instead of having to re-upload everything from scratch, I can just point Backblaze to the new disk and help it inherit the backup state from the previous disk. Granted, I have to make sure new disk has the same data the old disk had first! 🙂

Backup Restores by mail

Never used it, but someday probably will! For large or full restores, it's faster to get your backup data on a disk or USB flash disk, rather than download it all from the cloud. For a reasonable enough fee, Backblaze can send you a hard disk with your data so that you an restore faster it and then send the disk back.

That's it for today! Just wanted to share and to recommend Backblaze. If you decide to check it out, please use my affiliate link: https://secure.backblaze.com/r/01gyum

See Also

• Check RAID progress with /proc/mdstat
• Use lsblk for storage analysis
• Test disk I/O with dd