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Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

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Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

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. Comcast is promising 1GB download speeds. Their maximum upload speed is still an abysmal 35Mbps.

> Comcast is promising 1GB download speeds. Their maximum upload speed is still an abysmal 35Mbps.

Well, I have Comcast and my upload speed is 100 Mbits/sec.

But even at 35 Mbits/sec you can upload 378 GBytes PER DAY. That means that within the Backblaze free trial of 14 days you can upload 5.2 Terabytes. Within Backblaze's recommended "fully backed up" period of 30 days you can upload 11.3 TBytes!! And we'll look the other way if it takes you 60 days and you get 22.6 TBytes uploaded.

Consumers really can have "online backup" with 35 Mbits/sec upload speed. They really can, and they can be comfortable doing it.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#92
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. > 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! Not to be an ass.. but.. uh, there does exist ways to defeat latencies in order to bring up throughput. But Backblaze isn't aware of them after more than a decade in the business?

Not to be an ass but.. but.. >Maybe don't do this on HN? (Again, keep in mind I mentioned TCP/QUIC.) I have no idea what QUIC is and the onyl reason I recognizes 'TCP' is because back in 1994 and 1995 I had to see "TCIP/IP" every time I wanted to connected to the internet, not everyone on HN is a network engineer and/or software dev and you're not having a private conversation, you're having a conversation that might…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUIC https://blog.cloudflare.com/http3-the-past-present-and-futur... Just because it’s a public discussion doesn’t mean there’s an obligation to explain things. I didn’t know what QUIC was either so I googled it.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#93
post #82

Are you (BackBlaze) still happily deleting user's backup files if user's computer does not contact BackBlaze servers within some arbitrary time? Yes/No? Source: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-... This is malice. If you are still doing this to your users - your service is a non-starter. Backup service that deletes user's valuable files under some TOS excuse should not exist.

> [...] within some arbitrary time?

It's 6 months - and you receive notifications after 14, 21, 28, 60 and 90 days. It should be possible for the backup machine to connect to the backblaze server twice a year. I think it's reasonable.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#94
post #82

Are you (BackBlaze) still happily deleting user's backup files if user's computer does not contact BackBlaze servers within some arbitrary time? Yes/No? Source: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-... This is malice. If you are still doing this to your users - your service is a non-starter. Backup service that deletes user's valuable files under some TOS excuse should not exist.

Backblaze is a backup service, not a file storage service.

If the computer you are backing up isn't online for 6 months, it clearly isn't that important. If it is, you can use B2 to store files indefinitely.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#96
post #82

Are you (BackBlaze) still happily deleting user's backup files if user's computer does not contact BackBlaze servers within some arbitrary time? Yes/No? Source: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-... This is malice. If you are still doing this to your users - your service is a non-starter. Backup service that deletes user's valuable files under some TOS excuse should not exist.

Backblaze is a backup service, not a file storage service. If the computer you are backing up isn't online for 6 months, it clearly isn't that important. If it is, you can use B2 to store files indefinitely.

Is it though? What if I plan to travel for a long time and still want my data to be backup up just in case?

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#97
post #82

Are you (BackBlaze) still happily deleting user's backup files if user's computer does not contact BackBlaze servers within some arbitrary time? Yes/No? Source: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217664898-What-... This is malice. If you are still doing this to your users - your service is a non-starter. Backup service that deletes user's valuable files under some TOS excuse should not exist.

Backblaze is a backup service, not a file storage service. If the computer you are backing up isn't online for 6 months, it clearly isn't that important. If it is, you can use B2 to store files indefinitely.

> If the computer you are backing up isn't online for 6 months, it clearly isn't that important.

Internet connectivity in some parts is particularly terrible.

My grandmother's ADSL 12/1Mbit connection was never particularly reliable and would go down any time it rained for days at a time. Every 6-12 months it would go down hard and not come back requiring a visit - the techs would fiddle around, find a different working copper pair and get it going again.

Finally, about two years ago it died completely, and the Telco threw up their hands and said they couldn't fix it, there just wern't any working pairs. There will be, at some point, a FTTC rollout, but in the mean time we're getting her limping along with an overly expensive and even less reliable 4G connection. The data limits are absurdly low, so I can't afford to let Backblaze actually run backups.

But the data that was backed up prior to the DSL outage we want to keep - I'm paying the license for it, they should keep it.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#98
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

> but not unheard of (maybe 2% of our customers right now).

That seems like a huge amount of customers, no? The income from 2% of customers is enough to pay for several employees' salaries, I bet.

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#99
post #7
post #4

i've been a customer of backblaze for a about a decade now. everyone has their opinion, but for me, it's always just hummed along in the background, doing it's thing. i've had to restore almost a terabyte of data (on more than one occasion, derp) -- and had no issues. it's up there (again, for me) as one of the annual software subscriptions that's worth every penny, if not more.

Yev here -> Thank you so much! :D

keep up the great work -- great products!

Re: Backblaze 7.0 – Version History and Beyond

#100
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…

I should have explained the 30 days better. I would edit my comment if I still could.

But yeah, since I kept the computer online and Backblaze app running _after_ I lost the files, Backblaze marked them up for deletion in those 30 days. To be fair, I didn't try to contact them and ask to help me, maybe they would.

I spent several days trying to download the backup and then I gave up and ordered the drive.

Good to see that you have a new retention policy since then.

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