Backblaze cloud backup review
Our Verdict
Backblaze is still the easiest and i of the cheapest and well-nigh reliable cloud backup services available.
For
- Simple, affordable pricing
- Unlimited storage
- Excellent backup and restoration speeds
- Minimal system affect
- Supports true ii-cistron authentication
Against
- Mobile experience remains weak
- Lacks Linux support
- Difficult to back upward specific folders
Tom'south Guide Verdict
Backblaze is still the easiest and one of the cheapest and virtually reliable cloud backup services bachelor.
Pros
- +
Simple, affordable pricing
- +
Unlimited storage
- +
Excellent backup and restoration speeds
- +
Minimal system touch on
- +
Supports true two-factor authentication
Cons
- -
Mobile experience remains weak
- -
Lacks Linux support
- -
Difficult to back up specific folders
Backblaze: Specs
Number of devices backed upward per subscription: Ane
Storage limit: Unlimited
Backups of tethered external drives: Yeah
Backups of network storage drives: No
Backups of mobile devices: No
Operating organisation/application backups: No
Backups to local drives: No
2-factor authentication: Yes
Drive shipping: Restore only
Backblaze touts itself equally "astonishingly easy and low-cost," and it'southward hard to argue with either bespeak. The service has raised prices slightly in the by couple of years but remains the most affordable unlimited solution among the best deject backup services.
Regarding the ease of utilise, you install the Backblaze desktop app and it starts backing up your files immediately. It doesn't get much easier than that.
Backblaze isn't perfect. It isn't the well-nigh feature-rich cloud-backup service that I tested, and the mobile experience leaves a lot to be desired. But I'll walk you through everything y'all need to know near Backblaze to see if this uncomplicated and relatively inexpensive option is the right one for you.
Read on for the rest of our Backblaze review.
Backblaze: Cloud fill-in vs. cloud sync
Online-fill-in services, or cloud backup services, brand online copies of every personal file on your figurer. Some of these services also support system files, applications, smartphones, tablets and external hard drives. Most offer unlimited (or at least a lot of) storage for a flat subscription fee, and many (but not Backblaze) tin can too make local backups to an external hard drive.
Online-syncing services like Dropbox or OneDrive serve a different purpose. They create copies of specific files and push button them out to all your devices for immediate access. Simply it would cost likewise much and have too long to utilize an online-syncing service to back upwardly all your files.
If you have thousands of photos, videos, or music files you desire backed up to a safe location, a cloud-backup service is what you need.
Backblaze: Costs and what's covered
Backblaze has the most straightforward pricing in the consumer online-backup market. In that location is just one plan and it offers unlimited backups of a single estimator and any connected external drives.
The only toll variation comes with how frequently you would like to pay; Backblaze costs $7 monthly, $70 if paid yearly (saving $14) and $130 if paid every 2 years (saving $38).
Software support covers Windows seven through Windows 10, and on the macOS side, all the way back to ten.nine (Mavericks). On the mobile side are apps supporting Android back to 7.0 (Nougat) and iOS 12.0 and up.
While Linux users accept been asking for official support for years at present, Backblaze doesn't seem interested in taking that on. Y'all do have the option to use a 3rd party app that relies on Backblaze's B2 cloud-storage service, simply the pricing construction is quite dissimilar there.
With B2, you pay both to store and to download your information. For example, if you had 1TB of information to shop, information technology would cost $5 a month. If you needed to download that 1TB, information technology would cost an additional $10.
Backblaze does offer upwardly to 10GB of B2 cloud storage for free with a regular Backblaze cloud-backup plan, just once y'all go over that marking, you'll need to pay.
Backblaze: Performance
We tested each cloud-backup service using a Lenovo Yoga C940 14-inch with a tenth Gen Intel Core i7 running Windows ten Home 64. Mobile apps were tested on a Google Pixel iii with Android 10. Each service'south software was uninstalled from both devices before another service'due south software was installed.
Our test set of files to support consisted of 15.6GB of documents, photos, videos and music. Nosotros uploaded this data to each deject-backup service and so restored a 1.4GB subset of these files to the Lenovo Yoga C940.
Nosotros used the GlassWire application to monitor upload and download speeds on Windows, and the built-in Resource Monitor to track CPU usage.
We conducted our tests in Middleton, Wisconsin, using TDS Telecom Extreme300 Fiber dwelling house internet service, which theoretically provided up to 300 megabits per 2nd (Mbps) down and 300 Mbps upward. Existent-world speeds were considerably lower during testing, typically closer to 50 Mbps down and 60 Mbps upwards, according to Speedtest.internet.
| Acronis Truthful Paradigm | Backblaze | Carbonite Safe | CrashPlan for Small Business organization | IDrive Personal | |
| Initial upload speed | 26.4 Mbps | 36.four Mbps | 17 Mbps | 27 Mbps | 25.1 Mbps |
| File-restore speed | 13.i Mbps | 27.five Mbps | 21.ane Mbps | 34.4 Mbps | 12.iv Mbps |
| CPU usage during fill-in | >1% | 2.v% | three.3% | 7.3% | ane.2% |
| CPU usage otherwise | >1% | >1% | >1% | >ane% | >one% |
Our initial upload of 15.6GB of files using Backblaze's standard settings took approximately i hour and half-dozen minutes. At an average transfer speed of 36.four Mbps, this made Backblaze the fastest uploader among the services nosotros tested.
This was more than double the speed that Backblaze achieved the final time we tested information technology and more than than 9 Mbps faster than the fastest option in our last round of tests.
Restoring 1.4GB of video files took approximately vii minutes and eighteen seconds, virtually xc seconds slower than speed champion CrashPlan. According to speedtest.net, our connectedness provided 89-Mbps upload at the time, while Backblaze transferred the files at 27.v Mbps.
