Backblaze

Name: Backblaze
Price: 6.00 $
Rating: 1 (30 reviews)

7.0.0.418

17 March 2020

Online backup service.

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Overview

Backblaze is an online backup service designed from the ground-up for the Mac. With unlimited storage available for $6 per month, as well as a free 15-day trial, peace of mind is within reach with Backblaze.

Easy and automatic. A simple setup process and automatic continuous backups means having safe data is not only for the extremely savvy.
Safe and secure. Encrypted data on your computer is transmitted with a secure, encrypted connection and stored encrypted on the Backblaze servers. Never worry about your data's security.
Transparent and accessible. Browse and download your files online or have them overnighted to you on a DVD or USB drive for a flexible file or system restoring process.

Note: $6/month for unlimited storage; 15-day trial.

What's new in Backblaze

Version 7.0.0.418:

Performance - a 50% Boost:

We’ve increased the maximum upload threads to 30, creating speed increases up to 50% (depending on your computer and upload bandwidth). More threads allow more uploads to run in parallel thereby dramatically increasing backup speeds.

Network Management:

Logging and system resource usage have been streamlined so Backblaze continues to be nearly invisible on your computer.
We’re not big fans of data caps here at Backblaze, and one bit of feedback we’ve received over the last year or so was that people were blowing past their ISP’s monthly bandwidth allotment while backing up using their hotspot or mobile device-tethered internet connection. With that in mind, we’ve added a blocklist feature so you can choose to prevent backups from occurring while you are connected to specific Wi-Fi networks of your choosing. Backblaze will still transmit little bits of data (we call them heartbeats) to let us know your computer is still active, but no backups will be transmitted.

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Backblaze Screenshots

57 Backblaze Reviews

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This app has a major failing -- it can't restore files by itself, and most importantly, there's no way to restore files to their original location. Why this isn't a priority for Backblaze is beyond me.

Like (2)

Version 6.1.0.370

Poor customer service. They lost their encryption key from my key pair, stopping my ability to restore files. They offered no assistance apart from blaming me for losing my key, which I still have on hand. They returned money for the unused part of my service, then told me to get lost and not return. Worthless and rude.

Version 7.0.0.418

Like (2)

Version 6.1.0.370

1 answer(s)

Mcr

09 February 2020

So, BB offers two services; 1) the $6 all you can eat flat price Online Backup which utilizes the client described on this MU page. They make no secret of the fact that for $6, it is intended as a basic service, and missing some features, as noted in some of these reviews (funky restore, throttled upload, etc). IMO, this first service is for home BASIC, non techie users, who have basic backup needs and maybe 10-20 GB of data at most. The second service is the BackBlaze B2, which is comparable to AWS S3, Azure, Google Cloud. It requires you bring your own client to the table that supports B2 (ChronoSync, CloudBerry). I already owned Chronosync, and after trying B2, I found it is a great service. B2 simply charges for the storage, and the pricing is extremely less compared to Azure, AWS, Google Cloud. Uploads using either Chronosync or CloudBerry clients are at the full speed of my ISP pipe, 30 Mbps. 10GB of data full backup takes a little over an hour, w/o compression. Block level copying which means only the changed part of a file is transferred, the entire file is not recopied. The sparse bundle image techique described by @Derekcurrie earlier works great for this. Even if you don't want to encrypt your disk image natively, using CloudBerry you can encrypt the data stream and stored files on B2, not even BackBlaze can read it. Now you might say that the B2 service is for 'IT' and SMB users, and not really for discussion on MacUpdate, however I use it as a private, individual user who just happens to have a lot more data than the average, non techie consumer, so I think readers on MU should be aware that there is another offering that fits the needs of user niche that is somewhere in the middle, yet still powerful and scabable enough to be used with large corporations, big business customers. Check out the B2 pricing, it is covered in many web reviews. If your data is in the 100's of gigs and you don't download much (just upload and store and update changes) it's not that much more than $6/month. If you already own Chronosync, you're done, and even CloudBerry client is only $29.00 for a ONE TIME, LIFE TIME license.

Version 7.0.0.412

WARNING!. This backup service does not back up applications in the /Applications folder and it does not back up aliases anywhere!. This is inexplicable, especially the alias problem. You have to move your applications to another folder and this can mess up some incorrectly-made applications. Also, the search function on their web site as well as in the iOS app sucks, as does navigating through hierarchical file structures.

