I think im gonna use your link in the comments and get this. After reading through the comments I think first I will rename all my external Hdds to names that will be permanent, dont wanna sit and reupload once is bad enough 😂. If I am constantly moving files from one drive to another. I am in the process of reorganising my pc because I let it become a mess due to a system upgrade and a data recovery service. Got the files back but absolutely no structure whatsoever. Devastating but could have been worse. This is why I found your video looking for a solution so this cannot happen again. What happens if i go over the 16tb limit? Or what happens if I need to download files back off tue cloud? Will i incur extra charges? Great video, alot of information so I will watch again. Gained a subscriber and a like awesome job mate, Thanks 💯
Love it thank you! There’s no limit for you to worry about going over so you’re sweet there. There’s also no charge to get files back. You can download individual or bulk folders as needed through their web portal. And, if you did need to recover a lot of data, you can get a drive sent out with it on. That costs to get the drive sent but you can return it for a refund (it’s usually cheaper to buy your own drive to copy the files over to than keep the one they send). 👌🏻
Awesome mate 👌🏻 loll have to let me know how you get on. Like I said, it takes a bit of time to back everything up but it’s definitely been a lifesaver and it doesn’t require any consideration. It just ticks away in the background 👌🏻👌🏻
Hi, Harrison. Your video really informs me. I have a few question: 1. I'm on a really tight budget, so I'm thinking of backing up my files on 1 SSD and on Backblaze. Is this an at least okay idea? If my SSD fails, will I still have access to my files on Backblaze? If I buy another SSD and install my files from Backblaze on the new SSD, will that work? 2. When I have the money, should I buy another SSD in addition to my current SSD or should I buy a hard drive? which one is more reliable for the long run? I've heard people both recommend and disgard HDD (says nobody use HDD anymore). What do you think? And what HDD is reliable now? Hope you will reply, thank you in advance!
Hey. It depends what you’re trying to do and how much data you’ll need to backup, or intend to backup. If you’re a generally lite user of data storage (someone who just has a lot of documents or family photos etc) then a simple 2TB external SSD could be ideal. Then you can offload a lot of things to the SSD and back that up to Backblaze. If the SSD failed then yes you can still access the files on Backblaze but you’d need to “restore” the data onto a replacement SSD (exactly like you assume) at some point as Backblaze is a mirror of a local drive, not cloud storage. Regarding the second question, if you do fill the external drive then you can always add more obviously. As to which is better, SSD or HDD, they have pros and cons across both. If you plan to work off of the drive with editing software then an SSD would be better as it will read and write faster, less susceptible to damage if dropped, smaller physical size etc so really the better choice in general IMO BUT they’re generally around twice the price. A regular external HDD are much more affordable when looking at larger storage and probably the better choice if it’s generally just pure data storage you’re looking for but has downsides such as being a larger physical size, more susceptible to drop damage because of moving parts and a lot slower read and write speeds compared to SSDs. Which ever type of drive you do go for always go for a reputable brand to ensure better reliability. Eg LaCie Samsung. Main brand might be more expensive than others but reliable drives will last much longer.
Not a good video title. This video is a fluffy discssion about using backblaze for backup. Just call it that. you do everything but talk about how it "really" works. It's just click bait.
Apologies if you felt miss led bud. Were you hoping to understand literally how the servers, data transfers, encryption etc worked? Maybe I should have added “from a users perspective” or “for me”. Would that have made sense for you?
@@harrisonmudge I think that would be ideal. As a person who is probably more tech-oriented, I would have realised that video is not for me. Remember that Backblaze is a company, not a product. It offers other products as well - not just their user-oriented backup service. I'm actually an S3 storage customer of theirs. Even if you just popped "backup" somewhere in the title, it would be useful. Since you asked, my go at it would be "how Backblaze backup saved my bacon" because then already I know I'm in for a user-experience video and I'm not gonna get annoyed because I'm browsing for tech info. Hope that helps.
umm i think the words 'life saver' kinda qualify the content and spells out what to expect 🤷♂ pretty reasonable to expect a 'backblaze' video to discuss personal experience + general bulletpoints of the service. I'd say improve your search criteria brah versus jumping in the comments to pointlessly bash
Yes it did. Can’t recall exactly how it worked but they either provided the code in an email or it showed in your Backblaze account via the web. Now that I think about it I’m confident it was the latter. It arrives very well packaged, sealed box, foam insert etc.
Man, this video is so helpful. All information I need you mentioned here. Thumbs up! Does it also work, when a NAS is connected to my Computer? Hard Drives are no problem you said.
Thanks bud, glad it could help. When it comes specifically to NAS it will NOT back that up like a drive. The reasoning is because it’s a network drive there could be an infinite amount of computers attached to it. They do offer NAS backup but that technically falls under B2 Cloud Backup. That's $5 per TB per month. It's pricier than the Personal plan but it stays at $5 per TB, instead of scaling up or any weird tiering systems. If you want to check that out you can see it here: www.backblaze.com/business-backup.html#af9yk9 So it kinda depends on your situation. I do think that a NAS is the obvious choice for smaller businesses but when I tried implementing it, I actually found the network aspect much more of a pain to connect to, add too, work off of. And then I kept filling the capacity of the drives, then you have to buy a bigger NAS, then all of a sudden you're dropping £££'s on a 12 bay NAS, with 12TB drives, twice for the redundancy! So I decided early on that it was just much more efficient (for individuals) to work off of portable, external drives. I also read a while back (not sure if still accurate) that drive failure rates in certain raid setups are likely to happen at almost the same time so you basically end up replacing multiple drives at the same time regardless. Again, caveat that with something I read a fair few years ago.
Yeah I know I know. It gets mind boggling managing it all though. I also find myself eventually having to transition to larger drives just because I assume with some clients we would never use so much data but then we plough through storage and have to migrate and increase everything!
Hey Harrison, thanks for your video! I've just heard about Backblaze as I'm looking for a good reliable cloud storage option to backup my footage when I'm working on video gigs away from home. I have two questions if you can help that'd be great! 1 - It seems you live in the UK and Backblaze is in the USA. They shipped the drive with your lost data from USA to the UK? 2 - Do you know if their backups are incremental? I'll be using their service mostly when in hotels or places with not the best internet connection so if I have to backup the whole hard drive every night it might just not work. But if backups are incremental then I'll be safe I think. Thanks!
Hey Alexis, thanks mate and happy to help. So, yes I’m in the UK and while I’m not 100% sure if the drive came from the US if I remember right I did ship it back to a US address so it likely did. It took about 5 or so days to come so that would make sense. The way the backups work is by checking all the files on your computer or external drive. Seeing what new or updated files there are and then only backing up anything new. If there’s a file on the drive that’s already backed up and it hasn’t been altered then it will not be backed up again. That’s why getting everything backed up can initially take time, but once it’s caught up it only needs to upload any new or altered files. You’re not re uploading an entire drive every time you plug in. Remember it is only a backup though. If you delete a file on the local drive it will also be removed from the backup. Also, you get a 30 day version history too (extendable at an additional cost) so if you did delete something you can pull it back within that version history timeframe. Hope that helps mate
Very valid. At the time it was for speed and reliability of getting a drive delivered with all the data on ready to go. To download it would have taken an unknown amount of time and would have required my laptop to be on the whole time, plugged in, with a new drive attached that also would have taken time to be delivered. This tool probably about 3 days total to arrive. In the mean time we could get everything else ordered and prepared to transfer. We could also work directly on the drive till we were ready to copy over. Based on this happening a few years ago now, it may have taken nearly 3 days or mor to download 2TB and I just didn’t want to risk it.
If I’ve updated file names and or moved around folders on my Mac, will the changes be reflected on Backblaze also? My issue is that my files on my Mac can get messy and all over the place after a while and I do eventually organise everything, but I don’t want to have to do that twice (once on my Mac and again on Backblaze). I’m guessing as it’s just a mirror, everything on Backblaze will update accordingly?
Correct it’s just a mirror so if you move or rename it will update it server side. I double checked this as I think I miss quoted something before but it won’t need to re upload BUT it does add changes to the upload queue. But when it checks the file if it hasn’t change and only moved then it will just make the change server side for Backblaze rather than re upload a duplicate.
