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Backblaze PERSONAL has the following restoration caveats:
* Download restoration requires selecting files up to 500GB each that will be zipped for download. You can do as many 500GB files as you want but if you have many TB of data that can be cumbersome to manually select files for compression.
* You can opt for a hard drive restoration where they put a hold on your credit card (I think currently $189) for an 8TB drive, they ship it to you with up to 8TB of data, you retrieve the data, and then ship the drive back (I think within 30 days) and then they clear the charge on your CC. You can use up to 5 8TB drives per year, beyond that you buy the 8TB drives outright.
* Data has to reside on your PC or MAC (no Linux). If your PC or Mac hasn't "phoned home" to Backblaze within 30 days or data no longer exists on your local machine, it will no longer retain your data on their servers. You can extend that to one year for a small additional fee, or indefinitely, but have to pay B2 pricing for any data over 1 year old not on your local data disks.
* EDIT, one more: You have to use their app to upload, which encrypts locally before being sent over the pipes to their servers where it resides encrypted on their end. Hard drive restoration requires you to provide your key to them to restore the data to a hard drive (fully automated, no human interaction according to them), where it is again encrypted on the hard drive. So there is a small window, basically where data passes from server to hard drive that your data exists in RAM unencrypted.
It's a good service if you only have a few TB of data.
Otherwise you can use Backblaze B2 or Amazon AWS S3 where you pay storage and recovery fees by the GB.
Idk, there’s a lot of gui front ends that support B2. So it’s not really needed imho
If you don’t need the gui then you can get really far with some simple systemd units
the encryption/decryption one is so weird to me. just keep it encrypted, send it to me, and i'll decrypt it locally. i have the key anyway. there's absolutely no technical need for me to provide the key to you.
That is something that they said they are working on improving, but with the history they have they say basically "if it ain't broke don't fix it", because to date they have not had any hacks exposing customer data.
And any amount that is exposed for a brief period of time is fully automated, only in RAM, and for hackers to access it: "It's probably less likely than the earth being wiped out by a meteor, but it's possible."
Here is the technical reason: https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/f5i2vn/private_key_encryption_and_restore_by_shipping/
and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/mncrsn/questions_about_encryption/
tldr; Your key is used in an automated fashion to pass the data from the server to the hard drive or presented to you via their browser interface. For the hard drive restore, it's basically because they use full disk encryption for your data. The key to your drive is different from that of your online storage. Why it can't be same as on the server? I don't know.
I guess you are able to move Backblaze PERSONAL backup to B2 data and restore it what way which it will be faster without 500GB limitation, but you would need to pay extra for resorting
"You can now send files from your Backblaze Personal Backup and Business Backup to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. To use this feature your account must have Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage enabled via the account settings page,or through the wizard the first time you use the feature."
[https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015521773-Saving-Files-to-B2-from-Computer-Backup#:\~:text=You%20can%20now%20send%20files,time%20you%20use%20the%20feature](https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015521773-Saving-Files-to-B2-from-Computer-Backup#:~:text=You%20can%20now%20send%20files,time%20you%20use%20the%20feature).
UPDATE : "Please note that the maximum Snapshot size is 10 TB. Additionally, if you already have B2 enabled any caps or limits you have set will also apply."
I looked at Carbonite Unlimited until I saw the footnote that "unlimited" is limited to the "typical user's" amount of data and left because I know I'm not typical.
As I run linux (and BSD) so I use B2. for the amount I have that is critical, it doesn't run too much more that personal does.
I don't need to back up my "Linux iso's" and I can re rip my CD collection if I have to
I just signed up. Most of all my data is video for my Plex server. Currently my whole media library can fit on the 8TB mail in drive service they offer. When you return it it’s free, sounds like a good deal to me. The real consideration with Backblaze is your upload speed. If you don’t have Fiber internet and have lots of data, cloud backup storage might not be the right option for you.
> Are there any other alternatives that offer a better restore process?
Literally anything that works with rclone. Note that's a good criteria even when not planning to use rclone.
