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Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

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Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#71

Post by atYevP »

lubblig wrote: post #41
atYevP wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This speedtest is somewhat accurate and is pointed to our data center so should give you a decent idea of speed -> https://www.backblaze.com/speedtest/ . The reason latency is a factor is that it affects how quickly data leaves your computer and gets to our data center, so if you're far away, it can play a factor!

Unless I missed some setting it seems like the speedtest is only for the US data center(s). Is there any way to test the speed to the EU data center?

Yev here -> we're actually working on an EU version of that site as well so you'd be able to toggle!

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#73

Post by fletchowns »

cbo100 wrote: post #50
maikhoepfel wrote: post #10

Cool changes! Any plans to ever add Linux support? That’s a dealbreaker for me. I need to backup both Linux and Windows machines. I wanted to use B2, but restic seems not ideal on Windows.

What issues do you have with Restic on windows? I'm using Restic to B2 on Linux, Win and Mac desktops and a Synology NAS (linux based). No problems. For my purposes, especially with Restic dedupe, plain B2 works out much cheaper than $6/pc/month would. I currently spend around $7/month total for all these.

Same - I use restic on both Linux & Windows and haven't run into any issues so far.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#74

Post by brianwski »

renaudg wrote: post #61
atYevP wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - you should be getting an update soon!

Yev, thanks for intervening but I’ve just received an update so incredible and unapologetic that I’m tempted to share verbatim excerpts here, and I think you should take a look. Support is basically telling me that the inherit process on the server can’t handle my "too large backup state’s indexes", and that I’m gonna have to start afresh and reupload 2TB or so from scratch. Not only that, but in order to even be all…

Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze and I wrote the Inherit Backup State functionality.

> inherit process on the server can’t handle my "too large backup state’s indexes"

Yeah, I'm sorry about that and it is on my plate to fix it. The issue is that Backblaze uses a ZIP library that only handles up to 4 GByte zip files. We zip up your "backup state" (the list of files that were backed up) and download it to the client that is "Inheriting". Your "backup state" has exceeded 4 GBytes, which is unusual, but not unheard of (maybe 2% of our customers right now). And it is "on the rise" as more and more customers have more data, plus backup for longer and longer with Backblaze.

The fix is to either link with a new zip library, or sub-divide your "backup state" into 2 or 3 or 4 zip files. Easy enough, but it doesn't help you this week.

> No apologies given either

I am sorry about this. In our support tech's defense, they were CRUSHED this past week by our attempts to get everybody auto-updated in anticipation of the Macintosh OS X 10.15 Catalina release which came out yesterday. So if they were terse it wasn't out of disrespect, it was out of sheer load they were dealing with.

The issue was that if we didn't get everybody to upgrade, anybody that chose to install Macintosh OS X 10.15 Catalina then it would break Backblaze and popup a completely random error dialog that wasn't helpful and didn't solve the problem. By getting people upgraded before Catalina, there are no issues at all and they won't have to contact support.

> It’s still pretty bad because there’s no way I‘ll have those 2-3TBs reuploaded within 2 weeks

To maximize your chances, make sure you turn off all power savings modes on your computer (like don't even let the monitor go to sleep) and make sure Backblaze is set to use 30 threads, and give it LONG periods of time (overnight 8 hours is ideal). You should be able to backup 1 TByte every 24 hours or so, but it can go slower if you don't have an SSD drive, or if your bandwidth is limited. One idea is to take your computer to a location with faster bandwidth, like a school or your work place and leave it there for two or three days, then carry it back home for the incrementals. By the way, Comcast has announced that it literally intends to offer full 1 Gbit/sec service to every last customer in the United States, so another way to go is upgrade your internet for 1 month, then downgrade it later.

> can’t trust your systems to handle the "too large" 2-3TB backup

We can handle the backups, just not the "Inherit" feature for long running backups with large amounts of data. And it's a fairly straight-forward fix for me to fix that, I just need to get to it. I'm sorry you got bitten by this short-coming, I will get it fixed.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#75

Post by justsubmit »

brianwski wrote: post #62
buildzr wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when you loose your data you have only 30 days to get it back before Backblaze deletes it as well! Uhhh... this one could be a significant issue for me right now. I've got a laptop that's been offline for about 2 months now due to a motherboard failure due to liquid damage. I haven't bothered dumping the drive yet because I figured even if it's got issues Backblaze has a copy. You're telling me that if I login to m…

Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze. > Has this policy changed at some point? It is more complicated than just "after 30 days" (and always has been). If your laptop is entirely offline (or you simply uninstall the client from your laptop), then the policy is ACTUALLY that we keep your backup for 6 months as long as you keep paying your bill. But to be honest, it's more like a year or two. The 6 month policy is we guarant…

> HOWEVER, with this new 7.0 release you can pay a little more and increase that retention time to one year, or forever. This was a highly requested feature for the situation you ran into.