I’m thinking of doing similar. I’m going to get a Leccie external hard drive for my photos and Lightroom catalog files. I can then move easily between computers. I’ll then log back into my main desktop to send to the cloud. Just wondering whether to buy a SSD external drive or a HDD external drive. From the pricing I assume you use HDD. Just wondering if you use them like I want to (work directly on the files saved on the external HDD) and if you find that fast enough for editing?
Really good question and one I still think about each time I get new drives. To keep it brief I'd say SSD is the better option because of speed, size and inherent ruggedness (no moving parts). But both are totally viable. I do think you can still use a HDD for photo editing without any issues. I even use for some video still and totally useable. They're certainly more cost effective but, based on my experience they're more susceptible to physical damage, if you dropped it or somehow aggressively shook it. Obviously an SSD isn't invincible either but there's no moving parts to be bent out of shape.
Yes I do still use it. It’s become primarily a personal backup solution now though. I still use it to backup work projects as it’s still a fantastic solution that just works in the background but our team has now grown so we needed a solution to share data as well as back it up. So we use Sync to share work. That’s great too but works very different and costs significantly more compared to Backblaze.
Yeah basically. You just have to pay the return postage which was around $30 ish which is nothing in the grand scheme of being able to recover your data!
@@harrisonmudge I’ve always heard of this service (haven’t had to utilize yet 🤞) but always thought the fee was the fee. I def learned something here, thank you 👍
9:58 one feature that I really like (and that no other service seems to offer), is their unlimited rewind feature. Summarizing what you showed at the end there - It's currently $178 every two years to have 1 year file history on their cheapest plan. And it's $0.005 (half a cent) per GB you use per month for files further than a year back (you do need to upgrade to this version before you can use it). That is amazing pricing for full history of your files - you can delete files you don't need so your computer doesn't run out of space, and if you ever want an old file just go back and get it! Unlimited Space (limited only by the size of your local storage) + Unlimited History is an amazing combo.
Yeah I agree it's great value for sure. I've not had too much need to pull out files beyond the 30 day period included with the basic but it definitely has an offering that should suit a lot of peoples needs. It really is incredibly affordable for what they offer.
@InesJonasSister yes that’s right, it’s only a mirror of your physical drives. If you’re looking for off site cloud storage there’s lots of options at various price levels. The more data you want to store the more it’ll cost obviously. Something we use in our company is Sync. It’s not the cheapest but we handle a lot of data and need to share it between team members so we have their unlimited plan at about £15 per user (minimum of 2 users) They do do an individual plan, while not unlimited it’s still competitively priced and is true cloud storage.
Price jumped 20% in October -- I think this has outpriced itself -- I remember seeing the price only be 60 USD/yr just 2 years ago; and now it is 99 USD/yr. That is almost 30% price increase per year. I would hate to know what the prices are going to be in 2-3 years. Definitely would have been sold if the prices weren't going as crazy.
Yeah you’re right the price has gone up. They’ve extend the version history for all accounts to 1 year as standard now though and it’s the first price rise I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been using it for about 7ish years. Hopefully it won’t go up again but who knows. It’s still good value in my opinion as there’s still no other unlimited option like they offer at the same sort of price
@@harrisonmudge Makes sense. And it is a bit surprising that no one else offers the Time Machine feature -- that is a real seller for me. And even though I am complaining about the price hike, if you consider the price of NAS devices and HDDs, then BackBlaze is really good deal.
@h-bar8649 yeah for sure. It does hurt a little as EVERYTHING keeps creeping up their prices so hopefully with this rise we won’t see another rise for a long time again. It’s definitely a more cost effective alternative than a NAS so long as you don’t mind juggling external drives a little bit.
Technically you can yes BUT not on the regular unlimited personal backup. It would have to be a B2 account which costs around $6 per terabyte. This may or may not be a deal breaker. It’s just the share function doesn’t exist for the personal backup plan. Depending on the total amount of days your using Google Drive / Photos may be better s you can share folders or albums with people easier
I've used Backblaze for years and it's saved my bacon more than once. I have about 13TB of photos and videos on my PC and it's a great feeling knowing they are in the cloud. I also have a NAS, but the B2 Cloud Storage is too expensive for my needs. Thanks.
Wow, that's a lot a data! Thanks for sharing :) Yeah it's definitely peace of mind for sure. And I really like how it just does it in the background too, nothing manual apart from checking which drives to backup at all.
This looks like it may be the perfect solution for me, as my 6 yr old 12TB WD MyCloud (NAS) is getting full (I'm a photographer, and it's photos & videos from 1999-now), and a replacement with significant increase in size will cost well over $1k USD... Question: I think uploading the entire 10TB will take months to complete, and my only hesitation is that's a long time to wait to start resuming my daily backups... Can I prioritize uploading of newer files first, or start the trial by uploading just a small amount recent files (like from Jan 1 2023-present) to get my daily backups up and running -- then add the older stuff and let it take its time? Or would I have to start the process over? Alternatively, I could just keep my current MyCloud as the repository for 1999-2022, and just use BackBlaze for 2023 forward, but would be nice to get it all up there eventually.
Hey Alan, appreciate the question. Annoyingly (but understandably) if you have a NAS then that falls under their ‘Business Backup’. This is more expensive as it’s priced on TB, about $5 per TB. Still a lot cheaper than other options, they have an app that you’d install on the NAS. I’ve used it on a synology, but I assume it’s ubiquitous on a lot of them (don’t hold me to that). My understanding is the backup works by batching a certain amount of data and sending that. So smaller files will get prioritised and sent quicker than larger videos. But if your NAS is online the whole time 12TB may take a few weeks depending on your internet speed. The thing with the NAS and Backblaze backup is you’ll still need both. So if you’re outgrowing your NAS it could be more cost effective to get portable external drives and a personal backup for 2023 onward. Just depends how reliant you are on having a NAS as that’s definitely an easier workflow than plugging in drive after drive. But $50+ a month is definitely more expensive than $8 😅 Depends if you just need to keep a copy + backup or you need that extra redundancy too. While quite Manual I actually have a drive, backed up to Backblaze and also mirrored to another external drive but but of s headache to manage the physical copy
@@harrisonmudge thanks for that. But I wasn't thinking of including the old/full NAS in the BackBlaze upload at all. My thinking was to just back up my PC (with it's 3 internal HDs and 10+TB of photo & video files) to Backblaze on the $8/mo unlimited plan. I only mentioned my 6 yr old WD MyCloud unit's filling up as it's the reason for making that move. It is not the conventional/configurable NAS as it has sealed internal HDs that are not removable or up-gradable. Can I not use Backblaze's $8/mo unlimited to backup the PC whilst keeping the aging NAS as a separate component on my home network (likely upgrading it at a later date)? -- Assuming the answer is yes... My concern is that new content I'm adding daily is not getting backed up with my current NAS full (I'm only backed up through May), and I want that to commence immediately: The question I'm posing is basically; if I set BackBlaze to back up the entire content of my PC, will I be waiting the many multiple weeks (my upload speed is 20-23Mbps) to get my current daily content uploaded? -- OR, can I start my trial by uploading only the content of current concern, June 1, 2023 and newer (separated by folder structure) immediately to BackBlaze, then, once that is complete, configure it to commence the rest of the 10T of content (I have read complaints that any changes to what is uploading causes it to start the entire process over, which sounds like an extended nightmare... is this correct?)? Hope that makes sense! I know IDrive will do this for me, but will cost significantly more ($20/mo for over 10TB-20TB), so hoping I can accomplish it with BackBlaze because of its price and it's physical drive by mail restoration service.
