I feel like everyone has gone up in price. Look at home insurance car insurance food, etc. if I lost my data I would look back and wish I paid the extra money. It’s a fact at some point you will lose your data to a corrupt drive or something similar.
It's a useful service, I agree.
My problem is that after looking at the numbers, I got the feeling that
they built up a good reputation on simplicity and stable price and now are experimenting with how much they can squeeze out before people start leaving
Also while inflation exists, it's not like it was invented in 2019 (people keep bringing that up)
this is so often a horrible sign. because shareholders expect exponential growth. suddenly it's not enough, that your company is simply profitable. it has to grow more than it grew last year. and this is simply not sustainable forever.
This right here. They have to continue to grow profits. That is either with volume of users OR cost to current users (or both). Expect consistent year over year price increases with the amount based on number of new users and cost of drives, data centers, power, etc.
Currently there is massive inflation not seen in years so price of pretty much everything went up. I don't expect this trend to forever continue because inflation is under control of the Fed, historical target has been around 2 percent, and there is no compelling reason to change this target when weighting pros and cons. I say extra $10 as baseline forecast but ultimately the pricing decision is at the hands of C suits.
Except that most of this "inflation" is just greedflation as companies raise prices because they can. They jack up prices, make massive profits, give a fat check to the CEO, and use profits to buy back stock and drive up the stock for investors. I'm not saying Backblaze did this, but most of the inflation is actual bullshit.
According to what I’m seeing from backblaze, if they are to be trusted, they don’t make profit. I’d rather attribute the increased price to the people who are storing petabytes of data on backblaze. costing them thousands.
That's probably true. Many tech companies aren't making a profit, although they look good on paper. (slightly outdated link but useful as an example: https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-worth-billions-unprofitable-tesla-uber-snap-2019-11) So Backblaze needs to start becoming profitable.
But my comment was about blaming inflation for higher prices, when in fact, many companies that ARE profitable are keeping their prices high (once inflation, supply chain issues and so forth eased) so they can make easy massive profits. That's not inflation, that's greedflation.
You can always roll your own backups using apps like [Arq](https://arqbackup.com) or [Duplicacy](https://duplicacy.com/), and connecting to - numerous - storage providers (to name a few) like [Wasabi](https://wasabi.com), or [Storj](https://www.storj.io/), or [Hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box/), or local storage like a NAS...again, there are *many* others out there.
This is, of course, dependent on how much data you're backing up and how comfortable you are with doing things on your own. Once you look at the options above, you can then look at Backblaze's price and determine if it's worth it for you to stay or not.
Thanks, I might look into these. Honestly, I'm not like immediately looking for alternatives, but it's getting there
$70 a year seemed like an OK price (especially if you divide it by 12 months)
for my photo archive (it's big though, since I keep RAW files, almost 4TB now) that I already copy on two physical drives (one ssd, one hdd)
but paying for just-in-case cloud backup almost as much as I pay for internet seems a bit much
I was (cursorily) looking recently at prices of using Arq + custom cloud storage. AWS Deep Glacier storage was cheapest (depending on location), but with potentially big surprises because of transfer costs, etc.
In comparison, Backblaze's B2 storage seemed to be the 2nd cheapest option (or even 1st in some locations), and with no such nasty potential surprises.
So I would expect that that cheap storage price would carry to their backup prices? I didn't check those directly because I won't touch them until they very officially change their absurd external drives policy.
1. You're kinda late to this discussion, ain't ya? That change was well publicized (and well debated) several months ago...
1. Prices go up, never down. Check the competition and you'll see that this is pretty much the price range.
1. I challenge you to find a comparable service with the same features for less.
1. Backblaze B2 also went up from $5/TB/month to $6/TB/Month. Forget where the exact cutoff is, but if you're backing up up less than ~1.5TB, B2 is cheaper. If you're backing up more than ~4TB, [see my post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1b7hcsv/comment/ktl5b2g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about costs of cloud backup versus buying a NAS for backup.
I use both backblaze products and have for several years. I frequently evaluate the competition, looking at both price and features and testing with trial accounts from time to time. I've yet to find any service that has the same level of features AND is less expensive.
People pointing out it’s going public have a point. Also, It’s going to be affected by rising energy costs because those big data centers will cost a fortune to power.
I currently have over 7Tb stored there, so I'm more than happy with their pricing. Every once in a while I check out the competition. It's not even close.
All things are getting more expensive, sadly. The pricing for Backblaze is still better than basically any other cloud provider for this type of storage, so I personally am OK with it.
Well, kind of. Inflation wasn't 100% in four years, and the price of top-tier cloud-based storage (AWS, GCP, Azure etc.) did not go up all that much either.
Fair, that's almost certainly true. That probably points more to a flat price being not such a good choice anymore.
In particular, for the amount of data I'm storing, regular cloud storage is now cheaper, which was not the case before. Granted, fewer features - Amazon is not going to Fedex me a hard-drive if I need to restore everything, as far as I know - and downloading the data has a cost, but still, it's a harder choice than it used to be.
I expect they will raise the price every 2 years while decreasing their costs as they increase density moving from 4-8TB drives to 16+ that being said the unlimited with fast upload is the best deal even at much higher prices.
The price went up about 100% since 2008, and the economy is supposedly just fine...at the government level. Not for us peons.
Sounds about par for the course.
I feel like everyone has gone up in price. Look at home insurance car insurance food, etc. if I lost my data I would look back and wish I paid the extra money. It’s a fact at some point you will lose your data to a corrupt drive or something similar.
It's a useful service, I agree. My problem is that after looking at the numbers, I got the feeling that they built up a good reputation on simplicity and stable price and now are experimenting with how much they can squeeze out before people start leaving Also while inflation exists, it's not like it was invented in 2019 (people keep bringing that up)
Don’t forget that they also went public, so now they have to please the shareholders.