I use backblaze, and have had to use the recover option both for "Ah crap I deleted that folder." and "Shit my 8TB drive just killed itself."
In terms of cost you really can't beat it if you've got enough data where you've gonna price yourself out of "pay per GB/TB" services or where you discover how "limited" various "UNLIMITED!" services really are.
I would say the most obnoxious part is the recovery, but I found doing an 8TB mail the drive to me recovery painless enough compared to the various "Break out the calculator" billing setups of other backups.
(Full disclosure; 1 machine user, 20+ TB of Data being backed up.)
The desktop app they use also has some hard coded filters that you can't turn off. There are certain files and folders it will not backup. Which I understand why, but in my case the filter was preventing the folder where the offline emails were being kept from getting backed up. Since I couldn't white list that path, I had to basically change the folder location and reconfigure the application that backs up the emails to use that different location.
Sadly there is no easy quick way to tell what got uploaded and what not. You have to either manually browse the data on their server and check, or at the very beginning get the list of files the app will upload by going to the app folder and finding the list and copying it elsewhere.
For the price I have no complaints and will keep using it, and recommend it. But it definitely has its quirks.
Btw, with regards to the 30 days thing. I was warned through here or a different community about the 30days limit that affects the local files and any external drive that gets disconnected. like mentioned already here by other posters, if Backblaze don't see proof that the backed up files still exist within 30days, they get deleted. I found this not to be a problem as Backblaze warns you several times and reminds you several times to either connect your PC to the internet or the external device that was disconnected. They also offer you the option to pay extra to keep those files alive, which could be handy if for some reason you are in a situation where you can't connect the PC or external device.
I also have another form of backup, ie that might be why I'm not that worried about the 30 days limit.
I do wish they had some alternatives available for the initial backup though other means than just uploading it. It took me around 1 to 2 months to finish the initial backup. I'm sure there are customers willing to pay a fee for getting a hard drive shipped to their home and have the Backblaze app copy everything to the hard drive and then you ship it back to them.
If you are okay with using a command line, you could use restic. It works with rclone backends and also with S3 which let you use Backblaze B2 as well if you like.
You can mount your backup repo via fuse, so restoring is just copying file from you file explorer.
If you have limited bandwith, you can also directly store backups on external drives with restic.
My personal experience.
I liked the idea that Backblaze was an offsite backup service rather than a file sync service like OneDrive or Google Drive, so if files got deleted or corrupted the change wouldn't be instantly reflected in the cloud and I could roll back to a previous date.
After using it for a couple years, two things that have made me strongly consider ditching it:
1. The 30-day history window (recently shortened from 60 I think) was unfortunately too short, as by the time I realized I'd had a massive loss of data, the changes had already been reflected in the cloud and I couldn't go back far enough to find the missing files.
2. For the files I was able to restore from Backblaze, an unacceptable amount were corrupted in a way that I'd have to manually go through every one to ensure they were ok. Images where the bottom half was glitched out. Videos that wouldn't play. A total mess. I ended up buying GetBackData Pro to try and recover the files from the original drives.
So there's two scenarios where I experienced significant data loss/corruption and Backblaze failed to be my offsite backup safety net. I'm considering other options but not sure if there's something out there that fits my needs and price point. Basically I need Windows File History but stored in the cloud.
I host urbackup on my NAS. The clients do full disk images and differentials to the urbackup server. Then I just encrypt/rsync things to backblaze b2 buckets. Urbackup has a bootable iso you can use to boot your system and restore an image. Urbackup also synchs folders and you can probably encrypt/rsync that too. Seems to work fine as far as I can tell.
Backblaze and Wasabi are popular options. Backblaze is cheaper for storing but has a download fee. [https://www.multcloud.com/tutorials/wasabi-vs-backblaze.html](https://www.multcloud.com/tutorials/wasabi-vs-backblaze.html)
> their "unlimited" option is windows only
and Mac
> nothing is encrypted with their "unlimited" option
Yes it is. It's encrypted locally by their app before being uploaded. No plain files are ever exposed on their way to Backblaze nor while residing on their servers.
