Backblaze Increases Upload and Restore Speeds, Adds File Sharing and More

Megalith

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Backblaze is launching the fifth iteration of its backup service today. One of the most significant improvements is faster backups: users may now manually set up to 20 backup threads, and the company says that those with faster connections could see speeds of up to 100 Mbps. Other changes include faster (up to 10x) restore preparation and immediate downloads of smaller files.

A lot of the features in this release have come from listening to our customers about how they want to use their data. “Rapid Access” quickly became the theme because, well, we’re all acquiring more and more data and want to access it in a myriad of ways. This release brings a lot of new functionality to Backblaze Computer Backup: faster backups, accelerated file browsing, image preview, individual file download (without creating a “restore”), and file sharing. To top it all off, we’ve refreshed the user interface on our client app. We hope you like it!
 
Any opinion if it’s worth transitioning to BackBlaze from Crash Plan? Holding just over 8TB in the cloud atm.
 
Any opinion if it’s worth transitioning to BackBlaze from Crash Plan? Holding just over 8TB in the cloud atm.

Pricing? Last time I looked crashplan was pretty expensive. I only pay for backing up one computer.. unlimited storage for about $50 a year.

I then backup my important files from my other computer to the computer I have the subscription for.
 
this looks like 5$/mo for unlimited storage per device. I have two important pcs seems cool. Anyone abler to post their experiences? If so please tag me or quote the post so I look here.
 
Any opinion if it’s worth transitioning to BackBlaze from Crash Plan? Holding just over 8TB in the cloud atm.

I'm wondering as well. Backblaze is slightly cheaper ($50 vs $60 a year) but not sure that's worth transitioning all that data.

I am curious about DOWNLOAD speed comparisons between the two -- I've never (/knocksonwood) had to do a recovery so I have no idea how long download TBs of data would take for each service.
 
I've had Backblaze close to two years, I have about 18TB on there now. I've regularly seen speeds over 100mbit, but not by much. Excited to try the new client with more threads, I have gigabit upload so that would accelerate the process.
 
Nope, still sucks. CrashPlan is way better. With CrashPlan you can store files longer than 30 days that have been deleted (in case you accidentally deleted something) whereas BB deletes everything after 30 days. CrashPlan also allows you to select files or folders to restore direct from the client software to a location of your choice whereas BB you have to go through some stupid and cumbersome restore via the web process where their servers create a gigantic ass zip file that you have to download if your file(s) are larger than 30MB. What if my entire 4TB drive crashed? Right, like I'm going to download that zip file.

CrashPlan also allows you to make local backups to other computers for FREE in addition to the cloud backup service. This is useful (and I use it) to make a local copy that I can access fast if needed as well as the cloud backup service in case all my local copies are lost to hardware, fire, etc. They can't be beat and even after this update, BB is still inferior. The only thing BB has going for it is a native client for Mac/Windows whereas CrashPlan uses Java but the rumor is this is changing. Then again, using Java allows them to offer more clients (Linux). Both are unlimited and pricing is similar. You can even get promo codes to make CrashPlan even cheaper. I've used a lot of backup services over the years and CrashPlan is still on top.
 
$5 per month. Sacrifice eating out for lunch for one day per month and it pays for it. Seriously, if you don't have it, get it.

Side note: it took me 2 straight weeks of uploading 4TB of data. 150 Mbps Down, 20 Mbps Up.
 
Nope, still sucks. CrashPlan is way better. With CrashPlan you can store files longer than 30 days that have been deleted (in case you accidentally deleted something) whereas BB deletes everything after 30 days. CrashPlan also allows you to select files or folders to restore direct from the client software to a location of your choice whereas BB you have to go through some stupid and cumbersome restore via the web process where their servers create a gigantic ass zip file that you have to download if your file(s) are larger than 30MB. What if my entire 4TB drive crashed? Right, like I'm going to download that zip file.

CrashPlan also allows you to make local backups to other computers for FREE in addition to the cloud backup service. This is useful (and I use it) to make a local copy that I can access fast if needed as well as the cloud backup service in case all my local copies are lost to hardware, fire, etc. They can't be beat and even after this update, BB is still inferior. The only thing BB has going for it is a native client for Mac/Windows whereas CrashPlan uses Java but the rumor is this is changing. Then again, using Java allows them to offer more clients (Linux). Both are unlimited and pricing is similar. You can even get promo codes to make CrashPlan even cheaper. I've used a lot of backup services over the years and CrashPlan is still on top.

You make some excellent points, however everyone's use case is different. For me, the 30 day post deletion protection isn't something I'm worried about. Restoring directly with Crashplan is nice, I will give you that - but how often does it actually come up? I don't see myself actually restoring from this outside of a disaster. If I lost my 18TB I would not create an enormous zip file, I would do it in chunks but yes, it would be cumbersome. So from a file restore standpoint, I will agreee that Backblaze is not ideal.

I honestly don't see the point to your cloud software allowing you to make local backups. I do that anyway, and thus your local backup should be your primary recovery option. I wouldn't see this as a ding against Backblaze, but a little feature for Crashplan users who want to only deal with one piece of software for all their backup needs. The pricing is similar, but promo codes go both ways. When I first signed up for Backblaze I paid $40 for my first year, now my second year has been $50. Not much different from Crashplan's typical price of $59, but don't dangle promo Crashplan pricing that makes it sounds like they are cheaper, they aren't.

