Unlimited Storage Cloud Backup – Backblaze Review

Software Review

by Arne Nostitz-RieneckJuly 30^th, 2021

Backblaze is a hard to beat backup service that offers unlimited storage with their 6$/month plan. They will increase their price in August though – so if you act now, you can safe up to 58$ (that’s nearly 10 months of service).

Following up on a question we got last week about the differences between the sync solution and Dropbox alternative pCloud and the backup service Backblaze, I’d like to outline the main advantages of Backblaze as an online backup solution with this short article. And I would also like to let you know that till August 16th you can lock in the current price for up to two years of Backblaze before they will increase the price starting in August.

pCloud vs Backblaze

pCLoud, as I mentioned in the last article, is a great alternative to top-dog Dropbox with some amazing features and a very competitive price – you can read more about it here if you have missed it. In short, pCloud is a data sync and sharing solution with up to 2TB of storage with a lifetime membership that’s currently 65% off.

Backblaze on the other hand is a set-it and forget-it type of backup solution, that runs in the background and constantly checks for and uploads any changes in your entire file system. Without any size limit – including every connected storage (note: connected devices need to be present once every 30 days to not be deleted). It does not matter if your system drive is 2GB or 20TB, it will just upload – no questions asked.

The idea behind Backblaze is not to have a sync storage, that can be shared between devices, but more to have a complete backup – all system files included – to be safe in case of a crash, virus, fire or theft. The recovery features are also something quite handy – you can download entire system images, and you can also order a backup on a physical drive to get back up and running without having to download gigabytes of data. Have a USB flash drive (256GB for $99) or USB hard drive (up to 8TB for $189) shipped to you via FedEx. You can even return the drive to Backblaze within 30 days for a refund.

You can access the data via an app as well to use it as an online storage – just know that it’s not as convenient as other sync solutions. Sharing files is also possible, think WeTransfer without any limits.

Does it work?

I used their service for two and a half years until I changed my backup regiment to a local version plus online file syncs with pCloud. For my current setup with multiple workstations this is more useful and when I made my decision money was an issue. Today I would probably keep Backblaze as well in parallel. Just to be safe.

In my experience the system works reliable in the background and uploads the data quick and incremental. You can even set limits to the upload speed to keep bandwidth for browsing. Backblaze also updated their software quite recently for better performance, less CPU use and auto throttling.

The backup is a constant 1:1 copy of your current data. They keep old file versions for 30 days. So if you deleted or changed a file, you can always go back and restore. New is the ability to extend this to a full year of file versions for an additional $2/month.

Backblaze runs on Mac and Windows systems and is perfectly integrated. You install their software and unlock the machine with a license code. You can transfer this code to another machine by un-linking the current one. Each license is only valid for one computer though. So if you´d like to backup a second one, you’ll have to get a second license.

On Mac it integrates in the system preferences and from there you can access and manage your license, change the settings, exclude files and folders and also see some statistics.

Pricing

There isn’t much more to say, in my opinion Backblaze is an easy and reliable service. And until the end of this month (July 2021) they let customers lock in the lower 6$/month tier for up to two years, before they will increase pricing to 7$/month after that. So you can lock in a 60$/year subscription or even a 110$ for 2 years.

old pricing (until end of July 2021):
monthly plan: $6/month (will change in august)
yearly plan: $60/year
2-year plan: $110

new pricing (from August 2021):
monthly plan: $7/month
yearly plan: $70/year
2-year plan: $130

Just like most other services, Backblaze grants you a 15-day trial period for free.

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage

In addition to automatic backup, Backblaze also offers cloud storage called B2 Cloud Storage. This is a permanent archiving solution for a really minimal price. Cheaper even than AWS. You pay minimal for storage but also a small fee for downloading. So I use it as a permanent backup for important files, that I barely touch.

links: Backblaze | Blog entry about the price increase

Full Disclosure: This article contains some affiliate links to Backblaze, but neither I nor CineD are paid or otherwise compensated by Backblaze. At no extra cost to you, we receive a small commission if you decide to sign up for the Backblaze service.

What backup solutions do you use? Are you relying on online solutions as well, or keep it offline? Are you using any software or copying files by hand? let us know in the comments, we´d love to hear how you are tackling this challange.