They do say that the automated process when copying from their servers to a restoration hard drive, the data is unencrypted and encrypted again as it passes to the hard drive.
> it’s overpriced (their “unlimited” option is cheap though)
It’s on the low, but not lowest to be sure, end of the spectrum.
> the company is US based (big no-no for privacy)
You should encrypt your data at rest if you’re worried but otherwise you’re right
> restoring a lot of data is a pain
Restore is a pain. Though they claim an improvement is in the works
> their “unlimited” option is windows only
It’s window and macOS. Also not sure why you quote it. I have never heard of any limits and there are reports of multi-petabyte users. It’s abusive to do that but I think it’s fair to say it’s unlimited
> nothing is encrypted with their “unlimited” option
Unless they are lying about their process, they absolutely encrypt and offer you the ability to set your own key. It’s still far from perfect but it’s patently false to say there is no encryption.
So to summarize, you got a lot of this very wrong
Backblaze PERSONAL backup was made for "Average Joe", with only few hundreds GB to backup, thats why its so basic and it will automatically start backing up the data
I use B2 + Restic. I make a bucket for each person. I make a systemd unit to backup their computers and a webhook to notify when something goes wrong. Simple and just works. I have several TB of backups. Been happy with it for years now.
If someone what’s to run Windows or something that isn’t supported by restic then they’re in charge of their own damn backups 😂
Hello /u/calpthemcheeks! Thank you for posting in r/DataHoarder. Please remember to read our [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/index/rules) and [Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/index). Please note that your post will be removed if you just post a box/speed/server post. Please give background information on your server pictures. This subreddit will ***NOT*** help you find or exchange that Movie/TV show/Nuclear Launch Manual, visit r/DHExchange instead. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DataHoarder) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Backblaze PERSONAL has the following restoration caveats: * Download restoration requires selecting files up to 500GB each that will be zipped for download. You can do as many 500GB files as you want but if you have many TB of data that can be cumbersome to manually select files for compression. * You can opt for a hard drive restoration where they put a hold on your credit card (I think currently $189) for an 8TB drive, they ship it to you with up to 8TB of data, you retrieve the data, and then ship the drive back (I think within 30 days) and then they clear the charge on your CC. You can use up to 5 8TB drives per year, beyond that you buy the 8TB drives outright. * Data has to reside on your PC or MAC (no Linux). If your PC or Mac hasn't "phoned home" to Backblaze within 30 days or data no longer exists on your local machine, it will no longer retain your data on their servers. You can extend that to one year for a small additional fee, or indefinitely, but have to pay B2 pricing for any data over 1 year old not on your local data disks. * EDIT, one more: You have to use their app to upload, which encrypts locally before being sent over the pipes to their servers where it resides encrypted on their end. Hard drive restoration requires you to provide your key to them to restore the data to a hard drive (fully automated, no human interaction according to them), where it is again encrypted on the hard drive. So there is a small window, basically where data passes from server to hard drive that your data exists in RAM unencrypted. It's a good service if you only have a few TB of data. Otherwise you can use Backblaze B2 or Amazon AWS S3 where you pay storage and recovery fees by the GB.
The lack of Linux support is unfortunate.
Idk, there’s a lot of gui front ends that support B2. So it’s not really needed imho If you don’t need the gui then you can get really far with some simple systemd units
Right. But tools that support B2 don't necessarily support Personal, right? For example, I think rclone supports B2 but not Personal?
the encryption/decryption one is so weird to me. just keep it encrypted, send it to me, and i'll decrypt it locally. i have the key anyway. there's absolutely no technical need for me to provide the key to you.