One thing you don't discuss is the backup speeds? I know when I was shopping for backup software, this was a paramount concern for me alongside price. I don't recall exact figures, but I know SOS and Crashplan had difficulty getting past 30mbit. Backblaze was getting about 70mbit so I went with them. As time has passed, I've regularly seen it average over 100mbit, and since this speed update? I updated to 20 threads in the client and I'm uploading to them at 600mbit. I find this is an area they excel, and an area Crashplan was very frustrating in. But of course time has passed, how are the speeds now?
 
I recommend backblaze to some of my clients with normal storage requirements (note 18 tb is not normal)
Someone said it took weeks to upload their data, well BB recommends that if if takes longer than X number of days that its service might not be the one for you.

If your interested in bb get your info from them and not from 1 or 2 posts in a forum.
BB has tons of good info, here is some for starters.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/
https://www.backblaze.com/restore.html
https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664608-Best-Practices
https://www.backblaze.com/help.html
and many more, google is your friend
 
i have been trying some of the cloud backup services, but keep running into the same issue. While my total storage is under 1TB, all their clients choke and die when trying to upload the over 1 million files i have. yes.. tons of very small text files. the only thing that seems to work.. good old FTP
 
Restoring directly with Crashplan is nice, I will give you that - but how often does it actually come up? I don't see myself actually restoring from this outside of a disaster. If I lost my 18TB I would not create an enormous zip file, I would do it in chunks but yes, it would be cumbersome. So from a file restore standpoint, I will agreee that Backblaze is not ideal.
This is quite literally the point of a backup. The saying goes that a backup is only as good as the ability to restore it. Carbonite(?) I believe got in some major shit some years ago because their restores did not work. So it didn't matter how fast/cheap/easy/insert whatever it was.

I honestly don't see the point to your cloud software allowing you to make local backups. I do that anyway, and thus your local backup should be your primary recovery option. I wouldn't see this as a ding against Backblaze, but a little feature for Crashplan users who want to only deal with one piece of software for all their backup needs. The pricing is similar, but promo codes go both ways. When I first signed up for Backblaze I paid $40 for my first year, now my second year has been $50. Not much different from Crashplan's typical price of $59, but don't dangle promo Crashplan pricing that makes it sounds like they are cheaper, they aren't.
The point is it is centralized, 1 stop shop for convenience and manageability. The client also encrypts and compresses the data as well as single-instances the files. Efficiency. I didn't say it was a ding against BB necessarily, just a bonus to CrashPlan. I didn't tout CrashPlan as being cheaper than BB, I simply said it is cheaper that the what, 6 bucks per month with a promo code. Either way, it is still in line with BB in that respect and ridiculously cheaper than most backup services.


One thing you don't discuss is the backup speeds? I know when I was shopping for backup software, this was a paramount concern for me alongside price. I don't recall exact figures, but I know SOS and Crashplan had difficulty getting past 30mbit. Backblaze was getting about 70mbit so I went with them. As time has passed, I've regularly seen it average over 100mbit, and since this speed update? I updated to 20 threads in the client and I'm uploading to them at 600mbit. I find this is an area they excel, and an area Crashplan was very frustrating in. But of course time has passed, how are the speeds now?
No idea as it runs on my server and uploads faster than I can put data on it so I don't really pay attention. I know when I last switched to CrashPlan again (I moved to MS "Mesh" or whatever it was when MS offered tons of space for free which they since discontinued) that I uploaded around 2.5 TB in a matter of a few days. This taking into account the compression/encryption/single-instance storage taking up a lot of CPU cycles for a time. I don't allow CrashPlan to use many cycles because I give priority to other tasks. If you turn those features off and/or allow it to use more CPU, the speeds go much faster.
 
Is there a good write up on the restore process between the two?

It's been a couple years since I looked in to it, but between slow speeds and a very unsatisfactory restore process, I bought in to neither. I'm just curious if its better now.

Right now for off site I got a friend to run a small vm on one of his servers at his house with a few of my drives hooked up to it. Not practical for most people, but it works for me. My stuff syncs once a week on a Cron job.
 
Got the email this morning that CrashPlan is abandoning their Home plans... ETA 14 months until they are all ended. So that's no longer an option!
 
Got the email this morning that CrashPlan is abandoning their Home plans... ETA 14 months until they are all ended. So that's no longer an option!

Just started to post that since I'm a Crashplan user. Looks like users get to finish out their current subscription and then are pushed to move to the Small Businiess version, which is $10/month/device. My email said that we get the first year at 75% off.

Really don't want to start the whole upload process again for almost 3TB of data to another service :(
 
Yup, I got the email this morning too. After I got done touting CrashPlan too lol. I can't believe they recommended home users move to Carbonite! They've lost their minds. I guess my only real unlimited and inexpensive option is BackBlaze now even though the restores are inferior. What really sucks is recently I got the notification from Cox that the data cap is now 1TB per month and I've got 3TB of data to upload. There is a grace period they said of I believe 2 months so I hope I am still in that grace period and can upload all of this during that time. Rarrgh.
 
Haha.. at least you have a grace period. Comcast here has been at 1TB for awhile so the grace period is long over. Of course this is the perfect storm with getting ready to move across the country. My understanding with Crashplan is that if I shut my server down all the data will remain on their side waiting to be synced again whenever I bring it back online again. Hard to sell the house with a 24U cabinet full of gear running in the office/spare room ;) Guess I'll be looking at Backblaze when we get to our new location..
 
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