I understand you now bud, apologies. Yes what you’re suggesting is correct for your internal drives. Interesting about that NAS, does it show as an external drive/s or does it show specifically as a NAS? Regarding backing up your internal drives, you basically select what drives to backup, not what folders. It doesn’t give you folder specific selection. However, you CAN choose folders to EXCLUDE. So, if you wanted to get specific, and assuming your file structure allowed it, you could exclude pre 2023 folders meaning it would do your most recent first. That could be a bit of a faff long term and would require your folders to be set up in such a way you could exclude like that. But could be worth it to test. You can also include entire drives so it could be that you exclude 2 drives then just exclude folders on the third (again this assumes a specific file structure) In regards to making changes to files and drives on the backup, renaming and moving files already backed up shouldn’t require you to re upload as the file gets logged (fingerprinted) so the change or move should happen on their servers. If you rename the drive that’s when you have to re upload the whole thing. That’s annoying and have done it once but if you know about it then you can at least consider it and work around it. Either name / rename the drives first or commit to the existing drive name (or strap in and re upload it all again if you really need to change the name😅)
@@harrisonmudge thanks again. Re: the WD MyCloud NAS, Windows File Explorer displays it as a device or location under "Network" tab/folder. It connects Directly to my router and is apparently a dinosaur now -- USED to be accessible anywhere via Internet connection but with age it has become somewhat obsolete, as of earlier this year Western Digital has shut down this model's access outside of its connected local network, encouraging owners to upgrade to their latest & greatest. So it's lost it's "cloud" capability and is really just an aging external network drive (accessible by our computers, tablets and smartphones connected to our local wifi only). Anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH for the replies. I will be giving BackBlaze a go. Your work is much appreciated!
Ah that sucks mate. Well I hope you find a solution mate. If you do give this a go use the trial link in the description, that should take you straight where you need to go. If you do go for it that’ll support me too with no additional cost to you 👌🏻 And no problem on the reply mate. I try to cover most bits in my videos but it’s so hard to cover all unique circumstances so more than happy to answer Qs 👊🏻
In theory yes it will back us as many drives as you want. BUT remember they do have to be connected at least once a month to keep the backup. You can’t ‘trick’ it. As it places a hidden file on the drive so it knows when the drive is connected, if another dive had an identical name, it would know which is which. I assume you’re thinking you could have multiple drives under the same name so it backs them all up as one drive?
@@harrisonmudge no actually i'm more worried that it wont recognize the drive for instances like a name or drive letter change because i saw another video the guy is whining about he had to reupload the entire drive after a name change i was hoping it could recognize all my external HDDs via serial number or something because i literally had 100 of them and not enough USB ports lol btw do they flag your data for movies and songs like Google? Google deleted most of my stuff without warning overnight wth think they skipped deleting anime tho smh...
I’m not aware of them doing anything with your data like removing it. I couldn’t say for sure but I don’t think they’d delete that stuff. It’s a backup, not cloud storage so in my head I’m thinking there’s a different policy. Definitely don’t take my word on that though but I have a lot of music and videos and stuff and it’s all on there with no issues. Regarding the drive rename, yes annoyingly if you had a 2TB drive fully backed up, then renamed the drive it will treat it as a brand new drive. Bit annoying as I have had to do it once but if you know that going in then it’s worth just considering your drive naming system ahead of selecting the drive for backup
@@harrisonmudge thanks, yes i have had all my external HDD named in a specific way and even the colours that i choose to buy serve a different purposes lol WD passport Black for media, White to mirror the favourite media, Red for most crucial files of my life/family, Blue to mirror that and had more than 10 of each colour by now and kept the mirror disks in different house lol I've never knew its possible to just pay such a small amount for cloud backup, or maybe i just totally dismiss it years ago because companies like these had been popping out only purpose is to steal your data and money then closed down. But since this company last for so long maybe i'll finally give it a try
Wow that’s a lot of data and drives! Gotta respect the colour coded system though 👏🏻👏🏻 I’d say give it a try, there’s a link in my description. Only thing is, because there’s gonna be so much data for you to back up maybe try with a drive or two that have smaller files (if there are any) such as photos and stuff. That would give you a better sense of seeing how the dashboard works and all that too. Also, I know I’m probably repeating myself here but you need to keep the drives and connect them at least once a month to keep the backup, it’s not cloud storage, it’s a cloud backup. But it does mean you get the extra copy in the cloud to fall back on if a drive failed. And when they are on the cloud you can access them remotely if you needed them in a pinch 👌🏻
Hey harrison! thanks for the vid. Do you know if it is the same pricing no matter how many drives you want to backup? I have 2 computer drives and 3 external drives for now.
So long as it’s the same computer there’s no limit to the number of drives on a single account, internal or external. They’ll just need to be connect every 30 days if you unplug the external ones.
@@harrisonmudge so if i have 2 computers and 3 external drives, it would be more pricey? I don't see what does it change if you have let's say 1 computer and 4 external drives. You have the same number of drives in the end.
Yeah easiest way to think about it is its ‘per computer’. So 1 machine + infinite drives = 1 licence . 2 machines = 2 licences. They link it to one licence per machine otherwise one persons licence could cover your entire family or business. Not a good business model for them. But a single computer that has lots of drives in is ok because it’s a single user.
@@harrisonmudge okay I see, thank you so much for explaining this! I guess my situation would equal to 14$ a month then, since it is 7 a month for one machine.
@sgadsden yes that’s right mate. You can manage it and view files and restores etc through one account so you don’t have to have a secondary/ separate account, you can just ‘add computer’. Then your subscription will be a single $14 dollar subscription. 👌🏻
So let's say i have a memory card full of photos.. Can i upload all my photos to Backblaze, then delete all the photos on the card so i can reuse it? Or will all my uploaded photos be overwritten/deleted the next time i connect it to Backblaze? I want to send my files to the cloud and then delete them off my physical drive so that I'm not constantly rebuying another drive. Sorry if this is a dumb question 🙈
No, happy to clarify. In short, no that will not work. Couple of reasons: 1. Backblaze will not backup removable drives like an SD card or flash drive 2. Backblaze is a ‘mirror’ of your physical drive and only acts as a backup, not cloud storage. So you’d still need to buy say a large external hard drive, offload them all to that and then back that drive up to Backblaze. Then Backblaze will mirror that external drive. Delete it on the drive, it gets removed from Backblaze. If you want pure cloud storage then you’ll need something like Google Drive or Sync but those get very expensive if you have a lot of data. Backblaze is a backup of your physical drives, not an alternative. Hope that clarifies it a bit mate
Depending on what you need, and budget, something like Sync.com could be a solution. It’s full cloud storage but it costs more and has data limits unless you have their ‘unlimited’ package which is very pricy per month for an individual. If you’re a team though and can allocate business budget for it then it’s worth looking at
Wait so I need to connect the drives every 30 days? That's a downside. So imagine you lose the drive or it completely stops working? Or you just don't have the time to be connecting it? The purpose is to have your files saved and not worry about backing them, then why do they bother to care if its the same drive or not??
Correct, and I agree, if you’re looking for cloud storage this is NOT the solution. You need something like google drive or Sync or similar but they carry much much higher monthly fees. This is a BACKUP of a physical drive, so if the drive fails or gets damaged somehow they you can recover it in an emergency. You will need to reconnect every 30 days to keep that backup in your account. Best way to think about it, assuming you have lots of drives is this is really only for backing up active projects where you plug in and use a drive regularly. If you’re trying to store things long term and don’t need access and would like redundancy without having a NAS you may as well have, for example Drive A. Mirror its content onto a separate drive, Drive B. And store that in a separate location from the first. It all depends on your requirements for access, storage and budget. I actively use a lot of the drives you see in the video so having them backed up while working is essential incase something happened. And having them on a physical drive I can plug in and go is much quicker than working on remote files.
@@harrisonmudge what a shame. It’s been weeks and I still haven’t found a basic cloud storage with unlimited data so I can upload separate files under $30 monthly price. Every service scams you with the “Business 3 users minimum”. They charge over $1200 a year.
@@Javier23gol There isn't any. The last one that did it and gave up was Dropbox. It is what it is. If you want a permanent cloud drive of a lot TB you will have to pay for it and it will cost.. a lot. If nobody offers something like that anymore there is one logical explanation. It costs them too much. Honestly you can just pay 2 dollars a month more and with 9 dollars a month you will have to connect the drive only 1 time a year. I think they are very reasonable.
Yes it really is unlimited. But remember you need to have the drives connected at least once every 30 days. The only speed limitation would be your own upload speed really. It will of course take time to get your 20TB uploaded.
@@harrisonmudge So Harrison, I have my 2TB drive always connected but I need to disconnect and reconnect every 30 days? Am I interpreting this correctly? Thanks!
If it’s always connected you’re fine. You don’t need to disconnect it. It’s only if you like to disconnect it, on a laptop for example. The 30 day connection is so they can remove the data from their servers if you’re no longer backing it up. If they makes sense.