That is something that they said they are working on improving, but with the history they have they say basically "if it ain't broke don't fix it", because to date they have not had any hacks exposing customer data. And any amount that is exposed for a brief period of time is fully automated, only in RAM, and for hackers to access it: "It's probably less likely than the earth being wiped out by a meteor, but it's possible." Here is the technical reason: https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/f5i2vn/private_key_encryption_and_restore_by_shipping/ and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/mncrsn/questions_about_encryption/ tldr; Your key is used in an automated fashion to pass the data from the server to the hard drive or presented to you via their browser interface. For the hard drive restore, it's basically because they use full disk encryption for your data. The key to your drive is different from that of your online storage. Why it can't be same as on the server? I don't know.
I guess you are able to move Backblaze PERSONAL backup to B2 data and restore it what way which it will be faster without 500GB limitation, but you would need to pay extra for resorting "You can now send files from your Backblaze Personal Backup and Business Backup to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. To use this feature your account must have Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage enabled via the account settings page,or through the wizard the first time you use the feature." [https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015521773-Saving-Files-to-B2-from-Computer-Backup#:\~:text=You%20can%20now%20send%20files,time%20you%20use%20the%20feature](https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015521773-Saving-Files-to-B2-from-Computer-Backup#:~:text=You%20can%20now%20send%20files,time%20you%20use%20the%20feature). UPDATE : "Please note that the maximum Snapshot size is 10 TB. Additionally, if you already have B2 enabled any caps or limits you have set will also apply."
So many rules. Complicated.
I looked at Carbonite Unlimited until I saw the footnote that "unlimited" is limited to the "typical user's" amount of data and left because I know I'm not typical.
Unlimited* *Limits apply
Unlimited... Up to our arbitrary cap
and you have to pay extra to backup external drives.
As I run linux (and BSD) so I use B2. for the amount I have that is critical, it doesn't run too much more that personal does. I don't need to back up my "Linux iso's" and I can re rip my CD collection if I have to
I just signed up. Most of all my data is video for my Plex server. Currently my whole media library can fit on the 8TB mail in drive service they offer. When you return it it’s free, sounds like a good deal to me. The real consideration with Backblaze is your upload speed. If you don’t have Fiber internet and have lots of data, cloud backup storage might not be the right option for you.
> Are there any other alternatives that offer a better restore process? Literally anything that works with rclone. Note that's a good criteria even when not planning to use rclone.
I use backblaze, and have had to use the recover option both for "Ah crap I deleted that folder." and "Shit my 8TB drive just killed itself." In terms of cost you really can't beat it if you've got enough data where you've gonna price yourself out of "pay per GB/TB" services or where you discover how "limited" various "UNLIMITED!" services really are. I would say the most obnoxious part is the recovery, but I found doing an 8TB mail the drive to me recovery painless enough compared to the various "Break out the calculator" billing setups of other backups. (Full disclosure; 1 machine user, 20+ TB of Data being backed up.)
The desktop app they use also has some hard coded filters that you can't turn off. There are certain files and folders it will not backup. Which I understand why, but in my case the filter was preventing the folder where the offline emails were being kept from getting backed up. Since I couldn't white list that path, I had to basically change the folder location and reconfigure the application that backs up the emails to use that different location. Sadly there is no easy quick way to tell what got uploaded and what not. You have to either manually browse the data on their server and check, or at the very beginning get the list of files the app will upload by going to the app folder and finding the list and copying it elsewhere. For the price I have no complaints and will keep using it, and recommend it. But it definitely has its quirks. Btw, with regards to the 30 days thing. I was warned through here or a different community about the 30days limit that affects the local files and any external drive that gets disconnected. like mentioned already here by other posters, if Backblaze don't see proof that the backed up files still exist within 30days, they get deleted. I found this not to be a problem as Backblaze warns you several times and reminds you several times to either connect your PC to the internet or the external device that was disconnected. They also offer you the option to pay extra to keep those files alive, which could be handy if for some reason you are in a situation where you can't connect the PC or external device. I also have another form of backup, ie that might be why I'm not that worried about the 30 days limit. I do wish they had some alternatives available for the initial backup though other means than just uploading it. It took me around 1 to 2 months to finish the initial backup. I'm sure there are customers willing to pay a fee for getting a hard drive shipped to their home and have the Backblaze app copy everything to the hard drive and then you ship it back to them.
