Cloud backup services have grown in popularity due to their easy, cost-effective setup. Regular internet users turn to online backup for images or passwords, and businesses utilize it to make information available from anywhere and streamline their operations.
If you’re on the lookout for an online backup service — keep reading.
In today’s Backblaze review, we’ll tell you all about the company’s features, pricing plans, and data security.
What Makes Backblaze Stand Out
Backblaze is an industry leader in cloud storage and offers some of the best computer backup services on the market. There are over 50 billion files on its servers — over one exabyte of customer data — from users in more than 150 countries.
Pros
- Affordable
- Automatic backup
- Vast storage options
- Smoothly runs in the background
Cons
- Confusing pricing
- Reinstallation requires extra charges
About Backblaze
Gleb Budman and his team founded Backblaze in 2007, and currently, it’s one of the best cloud backup service companies on the market. Backblaze offers three services — Personal Backup, B2 Cloud Storage, and Business Backup.
The company has headquarters in California, three data centers in the US, and one in Europe. The primary goal of Backblaze is to provide affordable and easy-to-use services.
The founders focus on honesty, transparency, and commitment to do the right thing — evident in Backblaze’s users and employee’s satisfaction.
Backblaze Pricing Plans
Backblaze has straightforward pricing plans, although, mind the possible additional costs.
The pricing plans for personal services have three tiers — $6 per month, $60 per year, and $110 for two years. These prices refer to a single device and exclude taxes. There is a free trial available.
The Backblaze B2 pricing depends on your needs for storage, downloads, transactions, data restoration by mail, and product support:
- Storage — $0.005/GB/month — calculated daily, based on the average storage use over the last 24 hours
- Download — $0.01/GB— charged when you download files for any portion of a GB
- Transactions, based on the type of transaction — class A is free, class B and C are $0.004/1,000
- Data by mail — from $99 to $550
- Support — all B2 users can reach support online, and those who decide to upgrade their support plan can reach out via phone.
For Business Backup plans, costs are the same as for a personal one — $6, $60, and $110 per device. A 15-day free trial is available for businesses.
You can calculate the Backblaze cost for any plan on their website, and there are coupons available for a Backblaze discount. The mobile app for Android and iOS is also free.
Backblaze Services
Backblaze offers various cloud backup services, so let’s take a look at each one.
Unlimited online backup
All Backblaze plans have unlimited online backup. All your files will be automatically backed up, including attached external drivers.
Restore and access
Users can download their files at any time and location. Backblaze also offers delivery of a USB drive containing the user’s data. Comparing Backblaze vs Carbonite, we can see that Carbonite doesn’t have this option of physical data restoration.
All zip file downloads are free, while the physical restoration costs from $99 to $550. This option is primarily valuable to business owners.
Built-in data encryption
Research for our Backblaze review showed that the company encrypts users’ files on their devices first, then transfers the data via a secure SSL to the data center — where it’s stored on a disk and encrypted once more.
Personal key
Backblaze security includes two-factor authentication and the use of a personal key. Keep in mind that if you lose your key, Backblaze won’t restore it, and you’ll lose access to the data.
Locate my computer
In case you lose your computer, Backblaze updates the computer location information hourly and can report its ISP.
Computer backup
The main difference in the Backblaze Personal vs Business plan comparison is the data storage. While regular users want to store photos and videos, business owners are focused on preserving the essential work data.
The computer backup feature lets businesses centrally manage multiple devices from a single console. The backup is unlimited and automated, protected from ransomware, and includes a free hard drive restoration.
NAS
With Backblaze cloud backup, you can also secure the network-attached storage (NAS). Start by opting in for B2 storage, and then select software to transfer data from NAS to the cloud.
Server
Backblaze offers various server backup integrations — flexible scheduling, compression, encryption, and ransomware protection.
Veeam
Backblaze allows you to enhance data protection by combining its services with Veeam. When using Backblaze from a Veeam Console, you have the best online backups available. There’s also no need to manage backup hardware.
Content Delivery
Backblaze lets its users utilize Cloudflare and Fastly as content delivery networks. With them, people can push their stored content globally with zero egress fees. Cloudflare can help with stored applications, while Fastly is the optimal choice for videos and rich-media apps.
Manage Media
On Backblaze server backup, all files are easily accessible, and there’s no downtime. Media management is workflow friendly, and it connects with NAS, SAN, MAM, and other services.