At the time it would have taken a few days to download none stop and with the nature of my work I couldn’t have left the computer on downloading so it was easier to get a drive delivered
If I'm honest, I didn't mention it as it's not really something I'd thought too much about! But yes all the data is encrypted and no I don't believe Backblaze can see your data. However I haven't actually looked super deep into it BUT they do have loads off information about how their security, data and encryption process works and from some cursory reading it seems to tick all the right boxes. Here's some of their blog posts that cover this a bit though: www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/security www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-make-strong-encryption-easy-to-use/
The backblaze backup takes quit a lot of time to upload so it runs the drives for a longtime. I'm concerned about the wear and tear on the drives, It would be the best to have a nas drive or at least a prosummer drive to upload to backblaze ?
You're right if it's an old drive with a lot of data. Theoretically it's only going to read the drives during the upload though so if you started with a fresh drive it's going to do it as you go, reducing the amount of time the drive needs to be read. In my experience NAS is extremely expensive and lacks the portability and immediacy and share ability of portable drives. Yes they have redundancy but if those drives are being accessed a lot then in my opinion you're no better off than an external drive. You also need to be connected to the NAS network to access it which, depending on your setup and the NAS can actually be less than ideal. It's certainly down to personal preference but for me NAS was expensive and limiting. But if you're not collecting terabytes of data then you could be fine with a NAS. It's just the initial investment. You can also still backup to Backblaze from the NAS but that's not unlimited as it uses their business B2 Cloud Storage and costs per TB.
@@harrisonmudge I was talking about a nas grade hard drive, meaning drive that can handle lots of runtime. Personnaly I don't have a NAS but I have a bay of 4 disk connectef to my Mac. I use backblaze to backup the video footage I take in my work so it's about 1tb by day of shoot. So the disk is running quite all day or night. And I'm pretty sure my backblaze account id unlimited, did they changed it ?
@monsterandmaster sorry, I miss understood. What setup is it you use? Did you build it yourself? Whats the capacity of those drives, I assume pretty big? I use these drives as they’re inexpensive and we’ve not hand any fail through usage alone. One is making a noise now so we’ll replace it but it’s only a backup. If you’re using fresh drives per shoot you’d be less likely to have general usage issues id say but as always, one backup solution like Backblaze isn’t the only thing you should rely on if you truly care about protecting the date. Additional physical, on and off site backups and all that would be best but that’s just way too excessive. We’ve actually started to use something called Sync between members of our team. That’s cloud storage but a lot more expensive. We use it to share data across multiple remote team members. It’s good but has its own set of nuances too so again not something you would solely rely on.
@@harrisonmudge I use a Sabrent dock connected to a Mac. I've tested the setup with two 8tb seagate disk (one barracuda and one exos) I'm going to buy 18tb either seagate exos enterprise or ironwolf pro/ironwolf pro NAS. I don't really have the possibily of having offsite backup but each disk are mirrored. In case of failure of one, there is still the other one. One of these disk is backuped in backblaze to prevent the failure or destruction of the 2 physical one. Backblaze is really for the worst case scenario.
Good question. And the answer depends if you will be using your computer during that time. If you DON’T then you would simply make sure you’re all backed up with any drives plugged in too. Turn off the computer and then in theory it’s fine until you return. If however you’ll be on your laptop, leaving drives behind then it would give you the disconnected warnings etc. you can get around this by having a version history though and recovering from where you left off. You’d need to double check on that though as I’ve not personally done it myself. Their FAQ covers this so worth checking out.
Nothing will be deleted. As long as your desktop is powered off. From their site: Before you leave your computer, make sure Backblaze is up to date, all external or secondary drives are connected, and the Backblaze control panel or system preference reports 0 files remaining to be backed up. After you've verified that, leave any external or secondary drives connected, then completely shut down your computer so it will no longer contact our servers while you're away. You can disconnect any external or secondary drives while it's powered off. "Missing computer" email reminders are sent 14, 21, 28, 60, and 90 days since a backup was last seen by our servers. If you intentionally have Backblaze paused, you can safely disregard these messages, but keep aware of the rules regarding the "most recent backup snapshot".
Hey Harrison, potential new user here and I have multiple drives like you and also backup to Google Drive. But not sure if anyone asked this yet, but what if I wanted to backup ONLY my raw images and Lightroom collections? I don't need all the documents/spreadsheets and other duplicates I already have on multiple drives. Thanks!
Good question. Had to think about that and double check it myself. Technically yes you can choose to ONLY backup raw files and Lightroom. However, after a quick look, you’d need to technically ‘exclude’ everything else. You can’t choose what to backup, you can only select what NOT to back up. In theory you could arrange the folders in a way that only a specific ‘backup’ folder is selected. Feels like it’s a bit of playing with settings to do this though. You can download the trial with the link in the description and play with it though. It’s a 2 week trial but it’s the full program so all options would be there to test out and try to see if you can make it work. Hope that helps.
@@harrisonmudge Hi Harrison, yes, I sort of figured I would have to re-file. However, for instance, I have a folder on my desktop that is labeled 2023 and inside are 01_Jan, 02_ Feb, 02_Mar, etc. Then inside those are 01_raw, 01_jpgs, 01_proofs, etc. So what happens is all the images are separated and not in folders now when I go to Backblaze and "Browse Files". I may have to rethink this, but it's okay and thank you though!
@kcf561 hmm. I THINK if you created an extension exclusion for say “_jpeg” you can prevent it backing up all those folders without having to individually select. I don’t think that’s perfect but if you’ve been consistent with your file labelling that could work 🤔
@@harrisonmudge Yes, everything is a separate file as in KCF_2604.NEF, KCF_2604.jpg, etc. No folders, only the one I uploaded "KF-2023" and that's the one that has every file by itself. When I click on it, it shows a preview of the file image. Don't worry and thanks for answering. I have cloud storage and several backup hard drives. But photographer Scott Kelby also recommended Backblaze as well and I was researching. That's how I found you.
Hey mate, as far as I’m aware it’s not going clash in any way. The only impact you may experience is slower uploads due to technically uploading 2 things at the same time, if that makes sense? But yeah no reason why it should cause issues. What other backup would you be running?
@@harrisonmudge I'm currently using Carbonite, but thinking about a 2nd backup to run in tandem with it. Just wasn't sure if there would be a conflict between the two. Cheers, mate.
Not used Carbonite personally but it looks like it functions in the same way. But either way I’d say there shouldn’t be an issue as Backblaze is just going to backup your local files. But it doesn’t alter them. There’s no specific folder or anything like that either. What ever is on the drive will be copied to the cloud. The the upload bandwidth 👌🏻 If you do give it a go mate there’s a link in the description for you 👊🏻
Really nice video. You hit the things I needed to know about and it's good to actually hear from a Brit on tech stuff.
Haha thanks bud. Hope it helped 👌🏻
I think im gonna use your link in the comments and get this. After reading through the comments I think first I will rename all my external Hdds to names that will be permanent, dont wanna sit and reupload once is bad enough 😂.
If I am constantly moving files from one drive to another. I am in the process of reorganising my pc because I let it become a mess due to a system upgrade and a data recovery service. Got the files back but absolutely no structure whatsoever. Devastating but could have been worse.
This is why I found your video looking for a solution so this cannot happen again.
What happens if i go over the 16tb limit? Or what happens if I need to download files back off tue cloud? Will i incur extra charges?
Great video, alot of information so I will watch again. Gained a subscriber and a like awesome job mate, Thanks 💯
Love it thank you! There’s no limit for you to worry about going over so you’re sweet there.
There’s also no charge to get files back. You can download individual or bulk folders as needed through their web portal.
And, if you did need to recover a lot of data, you can get a drive sent out with it on. That costs to get the drive sent but you can return it for a refund (it’s usually cheaper to buy your own drive to copy the files over to than keep the one they send). 👌🏻
I'm convinced, it's up and running................trial. Hopefully buy, intend to buy. Nice one thanks.
Awesome mate 👌🏻 loll have to let me know how you get on. Like I said, it takes a bit of time to back everything up but it’s definitely been a lifesaver and it doesn’t require any consideration. It just ticks away in the background 👌🏻👌🏻
Hi, Harrison. Your video really informs me. I have a few question:
1. I'm on a really tight budget, so I'm thinking of backing up my files on 1 SSD and on Backblaze. Is this an at least okay idea? If my SSD fails, will I still have access to my files on Backblaze? If I buy another SSD and install my files from Backblaze on the new SSD, will that work?