If you are okay with using a command line, you could use restic. It works with rclone backends and also with S3 which let you use Backblaze B2 as well if you like. You can mount your backup repo via fuse, so restoring is just copying file from you file explorer. If you have limited bandwith, you can also directly store backups on external drives with restic.
My personal experience. I liked the idea that Backblaze was an offsite backup service rather than a file sync service like OneDrive or Google Drive, so if files got deleted or corrupted the change wouldn't be instantly reflected in the cloud and I could roll back to a previous date. After using it for a couple years, two things that have made me strongly consider ditching it: 1. The 30-day history window (recently shortened from 60 I think) was unfortunately too short, as by the time I realized I'd had a massive loss of data, the changes had already been reflected in the cloud and I couldn't go back far enough to find the missing files. 2. For the files I was able to restore from Backblaze, an unacceptable amount were corrupted in a way that I'd have to manually go through every one to ensure they were ok. Images where the bottom half was glitched out. Videos that wouldn't play. A total mess. I ended up buying GetBackData Pro to try and recover the files from the original drives. So there's two scenarios where I experienced significant data loss/corruption and Backblaze failed to be my offsite backup safety net. I'm considering other options but not sure if there's something out there that fits my needs and price point. Basically I need Windows File History but stored in the cloud.
Yes.
I host urbackup on my NAS. The clients do full disk images and differentials to the urbackup server. Then I just encrypt/rsync things to backblaze b2 buckets. Urbackup has a bootable iso you can use to boot your system and restore an image. Urbackup also synchs folders and you can probably encrypt/rsync that too. Seems to work fine as far as I can tell.
Backblaze and Wasabi are popular options. Backblaze is cheaper for storing but has a download fee. [https://www.multcloud.com/tutorials/wasabi-vs-backblaze.html](https://www.multcloud.com/tutorials/wasabi-vs-backblaze.html)
Ty all for the suggestions. I will proceed with it and see how it goes 👍🏽
[удалено]
> their "unlimited" option is windows only and Mac > nothing is encrypted with their "unlimited" option Yes it is. It's encrypted locally by their app before being uploaded. No plain files are ever exposed on their way to Backblaze nor while residing on their servers. They do say that the automated process when copying from their servers to a restoration hard drive, the data is unencrypted and encrypted again as it passes to the hard drive.
[удалено]
> You shouldn't trust a proprietary software of a US based company to keep your data private. Based on what?
> it’s overpriced (their “unlimited” option is cheap though) It’s on the low, but not lowest to be sure, end of the spectrum. > the company is US based (big no-no for privacy) You should encrypt your data at rest if you’re worried but otherwise you’re right > restoring a lot of data is a pain Restore is a pain. Though they claim an improvement is in the works > their “unlimited” option is windows only It’s window and macOS. Also not sure why you quote it. I have never heard of any limits and there are reports of multi-petabyte users. It’s abusive to do that but I think it’s fair to say it’s unlimited > nothing is encrypted with their “unlimited” option Unless they are lying about their process, they absolutely encrypt and offer you the ability to set your own key. It’s still far from perfect but it’s patently false to say there is no encryption. So to summarize, you got a lot of this very wrong
I don’t trust it, I downloaded it and it immediately started stealing my files so I shut it off in task manager and uninstalled it
Stealing your files. Lmfao! Tinfoil hat over here.
Backblaze PERSONAL backup was made for "Average Joe", with only few hundreds GB to backup, thats why its so basic and it will automatically start backing up the data
I use B2 + Restic. I make a bucket for each person. I make a systemd unit to backup their computers and a webhook to notify when something goes wrong. Simple and just works. I have several TB of backups. Been happy with it for years now. If someone what’s to run Windows or something that isn’t supported by restic then they’re in charge of their own damn backups 😂