I'm glad to hear that Backblaze has finally made such an option available. However:

> For cost reasons, Backblaze purges the files that you deleted from your local drive after 30 days.

As someone who once almost lost his PGP key and had to recover it from old physical backup media, I'd like to point out that that is not a "backup" service. It's sort of like a lazily expiring mirror, but it's definitely not a backup service.

Do you look at all of your files every 30 days? How long would it take you to notice that a random file had disappeared from the filesystem 7 layers deep? Have you ever needed to restore a years-old file?

(You need not explain why you do it; I understand about users who could use it as a cloud storage service by deleting files after they're backed up. The point remains that it's not a backup.)

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#76

Post by elfchief »

I've only ever had one problem with Backblaze, in my ... 7 or 8? ... years as a customer.

The problem: The UI for excluding directories is horrific. It uses the Windows "Browse for Folder" *SHBrowseForFolder) dialog, which requires you click down through each and every level of your directory structure to get to the directory you want to exclude. You can't cut and paste, it doesn't start from the directory you added your last exclusion in, it's just lots and lots and lots and lots of clicking.

This doesn't seem like it would be hard to fix, so I'm guessing they don't consider it broken?

If the Backblaze folks are still reading: Could you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, for the love of god, fix your fucking exclusions interface? Please?

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#77

Post by social_quotient »

brianwski wrote: post #64
calcifer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar enough with Windows to answer that, but I imagine HTPCs are much more likely to use Linux and would make a $6/month backup a very attractive target.

Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze. > Can you abuse Backblaze on Windows or Macintosh? Backblaze lives on the "averages", and so far the averages for Windows and Macintosh have worked out for us. We don't have any deep pockets (no VC funding) so we have to stay profitable or die. If you are curious what the distribution of customer sizes is, here is a histogram (you will need to zoom in, then use the scrollbar): https:/…

I appreciate the directness and transparency of your reply and backblaze in general.

I also appreciate your focus on providing the value you know you can to your core audience. Compromising that attention which, as you noted, would possibly jeopardize your ability to exist at all. A ton of companies get this completely backwards.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#78

Post by froindt »

elfchief wrote: post #76

I've only ever had one problem with Backblaze, in my ... 7 or 8? ... years as a customer. The problem: The UI for excluding directories is horrific . It uses the Windows "Browse for Folder" *SHBrowseForFolder) dialog, which requires you click down through each and every level of your directory structure to get to the directory you want to exclude. You can't cut and paste, it doesn't start from the directory you added…

I'm baffled that anyone uses that interface! I think it's literally my least favorite interface in Windows.

Is there a saving grace for that browse folder interface? A certain use case where it's really good?

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#79

Post by pfranz »

justsubmit wrote: post #75
brianwski wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze. > Has this policy changed at some point? It is more complicated than just "after 30 days" (and always has been). If your laptop is entirely offline (or you simply uninstall the client from your laptop), then the policy is ACTUALLY that we keep your backup for 6 months as long as you keep paying your bill. But to be honest, it's more like a year or two. The 6 month policy is we guarant…

> HOWEVER, with this new 7.0 release you can pay a little more and increase that retention time to one year, or forever. This was a highly requested feature for the situation you ran into. I'm glad to hear that Backblaze has finally made such an option available. However: > For cost reasons, Backblaze purges the files that you deleted from your local drive after 30 days. As someone who once almost lost his PGP key an…

What's your criteria for backup? I completely agree that something like RAID is not backup, but 30-60 days seems comparable to other backup services and covers most scenarios. The old-school manual process of swapping a USB drive at work every week/month has the similar retention.

The only consumer-facing system I've used with multi-year retention is Time Machine. Every few years it has trouble "verifying" the backup and I have to start over (it also deletes old backups when you run out of space). Right now my backup only goes to August.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#80

Post by CharlesW »

atYevP wrote: post #20
CharlesW wrote: post #9

Yev, can you clarify whether this new release supports NAS? I see that it allows you to "Back up all your attached external drives", but my drives happen to be connected via Ethernet.

Yev here -> No NAS support in this release. That part has not changed, however if you have external hard drives that you are backing up, this extended Version History does affect those! Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for being here to answer this and other questions, Yev!
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