Seven co-founders of Backblaze, which began in a modest Palo Alto apartment, have been working together since 2007. They first founded its cloud backup offering, but then in 2015, their Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage offering. This latter solution, and that’s an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), focuses on software integration for the commercial market. Backblaze announced business alliances with Packet and Server Central in 2018 to link the data centers.
Backblaze now employs 150 people at its corporate headquarters in San Mateo, California, serving around 500K clients scattered throughout 175 countries. Fortune, Streamlabs, Patagonia, and Complex Networks are a few notable clientele.
The company’s newest service is Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, but is this the best cloud storage option for your requirements?
What will you see here?
Plans & costs
Pricing for Backblaze B2 is rather straightforward. Even though there is no free trial period, this offer of 10GB of unrestricted storage space is an improvement. In this way, consumers with less complex needs can use the service, and others can give it a try before committing entirely.
Beyond that, the fee for storing data is a straightforward $0.005 GB/Month, which begs the question of why other players in the market don’t adopt a similarly straightforward pricing strategy. While there is no charge for uploads, the $0.01 per gigabyte per month charge for downloads, while cheaper than other services, can quickly mount up. Backblaze E2 pays the transfer, and so any legacy egress fees for migration that are over 10 TB as an incentive to switch to them.
What are the New Features in Backblaze B2?
As they claim to hold “Millions of objects & petabytes of data,” Backblaze B2 is made to be able to store media. It is made to be simple to set up and start working right away. Additionally, since the files are always available rather than being saved on tape or in another offline solution, which would require delays in accessing the data, it is a good fit for media. ‘Workflow friendly’ in design as it connects simply for NAS, SAN, and MAM systems.
Several different techniques can use to migrate to Backblaze B2. It is possible to transfer data from one cloud service to another, such as Google Drive or Amazon S3, but then write that data to a Backblaze B2 server. Another choice seems to be the on-premises to a cloud-based solution, which involves moving data from a server, NAS, or SAN to the cloud using either “Backblaze’s 96TB Fireball quick ingest device” or “specialized cloud pipes.” The final choice is to use tape material, either from a reels cassette or a cartridge, with a high-speed direct connection for the data.
Recognize that files can move across existing internet connections. Thanks to simple internet transfers, that multi-threading can optimize the connection.
The IaaS, which is S3-compatible & features native APIs, SDKs, and CLI, as well as being created to support developer workloads, is the backbone of this service. With numerous security measures, such as SSE and CORS rules, it is also quite secure.
Who Uses Backblaze B2 and Why?
Companies and organizations now have a method to store your data in the cloud. While still being able to access & restore this as quickly as necessary, thanks to the affordability of cloud storage. You do not need to pick between cost and effectiveness. Here are a few illustrations:
Backblaze B2: Entertainment & Media
To preserve their video library of the famed musical anthology series Austin City Limits, KLRU-TV, Austin PBS uses B2 Cloud Storage.
Cloud Migration
Vintage Aerial discovered that dumping their internal data server and storing their distinctive high-resolution photos on B2 Cloud Storage was more affordable.
Backblaze B2: Migration of LTO
The Girl Scouts of San Diego are able to automate their whole backup procedure while saving money & time by transferring their daily incremental back-ups on LTO tape to the cloud.
Back-up
A boutique accounting firm called Ahuja and Clark was able to save over 80% on the expense of backing up all of their client and corporate data.
Backblaze B2: Support
There are several ways to get support with Backblaze B2. However, there is no phone support accessible. View this flaws because the website lists a phone number that clears mark as “Not for customer service.”
Instead, support offers via a direct email address or a support portal that enables file attachments (such as an annotated screenshot). In other places, it is stated that users of the portal would receive a response within one business day. There is also a helpful website with a lengthy collection of articles organized by topic. Such as the article on “How do they disband a group?” in the Common Questions section.
Additionally, there is a chat option. We take issue, though, with the somewhat ambiguous hours, which read 9 AM to 5 PM PST, Monday through Friday. But actually, close on Mondays from 12 PM to 130 PM and other days from 12 PM to 1 PM. The hours for the weekends are also not specified. Additionally, to further add to the confusion, chat is completely unavailable on alternate Wednesdays. This makes us wish that this option was more widely available.
What to take into account?
Backblaze B2 is an appealing option because it has a tonne of features and support. On its website, it also emphasizes how much less expensive Amazon S3 is. In comparison, it offers savings of between 76% and 80% on both downloads and data storage.
Although this is true, we would also take IDrive e2 into account. This is due to the fact that it also provides the first 10 GB for free. In addition to having a lower storage cost and no exit fees.
Conclusion
In this S3 space, Backblaze B2 provides a very refined offering. This value the fact that the first 10 GB of storage are free and that the storage charges are lower than those of many rivals. Another benefit is the support choices. However, the lack of direct phone assistance and the constrained chat contact hours worry us. Additionally, even if it applies to the majority of the market. They are not very like of the download costs that this service levies.
In the end, that can easily include Backblaze B2 here on a short list of goods to consider in this market. At least in part because of the offer for the first 10 GB.