2. When I have the money, should I buy another SSD in addition to my current SSD or should I buy a hard drive? which one is more reliable for the long run? I've heard people both recommend and disgard HDD (says nobody use HDD anymore). What do you think? And what HDD is reliable now?
Hope you will reply, thank you in advance!
Hey. It depends what you’re trying to do and how much data you’ll need to backup, or intend to backup.
If you’re a generally lite user of data storage (someone who just has a lot of documents or family photos etc) then a simple 2TB external SSD could be ideal. Then you can offload a lot of things to the SSD and back that up to Backblaze.
If the SSD failed then yes you can still access the files on Backblaze but you’d need to “restore” the data onto a replacement SSD (exactly like you assume) at some point as Backblaze is a mirror of a local drive, not cloud storage.
Regarding the second question, if you do fill the external drive then you can always add more obviously. As to which is better, SSD or HDD, they have pros and cons across both. If you plan to work off of the drive with editing software then an SSD would be better as it will read and write faster, less susceptible to damage if dropped, smaller physical size etc so really the better choice in general IMO BUT they’re generally around twice the price.
A regular external HDD are much more affordable when looking at larger storage and probably the better choice if it’s generally just pure data storage you’re looking for but has downsides such as being a larger physical size, more susceptible to drop damage because of moving parts and a lot slower read and write speeds compared to SSDs.
Which ever type of drive you do go for always go for a reputable brand to ensure better reliability. Eg LaCie Samsung. Main brand might be more expensive than others but reliable drives will last much longer.
Not a good video title. This video is a fluffy discssion about using backblaze for backup. Just call it that. you do everything but talk about how it "really" works. It's just click bait.
Apologies if you felt miss led bud. Were you hoping to understand literally how the servers, data transfers, encryption etc worked?
Maybe I should have added “from a users perspective” or “for me”. Would that have made sense for you?
@@harrisonmudge I think that would be ideal. As a person who is probably more tech-oriented, I would have realised that video is not for me. Remember that Backblaze is a company, not a product. It offers other products as well - not just their user-oriented backup service. I'm actually an S3 storage customer of theirs. Even if you just popped "backup" somewhere in the title, it would be useful. Since you asked, my go at it would be "how Backblaze backup saved my bacon" because then already I know I'm in for a user-experience video and I'm not gonna get annoyed because I'm browsing for tech info. Hope that helps.
umm i think the words 'life saver' kinda qualify the content and spells out what to expect 🤷♂ pretty reasonable to expect a 'backblaze' video to discuss personal experience + general bulletpoints of the service. I'd say improve your search criteria brah versus jumping in the comments to pointlessly bash
when they send you the USB drive is it password locked and encrypted?
or anyone can just read it especially the delivery guylol
Yes it did. Can’t recall exactly how it worked but they either provided the code in an email or it showed in your Backblaze account via the web. Now that I think about it I’m confident it was the latter.
It arrives very well packaged, sealed box, foam insert etc.
Man, this video is so helpful. All information I need you mentioned here. Thumbs up!
Does it also work, when a NAS is connected to my Computer? Hard Drives are no problem you said.
Thanks bud, glad it could help. When it comes specifically to NAS it will NOT back that up like a drive. The reasoning is because it’s a network drive there could be an infinite amount of computers attached to it.
They do offer NAS backup but that technically falls under B2 Cloud Backup. That's $5 per TB per month. It's pricier than the Personal plan but it stays at $5 per TB, instead of scaling up or any weird tiering systems.
If you want to check that out you can see it here: www.backblaze.com/business-backup.html#af9yk9
So it kinda depends on your situation. I do think that a NAS is the obvious choice for smaller businesses but when I tried implementing it, I actually found the network aspect much more of a pain to connect to, add too, work off of. And then I kept filling the capacity of the drives, then you have to buy a bigger NAS, then all of a sudden you're dropping £££'s on a 12 bay NAS, with 12TB drives, twice for the redundancy!
So I decided early on that it was just much more efficient (for individuals) to work off of portable, external drives. I also read a while back (not sure if still accurate) that drive failure rates in certain raid setups are likely to happen at almost the same time so you basically end up replacing multiple drives at the same time regardless. Again, caveat that with something I read a fair few years ago.
Still should do the 1 2 3 idea. Backup to 1 drive, then a 2nd then a 3rd that is offsite. Can throw in cloud as a 4th or use the cloud as the 3rd.
Yeah I know I know. It gets mind boggling managing it all though.
I also find myself eventually having to transition to larger drives just because I assume with some clients we would never use so much data but then we plough through storage and have to migrate and increase everything!
Hey Harrison, thanks for your video! I've just heard about Backblaze as I'm looking for a good reliable cloud storage option to backup my footage when I'm working on video gigs away from home. I have two questions if you can help that'd be great!
1 - It seems you live in the UK and Backblaze is in the USA. They shipped the drive with your lost data from USA to the UK?
2 - Do you know if their backups are incremental? I'll be using their service mostly when in hotels or places with not the best internet connection so if I have to backup the whole hard drive every night it might just not work. But if backups are incremental then I'll be safe I think.
Thanks!
Hey Alexis, thanks mate and happy to help. So, yes I’m in the UK and while I’m not 100% sure if the drive came from the US if I remember right I did ship it back to a US address so it likely did. It took about 5 or so days to come so that would make sense.
The way the backups work is by checking all the files on your computer or external drive. Seeing what new or updated files there are and then only backing up anything new.
If there’s a file on the drive that’s already backed up and it hasn’t been altered then it will not be backed up again.
That’s why getting everything backed up can initially take time, but once it’s caught up it only needs to upload any new or altered files. You’re not re uploading an entire drive every time you plug in.
Remember it is only a backup though. If you delete a file on the local drive it will also be removed from the backup.
Also, you get a 30 day version history too (extendable at an additional cost) so if you did delete something you can pull it back within that version history timeframe.
Hope that helps mate
@@harrisonmudge thanks a ton for clarifying, it does help a lot!
No problem 👌🏻
THANK YOU SO MUCH. Very good. To long amigo.
No problem 👌🏻
Just wondering why you ordered the physical hard drive. Why not just download your data ? 2TB won’t take too long these days with high speed
Very valid. At the time it was for speed and reliability of getting a drive delivered with all the data on ready to go.
To download it would have taken an unknown amount of time and would have required my laptop to be on the whole time, plugged in, with a new drive attached that also would have taken time to be delivered.
This tool probably about 3 days total to arrive. In the mean time we could get everything else ordered and prepared to transfer. We could also work directly on the drive till we were ready to copy over.
Based on this happening a few years ago now, it may have taken nearly 3 days or mor to download 2TB and I just didn’t want to risk it.
Cause downloading a terabyte can take days or even weeks or a month.
@Bushchannel correct! 😅
If I’ve updated file names and or moved around folders on my Mac, will the changes be reflected on Backblaze also? My issue is that my files on my Mac can get messy and all over the place after a while and I do eventually organise everything, but I don’t want to have to do that twice (once on my Mac and again on Backblaze). I’m guessing as it’s just a mirror, everything on Backblaze will update accordingly?
Correct it’s just a mirror so if you move or rename it will update it server side. I double checked this as I think I miss quoted something before but it won’t need to re upload BUT it does add changes to the upload queue. But when it checks the file if it hasn’t change and only moved then it will just make the change server side for Backblaze rather than re upload a duplicate.
@@harrisonmudge that’s great, thanks for the prompt response!
@Awwwsheeeeeeit no sweat
I’m thinking of doing similar. I’m going to get a Leccie external hard drive for my photos and Lightroom catalog files. I can then move easily between computers. I’ll then log back into my main desktop to send to the cloud. Just wondering whether to buy a SSD external drive or a HDD external drive. From the pricing I assume you use HDD. Just wondering if you use them like I want to (work directly on the files saved on the external HDD) and if you find that fast enough for editing?
Really good question and one I still think about each time I get new drives. To keep it brief I'd say SSD is the better option because of speed, size and inherent ruggedness (no moving parts). But both are totally viable.