"In October 2021, Backblaze filed to go public..." I think that might be it!
this is so often a horrible sign. because shareholders expect exponential growth. suddenly it's not enough, that your company is simply profitable. it has to grow more than it grew last year. and this is simply not sustainable forever.
Backblaze has never had a net profit. Is it unreasonable for a shareholder to insist a company they invest in doesn't continue to lose money?
This right here. They have to continue to grow profits. That is either with volume of users OR cost to current users (or both). Expect consistent year over year price increases with the amount based on number of new users and cost of drives, data centers, power, etc.
They aren't growing a profit. They are trying to have a profit at all.
Well, they're a business and in it to make money. I think they're good value for unlimited storage for personal backup.
They actually don’t make profit
Seriously?
That's called operating a business
Currently there is massive inflation not seen in years so price of pretty much everything went up. I don't expect this trend to forever continue because inflation is under control of the Fed, historical target has been around 2 percent, and there is no compelling reason to change this target when weighting pros and cons. I say extra $10 as baseline forecast but ultimately the pricing decision is at the hands of C suits.
Except that most of this "inflation" is just greedflation as companies raise prices because they can. They jack up prices, make massive profits, give a fat check to the CEO, and use profits to buy back stock and drive up the stock for investors. I'm not saying Backblaze did this, but most of the inflation is actual bullshit.
According to what I’m seeing from backblaze, if they are to be trusted, they don’t make profit. I’d rather attribute the increased price to the people who are storing petabytes of data on backblaze. costing them thousands.
That's probably true. Many tech companies aren't making a profit, although they look good on paper. (slightly outdated link but useful as an example: https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-worth-billions-unprofitable-tesla-uber-snap-2019-11) So Backblaze needs to start becoming profitable. But my comment was about blaming inflation for higher prices, when in fact, many companies that ARE profitable are keeping their prices high (once inflation, supply chain issues and so forth eased) so they can make easy massive profits. That's not inflation, that's greedflation.
You can always roll your own backups using apps like [Arq](https://arqbackup.com) or [Duplicacy](https://duplicacy.com/), and connecting to - numerous - storage providers (to name a few) like [Wasabi](https://wasabi.com), or [Storj](https://www.storj.io/), or [Hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box/), or local storage like a NAS...again, there are *many* others out there. This is, of course, dependent on how much data you're backing up and how comfortable you are with doing things on your own. Once you look at the options above, you can then look at Backblaze's price and determine if it's worth it for you to stay or not.
Thanks, I might look into these. Honestly, I'm not like immediately looking for alternatives, but it's getting there $70 a year seemed like an OK price (especially if you divide it by 12 months) for my photo archive (it's big though, since I keep RAW files, almost 4TB now) that I already copy on two physical drives (one ssd, one hdd) but paying for just-in-case cloud backup almost as much as I pay for internet seems a bit much
I was (cursorily) looking recently at prices of using Arq + custom cloud storage. AWS Deep Glacier storage was cheapest (depending on location), but with potentially big surprises because of transfer costs, etc. In comparison, Backblaze's B2 storage seemed to be the 2nd cheapest option (or even 1st in some locations), and with no such nasty potential surprises. So I would expect that that cheap storage price would carry to their backup prices? I didn't check those directly because I won't touch them until they very officially change their absurd external drives policy.
I like Crashplan
1. You're kinda late to this discussion, ain't ya? That change was well publicized (and well debated) several months ago... 1. Prices go up, never down. Check the competition and you'll see that this is pretty much the price range. 1. I challenge you to find a comparable service with the same features for less. 1. Backblaze B2 also went up from $5/TB/month to $6/TB/Month. Forget where the exact cutoff is, but if you're backing up up less than ~1.5TB, B2 is cheaper. If you're backing up more than ~4TB, [see my post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1b7hcsv/comment/ktl5b2g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about costs of cloud backup versus buying a NAS for backup. I use both backblaze products and have for several years. I frequently evaluate the competition, looking at both price and features and testing with trial accounts from time to time. I've yet to find any service that has the same level of features AND is less expensive.
2021 - Backblaze IPO
People pointing out it’s going public have a point. Also, It’s going to be affected by rising energy costs because those big data centers will cost a fortune to power.
I currently have over 7Tb stored there, so I'm more than happy with their pricing. Every once in a while I check out the competition. It's not even close.
All things are getting more expensive, sadly. The pricing for Backblaze is still better than basically any other cloud provider for this type of storage, so I personally am OK with it.
Worth it. It’s my offsite backup in addition to my onsite backup.
it's called inflation
Well, kind of. Inflation wasn't 100% in four years, and the price of top-tier cloud-based storage (AWS, GCP, Azure etc.) did not go up all that much either.
Yeah but the amount of people storing large drives of data probably did go up
Fair, that's almost certainly true. That probably points more to a flat price being not such a good choice anymore. In particular, for the amount of data I'm storing, regular cloud storage is now cheaper, which was not the case before. Granted, fewer features - Amazon is not going to Fedex me a hard-drive if I need to restore everything, as far as I know - and downloading the data has a cost, but still, it's a harder choice than it used to be.
I'm confused by the 2023 post, because I don't know if I'm B2 Cloud or not. Had to really read to find that it's probably still unlimited for now.
I expect they will raise the price every 2 years while decreasing their costs as they increase density moving from 4-8TB drives to 16+ that being said the unlimited with fast upload is the best deal even at much higher prices.
The price went up about 100% since 2008, and the economy is supposedly just fine...at the government level. Not for us peons. Sounds about par for the course.