Version 6.1.0.338

Tomq

18 December 2018

Trying trial: says backing up at 2GB/**day**! With 540GB to back up this will take only 270 days??!!! My internet speed is 80-100 mb/sec

Version 5.4.0.250

1 answer(s)

Tomq

05 January 2019

Well, backup only took a few days despite the 270 days estimate. BackBlaze seems to be working fine so far. A few tiny test restores worked fine.

Like (1)

Hands down still the best remote backup service around. Only 4 ½ stars, though, because you still can't backup /usr/local. A warning: since one update a few months ago—don't know which—bzserv (and therefore Backblaze) is almost unusable on computers with HDDs; maybe it has quietly been optimized for SSD-based systems, but if you still have an HDD, the system (including online page loading speeds) take a heavy hit, whenever bzserv is working in the background. (Reducing Backblaze upload speed doesn't help, because it's what's happening locally on your boot volume that's the problem.) I've been on an SSD for some time, and all is great, but before the switch one to two months of Backblaze on an HDD was a real pita.

Like (1)

Version 5.2.0.200

Mcr

14 May 2018

Until ISPs in the USA start providing symetrical upload/download (same speed both directions), online backup for the majority of people is not practical. My ISP provides 200 Mbps down, but only 10Mbps up. Even at 10Mbps, a backup of just my data takes over 24 hours, never mind system images. By the time data is backuped, it's already gone through several local update cycles, in other words, the online is never caught up.

Like (2)

Version 5.2.0.184

Count me in the group that has had NO problems whatsoever with BackBlaze. I've backed up terabytes of date, and have never had any problems with restores. 100% success so far. And $5/month for unlimited storage is unbeatable. Only downside, and this is inherent of all of these services, is that upload speed can be SLOW. This, however, is a problem with your ISP, and not the software.

Like (4)

Version 4.3.0.44

AVOID BACKBLAZE – As others have noted, test restores of data have been unreliable. Never assume that your data is safe without restoring data and testing results carefully. Backblaze restores were extremely problematic – and 'customer support' was slow, sketchy and unhelpful. I cancelled auto-renew after a year.

Like (6)

Version 4.2.0.990

My experience with Backblaze was that they were incompetent and didn't care to discuss the matter. Go elsewhere for cloud backup service. I'm successfully using DropBox and Box. SpiderOak and Arq have good reputations and are both Mac friendly. Box is kind of annoying in that you are stuck using Windows naming characters and they can lose track of which Mac in a mirrored pair is the primary versus secondary. Otherwise, I've had very good success with Box. The encryption dilemma: I have a password protected, encrypted Sparse Bundle Disk Image I use for storing my private data. Because it is a 'bundle', only pieces of the 'bundle' are updated as it changes, versus the entire disk image. I back it up and mirror it via Drop Box and don't have to care if government surveillance maniacs are on the loose busily destroying The Fourth Amendment. They can't get into my Sparse Bundle Disk Image, period. Meanwhile, I have it set to open up and ask for its password each time I boot my Macs. I made the Sparse Bundle directly inside Apple's provided Disk Utility set to maximum encryption.

Like (8)

Version 4.1.0.952

6 answer(s)

Odysseus

15 June 2016

Arq isn't a backup service -- it works with many, though (Google Drive, Amazon S3, etc)

Like (2)

Derekcurrie

17 June 2016

I own Arq. I know.

Like (2)

ososX

15 October 2016

Derekcurrie, you claim that you own Arq, isn't that unfair that you rate your competition?

Like (2)

dr-silentnuke

03 January 2017

@ososX He owns Arq, as in, he has paid for and uses the application. Not that he actually owns Arq or the company that developed it.

Like (3)

Canadianpj

08 March 2017

His experience does not nor should not speak for everyone. I've had many years of great service and will continue to use it.

Like (1)

Derekcurrie

09 July 2018

@Canadianpj And yet people tell me this same situation keeps cropping up.
“Excellent firms don't believe in excellence - only in constant improvement and constant change.” -Tom Peters

not bad, but not great either. One very annoying issue is that folders don't appear to be checksumed. Backblaze support says files are checksumed so if you move or rename it is not backed up again. However, if you have a folder with tens of thousands of files (i had to learn this the hard way) and you decide to rename it, it has to be backed up again. So if you are not a big folder mover and renamer, i think it might work for you.

Like (1)

Version 4.0.4.904

Backblaze

Overview

What's new in Backblaze

Performance - a 50% Boost:

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Backblaze Screenshots

57 Backblaze Reviews

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