I do think you can still use a HDD for photo editing without any issues. I even use for some video still and totally useable. They're certainly more cost effective but, based on my experience they're more susceptible to physical damage, if you dropped it or somehow aggressively shook it. Obviously an SSD isn't invincible either but there's no moving parts to be bent out of shape.
@@harrisonmudgemany thanks for your detailed response. Really appreciated!
@Pad13 no worries. Hope it helped 👌🏻
Thanks Harrison, I was looking for Cloud backup options and your review helped. Do you still use it / tried different service? Thanks.
Yes I do still use it. It’s become primarily a personal backup solution now though. I still use it to backup work projects as it’s still a fantastic solution that just works in the background but our team has now grown so we needed a solution to share data as well as back it up.
So we use Sync to share work. That’s great too but works very different and costs significantly more compared to Backblaze.
good vid, thanks much.
so wait, the $189 fee is basically a deposit as long as you send the drive back? i didn't know that
Yeah basically. You just have to pay the return postage which was around $30 ish which is nothing in the grand scheme of being able to recover your data!
@@harrisonmudge I’ve always heard of this service (haven’t had to utilize yet 🤞) but always thought the fee was the fee. I def learned something here, thank you 👍
@@kernzilla No problem 👌🏻
9:58 one feature that I really like (and that no other service seems to offer), is their unlimited rewind feature.
Summarizing what you showed at the end there - It's currently $178 every two years to have 1 year file history on their cheapest plan.
And it's $0.005 (half a cent) per GB you use per month for files further than a year back (you do need to upgrade to this version before you can use it). That is amazing pricing for full history of your files - you can delete files you don't need so your computer doesn't run out of space, and if you ever want an old file just go back and get it!
Unlimited Space (limited only by the size of your local storage) + Unlimited History is an amazing combo.
Yeah I agree it's great value for sure. I've not had too much need to pull out files beyond the 30 day period included with the basic but it definitely has an offering that should suit a lot of peoples needs. It really is incredibly affordable for what they offer.
Great vid Harrison! You've been a huge help with my back-up decision making. 🙏🏼👍
Thanks mate. Makes me happy to know I can help people 👌🏻 thanks again.
@@harrisonmudge Great video. I plan on enrolling BackBlaze ASAP ! Thanks for the information ! ☀☀☀
@lyndalou2892 no problem glad I could help.
There’s links in the description if it helps too, cheers 👌🏻
@@harrisonmudgeSo if I understand correctly this is mirroring only? What would you recommend for photos storage?
@InesJonasSister yes that’s right, it’s only a mirror of your physical drives.
If you’re looking for off site cloud storage there’s lots of options at various price levels. The more data you want to store the more it’ll cost obviously.
Something we use in our company is Sync.
It’s not the cheapest but we handle a lot of data and need to share it between team members so we have their unlimited plan at about £15 per user (minimum of 2 users)
They do do an individual plan, while not unlimited it’s still competitively priced and is true cloud storage.
Nice review
Thanks bud 👌🏻
Thank you! This is so helpful! :)
Thanks for the comment. Glad it helped 👌🏻
Price jumped 20% in October -- I think this has outpriced itself -- I remember seeing the price only be 60 USD/yr just 2 years ago; and now it is 99 USD/yr. That is almost 30% price increase per year. I would hate to know what the prices are going to be in 2-3 years. Definitely would have been sold if the prices weren't going as crazy.
Yeah you’re right the price has gone up. They’ve extend the version history for all accounts to 1 year as standard now though and it’s the first price rise I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been using it for about 7ish years. Hopefully it won’t go up again but who knows.
It’s still good value in my opinion as there’s still no other unlimited option like they offer at the same sort of price
@@harrisonmudge Makes sense. And it is a bit surprising that no one else offers the Time Machine feature -- that is a real seller for me. And even though I am complaining about the price hike, if you consider the price of NAS devices and HDDs, then BackBlaze is really good deal.
@h-bar8649 yeah for sure. It does hurt a little as EVERYTHING keeps creeping up their prices so hopefully with this rise we won’t see another rise for a long time again.
It’s definitely a more cost effective alternative than a NAS so long as you don’t mind juggling external drives a little bit.
yes it sucks now!
🥲 I don’t think it’s that bad. Still does its job 😅
I want a backup solution for all the family photos and vids. I then want to share them with my sister, can I do that with Backblaze?
Technically you can yes BUT not on the regular unlimited personal backup. It would have to be a B2 account which costs around $6 per terabyte. This may or may not be a deal breaker.
It’s just the share function doesn’t exist for the personal backup plan.
Depending on the total amount of days your using Google Drive / Photos may be better s you can share folders or albums with people easier
I've used Backblaze for years and it's saved my bacon more than once. I have about 13TB of photos and videos on my PC and it's a great feeling knowing they are in the cloud. I also have a NAS, but the B2 Cloud Storage is too expensive for my needs. Thanks.
Wow, that's a lot a data! Thanks for sharing :) Yeah it's definitely peace of mind for sure. And I really like how it just does it in the background too, nothing manual apart from checking which drives to backup at all.
This looks like it may be the perfect solution for me, as my 6 yr old 12TB WD MyCloud (NAS) is getting full (I'm a photographer, and it's photos & videos from 1999-now), and a replacement with significant increase in size will cost well over $1k USD... Question: I think uploading the entire 10TB will take months to complete, and my only hesitation is that's a long time to wait to start resuming my daily backups... Can I prioritize uploading of newer files first, or start the trial by uploading just a small amount recent files (like from Jan 1 2023-present) to get my daily backups up and running -- then add the older stuff and let it take its time? Or would I have to start the process over? Alternatively, I could just keep my current MyCloud as the repository for 1999-2022, and just use BackBlaze for 2023 forward, but would be nice to get it all up there eventually.
Hey Alan, appreciate the question. Annoyingly (but understandably) if you have a NAS then that falls under their ‘Business Backup’. This is more expensive as it’s priced on TB, about $5 per TB. Still a lot cheaper than other options, they have an app that you’d install on the NAS. I’ve used it on a synology, but I assume it’s ubiquitous on a lot of them (don’t hold me to that).
My understanding is the backup works by batching a certain amount of data and sending that. So smaller files will get prioritised and sent quicker than larger videos. But if your NAS is online the whole time 12TB may take a few weeks depending on your internet speed.
The thing with the NAS and Backblaze backup is you’ll still need both. So if you’re outgrowing your NAS it could be more cost effective to get portable external drives and a personal backup for 2023 onward.
Just depends how reliant you are on having a NAS as that’s definitely an easier workflow than plugging in drive after drive. But $50+ a month is definitely more expensive than $8 😅
Depends if you just need to keep a copy + backup or you need that extra redundancy too.
While quite Manual I actually have a drive, backed up to Backblaze and also mirrored to another external drive but but of s headache to manage the physical copy
@@harrisonmudge thanks for that. But I wasn't thinking of including the old/full NAS in the BackBlaze upload at all. My thinking was to just back up my PC (with it's 3 internal HDs and 10+TB of photo & video files) to Backblaze on the $8/mo unlimited plan. I only mentioned my 6 yr old WD MyCloud unit's filling up as it's the reason for making that move. It is not the conventional/configurable NAS as it has sealed internal HDs that are not removable or up-gradable. Can I not use Backblaze's $8/mo unlimited to backup the PC whilst keeping the aging NAS as a separate component on my home network (likely upgrading it at a later date)? -- Assuming the answer is yes... My concern is that new content I'm adding daily is not getting backed up with my current NAS full (I'm only backed up through May), and I want that to commence immediately: The question I'm posing is basically; if I set BackBlaze to back up the entire content of my PC, will I be waiting the many multiple weeks (my upload speed is 20-23Mbps) to get my current daily content uploaded? -- OR, can I start my trial by uploading only the content of current concern, June 1, 2023 and newer (separated by folder structure) immediately to BackBlaze, then, once that is complete, configure it to commence the rest of the 10T of content (I have read complaints that any changes to what is uploading causes it to start the entire process over, which sounds like an extended nightmare... is this correct?)? Hope that makes sense! I know IDrive will do this for me, but will cost significantly more ($20/mo for over 10TB-20TB), so hoping I can accomplish it with BackBlaze because of its price and it's physical drive by mail restoration service.
I understand you now bud, apologies. Yes what you’re suggesting is correct for your internal drives. Interesting about that NAS, does it show as an external drive/s or does it show specifically as a NAS?