LTO replacement
Cloud storage has made the Linear-tape-open (LTO) technology obsolete. The cloud is a cheaper, more accessible solution, with unlimited space to upload files. With Backblaze storage options, users can now shift data from LTO and LTP to the cloud.
The company utilizes Fireball for rapid transfers as it has 70 TB capacity but still allows for instant data download and minimizes the expenses compared to LTO. With the standard LTO, users have to order from the storage facility, pay the fees, load the index, and retrieve the files. With Fireball, all they should do is log in to the account, locate and download the files.
Compute
As we already mentioned in our review of Backblaze, the high-performance computers connected to the B2 storages are an essential feature for businesses. The company partners with Packet & Server Central to ensure that, as well as single servers for hourly rent, and custom configuration and managed services to cover all business needs.
Backblaze online backup and archive
Backblaze offers an affordable, high-performance S3 backup service. Users only pay for the space they occupy, without a minimum storage duration fee.
We confirmed a few things for our Backblaze B2 review — server backups are reliable and affordable; NAS devices let you access all your data; endpoints suit your business needs, and VM can extend the restore points.
Backblaze for Mac
Backblaze is arguably the best backup software for Mac — automatic backups, secure and encrypted data, and unlimited storage. When it comes to file restoration, the zip download is free. The price for a 265GB USB key is $99, and the USB drive of 8TB costs $189.
The software preserves deleted files and older versions for 30 days. Users, however, can extend the time up to one year for an additional monthly fee of $2.
Former Apple employees created Backblaze’s services, using Apple’s Xcode, making them the best online backups for Mac.
Backblaze for Windows
Backblaze offers Windows users the same features as Mac, making it possibly the best home cloud backup software. It uses less than 1% of the CPU and doesn’t require additional drivers.
Windows system requirements:
- Windows 7 and up
- 1 GB RAM
- 5 GB hard drive space
Backblaze hard drive stats
According to Backblaze review of its hard drive data, the annual failure rate is 0.89%.
Backblaze mobile app
The apps available for iOS and Android are the best file backup option for mobile devices. Backblaze app can store photos, videos, documents and more, organized as on the computer.
Other features include:
- Access to all backed up files
- File sharing via SMS, email, etc.
- Downloading a specific file to the mobile device
Backblaze Customer Support
In the Help section, you’ll see all the information listed for Personal, Business, and Cloud storage services. There, you can read about installation, restoration, accounts, privacy regulations, affiliate programs, Backblaze pricing, and more.
In case you get stuck, you can click the Support window to contact a Backblaze Help chatbot to ask some basic questions. If you, however, need customer support, you can reach it via the button in the chat or by scrolling to the end of the page.
The chatbot is always available, and customer support is open on weekdays between 9 AM and 12 PM and 1-5 PM Pacific time. You can also submit a ticket.
According to Backblaze reviews, users have had issues in the past with its customer support, mostly about technicalities.
What we found strange are the customer support tiers. The prices for Giga, Tera, and Peta tiers can go from free up to $700 per month.
Summary
We’ll conclude our Backblaze review by saying that its features are best suitable for small-to-medium business owners. It was created separately for Mac and Windows users, and it works for unlimited amounts of files and data. Users can access other integrations — Veeam, Cloudflare, Packet & Server Central — to easily manage their media.
The prices are affordable, however, many users have complaints about customer support. Nonetheless, you likely won’t have any issues with Backblaze’s reliable cloud backup service.
People Also Ask
Backblaze is one of the best cloud storage backup services on the market today. It offers affordable, unlimited backup storage options for personal and business use. Its setup is easy, operates without slowing down the devices, and grants a physical data restoration option via USB.
What some users may find as a limitation is that Backblaze’s data centers are based primarily in the US. There are few controls over backups, and one license covers only one device.
Backblaze services cost $6 per month, $60 per year, and $110 for two years. A free trial and basic support are also available. Other pricing tiers are calculated based on your needs.
Backblaze offers its services to many people at an affordable cost. That is one of the company’s advantages over its competitors. While the cloud backup market floods with expensive offers, people can use Backblaze’s services to upload their files without being costly.
Backblaze does offer unlimited amounts of data on the cloud to its customers for as long as they like.
Backblaze will encrypt the files on your device before transferring them via a secure SSL to the data center. The research for our Backblaze review showed that the stored files will then undergo secondary encryption for better security. Backblaze has also enabled two-factor authentication and a non-replaceable personal key for additional safety.