It's a solid improvement from our previous round of Backblaze testing and was more than than two minutes faster than the third-identify finisher, Carbonite.
The Backblaze software had a light impact on our estimator's performance, using an average of 2.53 percent of our Mac's CPU cycles during backup. The CPU usage did range more than than most, going from less than 1 percent to 12 percent throughout the backup. Backblaze's boilerplate CPU usage dropped beneath 1 percent post-obit the initial backup.
An update to the Backblaze client software for Windows and Mac released in July 2021 (after this review was initially posted) promises to speed upload times past even more, as the software no longer makes a temporary re-create of each file on the computer's hard bulldoze earlier uploading it. We're looking forward to testing Backblaze over again to run across if that made a difference.
Backblaze: User interface
While the online-backup-service world isn't brimming with innovative software pattern, Backblaze retains the about rudimentary interface of them all. In its defence, the entire appeal of Backblaze is that you can set up information technology upwards and never have to think nigh it once again.
I would love to see Backblaze make a few concessions to modern app design, but the aesthetic actually doesn't matter afterward you are done with the setup procedure.
There are merely three active buttons on the Backblaze control panel. 1 is to break your backup, another is for your restore options, and finally the terminal is for the settings menu. Other than that, you lot just take some informational links and data on your backup status.
When you lot download Backblaze, it immediately kicks you into the backup process. By default, it volition choose to support everything on your device that is not among its built-in exceptions, which means most system files and applications won't be backed up.
While this is problematic for my testing as I desire a specific data set to be backed up, information technology is the right selection for well-nigh users. It ensures that all your information remains safe, and considering Backblaze gives you unlimited storage, at that place is no reason to exist stingy with it.
If you practise want to restrict the files that are backed up, be aware that this is more difficult with Backblaze than with other online-backup services. You cannot just choose a set of files to support, or not back up, in a file-picker bill of fare. You instead need to exclude everything you don't want to back up by file blazon, by file size, or by folder.
Your unlimited storage extends to any external drives that plug direct into your figurer, but not to network-attached storage devices. It's a reasonable policy and given the size and affordability of external drives these days, it isn't a significant restriction.
File restoration with Backblaze is handled through the Backblaze spider web app — the button on the command panel is merely a hyperlink to that page. Yous can download your data for complimentary over the spider web, relieve it as a null file to B2 Cloud Storage (additional fees utilize) or opt to receive a concrete USB flash drive or hard drive containing your data. (Nosotros'll cover the physical-media options in the Actress Features section.)
Once you lot've called how to receive your data, you tin can either choose to download everything at once, or get through a file-picker menu to choose specific files.
Backblaze: Mobile apps
The Backblaze mobile apps have been updated with a couple of new features since we concluding reviewed the service, but overall, the app experience on mobile remains underwhelming.
The app is a simple folder-based listing view of your files (a search part is also available). Tapping on a file will download information technology to your smartphone or tablet. You lot can encounter the file name and size, but there is no preview on smartphones other than a thumbnail.
The filetype icons accept a more than modern await than they did a few years ago, just they don't friction match up properly with the filetype in some cases. If you are using an iPad or an Android tablet yous practise become a larger paradigm preview, just IDrive, for example, offers previews for all images and videos on smartphones.
One prissy change is that you tin can now download files upwards to 5GB from your Backblaze personal backup on a mobile device. This used to be limited to 30MB.
You tin can now likewise access your B2 Deject Storage from the mobile app. It's remarkable that this wasn't available previously, but regardless, users of B2 storage now can download their files on their phones.
On the security front, the apps now support biometric unlock, which should be standard for any app with admission to sensitive files.
Backblaze doesn't offer much in the way of extras, but there are a few features worth noting.
One is the "Locate My Computer" pick, which can exist constitute by logging into your business relationship on the Backblaze website. It will brandish the terminal known location and IP address of any computers registered with your Backblaze business relationship. It's easy to turn it off if yous have other solutions in place for a lost device, but information technology's a squeamish feature to have.
Backblaze uses AES-128 bit encryption to keep your data rubber. Notably, it is the just online-backup service we tested that doesn't accept AES-256 encryption as an selection, although it'southward debatable whether there's any practical difference in security betwixt the two.
Typically, your email address and password are used to decrypt your files, but if you want an added layer of security you can create a Individual Encryption Cardinal from the settings card. Your private key will then exist required on tiptop of your e-mail address and password to decrypt your data. Simply be aware that Backblaze cannot admission this encryption primal, and then if you lose it, your information cannot be decrypted.
Backblaze is also one of the only online-backup services I tested that supports the use of time-based erstwhile-password (TOTP) ii-factor authentication (2FA) for user accounts via an app like Google Authenticator or Authy. (CrashPlan for Pocket-sized Business is the other.) TOTP 2FA apps are more than secure than standard texted-code 2FA systems.
Backblaze review: Bottom line
Backblaze has e'er focused on delivering a unproblematic and effective production with straightforward pricing and it continues to reach on all of these counts. If you're buying an online-backup subscription to create an off-site fill-in of your entire hard drive (and attached external drives), then for $seventy a yr, Backblaze is easy to recommend.
Despite the $ten price bump since our final review, Backblaze remains one of the most affordable options on the market and has shown improvements in operation and to a lesser degree in the mobile experience.
If yous are looking for a more than extensive feature fix, amend mobile support or NAS backup, IDrive delivers on those fronts. It performed solidly in our upload testing (less so on the download), but you will need to exist wary of IDrive'south storage limits.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/backblaze
Posted by: mccallprioner.blogspot.com
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