Regarding backing up your internal drives, you basically select what drives to backup, not what folders. It doesn’t give you folder specific selection.
However, you CAN choose folders to EXCLUDE. So, if you wanted to get specific, and assuming your file structure allowed it, you could exclude pre 2023 folders meaning it would do your most recent first. That could be a bit of a faff long term and would require your folders to be set up in such a way you could exclude like that. But could be worth it to test. You can also include entire drives so it could be that you exclude 2 drives then just exclude folders on the third (again this assumes a specific file structure)
In regards to making changes to files and drives on the backup, renaming and moving files already backed up shouldn’t require you to re upload as the file gets logged (fingerprinted) so the change or move should happen on their servers.
If you rename the drive that’s when you have to re upload the whole thing. That’s annoying and have done it once but if you know about it then you can at least consider it and work around it. Either name / rename the drives first or commit to the existing drive name (or strap in and re upload it all again if you really need to change the name😅)
@@harrisonmudge thanks again. Re: the WD MyCloud NAS, Windows File Explorer displays it as a device or location under "Network" tab/folder. It connects Directly to my router and is apparently a dinosaur now -- USED to be accessible anywhere via Internet connection but with age it has become somewhat obsolete, as of earlier this year Western Digital has shut down this model's access outside of its connected local network, encouraging owners to upgrade to their latest & greatest. So it's lost it's "cloud" capability and is really just an aging external network drive (accessible by our computers, tablets and smartphones connected to our local wifi only). Anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH for the replies. I will be giving BackBlaze a go. Your work is much appreciated!
Ah that sucks mate. Well I hope you find a solution mate. If you do give this a go use the trial link in the description, that should take you straight where you need to go. If you do go for it that’ll support me too with no additional cost to you 👌🏻
And no problem on the reply mate. I try to cover most bits in my videos but it’s so hard to cover all unique circumstances so more than happy to answer Qs 👊🏻
can it backup like a 100 external HDDs?
must it be same drive letter? or just the disk name?
In theory yes it will back us as many drives as you want. BUT remember they do have to be connected at least once a month to keep the backup.
You can’t ‘trick’ it. As it places a hidden file on the drive so it knows when the drive is connected, if another dive had an identical name, it would know which is which.
I assume you’re thinking you could have multiple drives under the same name so it backs them all up as one drive?
@@harrisonmudge no actually i'm more worried that it wont recognize the drive for instances like a name or drive letter change
because i saw another video the guy is whining about he had to reupload the entire drive after a name change
i was hoping it could recognize all my external HDDs via serial number or something because i literally had 100 of them and not enough USB ports lol
btw do they flag your data for movies and songs like Google? Google deleted most of my stuff without warning overnight wth
think they skipped deleting anime tho smh...
I’m not aware of them doing anything with your data like removing it. I couldn’t say for sure but I don’t think they’d delete that stuff. It’s a backup, not cloud storage so in my head I’m thinking there’s a different policy. Definitely don’t take my word on that though but I have a lot of music and videos and stuff and it’s all on there with no issues.
Regarding the drive rename, yes annoyingly if you had a 2TB drive fully backed up, then renamed the drive it will treat it as a brand new drive. Bit annoying as I have had to do it once but if you know that going in then it’s worth just considering your drive naming system ahead of selecting the drive for backup
@@harrisonmudge thanks, yes i have had all my external HDD named in a specific way and even the colours that i choose to buy serve a different purposes lol
WD passport Black for media, White to mirror the favourite media, Red for most crucial files of my life/family, Blue to mirror that and had more than 10 of each colour by now and kept the mirror disks in different house lol
I've never knew its possible to just pay such a small amount for cloud backup, or maybe i just totally dismiss it years ago because companies like these had been popping out only purpose is to steal your data and money then closed down. But since this company last for so long maybe i'll finally give it a try
Wow that’s a lot of data and drives! Gotta respect the colour coded system though 👏🏻👏🏻
I’d say give it a try, there’s a link in my description. Only thing is, because there’s gonna be so much data for you to back up maybe try with a drive or two that have smaller files (if there are any) such as photos and stuff. That would give you a better sense of seeing how the dashboard works and all that too.
Also, I know I’m probably repeating myself here but you need to keep the drives and connect them at least once a month to keep the backup, it’s not cloud storage, it’s a cloud backup. But it does mean you get the extra copy in the cloud to fall back on if a drive failed.
And when they are on the cloud you can access them remotely if you needed them in a pinch 👌🏻
Hey harrison! thanks for the vid. Do you know if it is the same pricing no matter how many drives you want to backup? I have 2 computer drives and 3 external drives for now.
So long as it’s the same computer there’s no limit to the number of drives on a single account, internal or external. They’ll just need to be connect every 30 days if you unplug the external ones.
@@harrisonmudge so if i have 2 computers and 3 external drives, it would be more pricey? I don't see what does it change if you have let's say 1 computer and 4 external drives. You have the same number of drives in the end.
Yeah easiest way to think about it is its ‘per computer’. So 1 machine + infinite drives = 1 licence .
2 machines = 2 licences.
They link it to one licence per machine otherwise one persons licence could cover your entire family or business. Not a good business model for them.
But a single computer that has lots of drives in is ok because it’s a single user.
@@harrisonmudge okay I see, thank you so much for explaining this! I guess my situation would equal to 14$ a month then, since it is 7 a month for one machine.
@sgadsden yes that’s right mate. You can manage it and view files and restores etc through one account so you don’t have to have a secondary/ separate account, you can just ‘add computer’. Then your subscription will be a single $14 dollar subscription. 👌🏻
So let's say i have a memory card full of photos.. Can i upload all my photos to Backblaze, then delete all the photos on the card so i can reuse it? Or will all my uploaded photos be overwritten/deleted the next time i connect it to Backblaze? I want to send my files to the cloud and then delete them off my physical drive so that I'm not constantly rebuying another drive. Sorry if this is a dumb question 🙈
No, happy to clarify. In short, no that will not work. Couple of reasons:
1. Backblaze will not backup removable drives like an SD card or flash drive
2. Backblaze is a ‘mirror’ of your physical drive and only acts as a backup, not cloud storage.
So you’d still need to buy say a large external hard drive, offload them all to that and then back that drive up to Backblaze. Then Backblaze will mirror that external drive. Delete it on the drive, it gets removed from Backblaze.
If you want pure cloud storage then you’ll need something like Google Drive or Sync but those get very expensive if you have a lot of data.
Backblaze is a backup of your physical drives, not an alternative.
Hope that clarifies it a bit mate
the 30 days disconnected remote drives sucks i guess we need another solution
Depending on what you need, and budget, something like Sync.com could be a solution. It’s full cloud storage but it costs more and has data limits unless you have their ‘unlimited’ package which is very pricy per month for an individual.
If you’re a team though and can allocate business budget for it then it’s worth looking at
Wait so I need to connect the drives every 30 days? That's a downside. So imagine you lose the drive or it completely stops working? Or you just don't have the time to be connecting it? The purpose is to have your files saved and not worry about backing them, then why do they bother to care if its the same drive or not??
Correct, and I agree, if you’re looking for cloud storage this is NOT the solution. You need something like google drive or Sync or similar but they carry much much higher monthly fees.
This is a BACKUP of a physical drive, so if the drive fails or gets damaged somehow they you can recover it in an emergency.
You will need to reconnect every 30 days to keep that backup in your account.
Best way to think about it, assuming you have lots of drives is this is really only for backing up active projects where you plug in and use a drive regularly.
If you’re trying to store things long term and don’t need access and would like redundancy without having a NAS you may as well have, for example Drive A. Mirror its content onto a separate drive, Drive B. And store that in a separate location from the first.
It all depends on your requirements for access, storage and budget.
I actively use a lot of the drives you see in the video so having them backed up while working is essential incase something happened. And having them on a physical drive I can plug in and go is much quicker than working on remote files.
@@harrisonmudge what a shame. It’s been weeks and I still haven’t found a basic cloud storage with unlimited data so I can upload separate files under $30 monthly price. Every service scams you with the “Business 3 users minimum”. They charge over $1200 a year.
@@Javier23gol There isn't any. The last one that did it and gave up was Dropbox. It is what it is. If you want a permanent cloud drive of a lot TB you will have to pay for it and it will cost.. a lot. If nobody offers something like that anymore there is one logical explanation. It costs them too much. Honestly you can just pay 2 dollars a month more and with 9 dollars a month you will have to connect the drive only 1 time a year. I think they are very reasonable.
Is it real unlimited? I have 20 TB (!) videos and raw-photo backup. Can I get some speed uploading limitation on this service?
Yes it really is unlimited. But remember you need to have the drives connected at least once every 30 days.
The only speed limitation would be your own upload speed really. It will of course take time to get your 20TB uploaded.
@@harrisonmudge So Harrison, I have my 2TB drive always connected but I need to disconnect and reconnect every 30 days? Am I interpreting this correctly? Thanks!
If it’s always connected you’re fine. You don’t need to disconnect it. It’s only if you like to disconnect it, on a laptop for example.
The 30 day connection is so they can remove the data from their servers if you’re no longer backing it up. If they makes sense.
Why didn't you just download the 2 TB ?
At the time it would have taken a few days to download none stop and with the nature of my work I couldn’t have left the computer on downloading so it was easier to get a drive delivered
you don't talk about the privacy, they can read all my info? is encrypted end to end?
If I'm honest, I didn't mention it as it's not really something I'd thought too much about! But yes all the data is encrypted and no I don't believe Backblaze can see your data. However I haven't actually looked super deep into it BUT they do have loads off information about how their security, data and encryption process works and from some cursory reading it seems to tick all the right boxes. Here's some of their blog posts that cover this a bit though:
www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/security
www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-make-strong-encryption-easy-to-use/
maybe not today, but you never know about tomorrow, quantum computing coming...
The backblaze backup takes quit a lot of time to upload so it runs the drives for a longtime. I'm concerned about the wear and tear on the drives, It would be the best to have a nas drive or at least a prosummer drive to upload to backblaze ?
You're right if it's an old drive with a lot of data. Theoretically it's only going to read the drives during the upload though so if you started with a fresh drive it's going to do it as you go, reducing the amount of time the drive needs to be read.
In my experience NAS is extremely expensive and lacks the portability and immediacy and share ability of portable drives. Yes they have redundancy but if those drives are being accessed a lot then in my opinion you're no better off than an external drive.
You also need to be connected to the NAS network to access it which, depending on your setup and the NAS can actually be less than ideal.
It's certainly down to personal preference but for me NAS was expensive and limiting. But if you're not collecting terabytes of data then you could be fine with a NAS. It's just the initial investment.
You can also still backup to Backblaze from the NAS but that's not unlimited as it uses their business B2 Cloud Storage and costs per TB.
@@harrisonmudge I was talking about a nas grade hard drive, meaning drive that can handle lots of runtime.
Personnaly I don't have a NAS but I have a bay of 4 disk connectef to my Mac. I use backblaze to backup the video footage I take in my work so it's about 1tb by day of shoot. So the disk is running quite all day or night.
And I'm pretty sure my backblaze account id unlimited, did they changed it ?
@monsterandmaster sorry, I miss understood. What setup is it you use? Did you build it yourself? Whats the capacity of those drives, I assume pretty big?
I use these drives as they’re inexpensive and we’ve not hand any fail through usage alone. One is making a noise now so we’ll replace it but it’s only a backup.
If you’re using fresh drives per shoot you’d be less likely to have general usage issues id say but as always, one backup solution like Backblaze isn’t the only thing you should rely on if you truly care about protecting the date. Additional physical, on and off site backups and all that would be best but that’s just way too excessive.
We’ve actually started to use something called Sync between members of our team. That’s cloud storage but a lot more expensive. We use it to share data across multiple remote team members. It’s good but has its own set of nuances too so again not something you would solely rely on.
@@harrisonmudge I use a Sabrent dock connected to a Mac. I've tested the setup with two 8tb seagate disk (one barracuda and one exos)
I'm going to buy 18tb either seagate exos enterprise or ironwolf pro/ironwolf pro NAS.
I don't really have the possibily of having offsite backup but each disk are mirrored. In case of failure of one, there is still the other one.
One of these disk is backuped in backblaze to prevent the failure or destruction of the 2 physical one. Backblaze is really for the worst case scenario.
Is it end to end encrypted like cBackup?
Yes it is 👌🏻
Am concerned because I travel sometimes fot 60day?
Good question. And the answer depends if you will be using your computer during that time.
If you DON’T then you would simply make sure you’re all backed up with any drives plugged in too. Turn off the computer and then in theory it’s fine until you return.
If however you’ll be on your laptop, leaving drives behind then it would give you the disconnected warnings etc. you can get around this by having a version history though and recovering from where you left off.
You’d need to double check on that though as I’ve not personally done it myself. Their FAQ covers this so worth checking out.
Nothing will be deleted. As long as your desktop is powered off.
From their site:
Before you leave your computer, make sure Backblaze is up to date, all external or secondary drives are connected, and the Backblaze control panel or system preference reports 0 files remaining to be backed up. After you've verified that, leave any external or secondary drives connected, then completely shut down your computer so it will no longer contact our servers while you're away. You can disconnect any external or secondary drives while it's powered off.
"Missing computer" email reminders are sent 14, 21, 28, 60, and 90 days since a backup was last seen by our servers. If you intentionally have Backblaze paused, you can safely disregard these messages, but keep aware of the rules regarding the "most recent backup snapshot".
Hey Harrison, potential new user here and I have multiple drives like you and also backup to Google Drive. But not sure if anyone asked this yet, but what if I wanted to backup ONLY my raw images and Lightroom collections? I don't need all the documents/spreadsheets and other duplicates I already have on multiple drives. Thanks!
Good question. Had to think about that and double check it myself.
Technically yes you can choose to ONLY backup raw files and Lightroom.
However, after a quick look, you’d need to technically ‘exclude’ everything else. You can’t choose what to backup, you can only select what NOT to back up.
In theory you could arrange the folders in a way that only a specific ‘backup’ folder is selected.
Feels like it’s a bit of playing with settings to do this though.
You can download the trial with the link in the description and play with it though. It’s a 2 week trial but it’s the full program so all options would be there to test out and try to see if you can make it work.
Hope that helps.
@@harrisonmudge Hi Harrison, yes, I sort of figured I would have to re-file. However, for instance, I have a folder on my desktop that is labeled 2023 and inside are 01_Jan, 02_ Feb, 02_Mar, etc. Then inside those are 01_raw, 01_jpgs, 01_proofs, etc. So what happens is all the images are separated and not in folders now when I go to Backblaze and "Browse Files". I may have to rethink this, but it's okay and thank you though!
@kcf561 hmm. I THINK if you created an extension exclusion for say “_jpeg” you can prevent it backing up all those folders without having to individually select.
I don’t think that’s perfect but if you’ve been consistent with your file labelling that could work 🤔
@kcf561 I’ve just re read your comment. Are you saying the files don’t show correct when you view through backblaze.com ?
@@harrisonmudge Yes, everything is a separate file as in KCF_2604.NEF, KCF_2604.jpg, etc. No folders, only the one I uploaded "KF-2023" and that's the one that has every file by itself. When I click on it, it shows a preview of the file image. Don't worry and thanks for answering. I have cloud storage and several backup hard drives. But photographer Scott Kelby also recommended Backblaze as well and I was researching. That's how I found you.
Hi. Is it OK to have 2 different cloud backups running on the same PC at the same time? TIA.
Hey mate, as far as I’m aware it’s not going clash in any way. The only impact you may experience is slower uploads due to technically uploading 2 things at the same time, if that makes sense?
But yeah no reason why it should cause issues.
What other backup would you be running?
@@harrisonmudge I'm currently using Carbonite, but thinking about a 2nd backup to run in tandem with it. Just wasn't sure if there would be a conflict between the two. Cheers, mate.
Not used Carbonite personally but it looks like it functions in the same way.
But either way I’d say there shouldn’t be an issue as Backblaze is just going to backup your local files. But it doesn’t alter them. There’s no specific folder or anything like that either. What ever is on the drive will be copied to the cloud.
The the upload bandwidth 👌🏻
If you do give it a go mate there’s a link in the description for you 👊🏻
@@harrisonmudge Cheers, mate. 👍
No problem 👌🏻