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"It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

seankilleen.com

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Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#31

Post by SeanKilleen »

forgottenpass wrote: post #29
goldenkey wrote: post #5

Please don't singly use cloud backups. Your first line should be a local backup solution like a Time Capsule or other NAS device. Blind trust in a black box backup is not prudent.

Whenever a cloud service failure is posted to HN, there are always posts basically telling the OP that expecting the service you paid for is a silly idea. Why isn't the SaaS industry in general roundly criticized as the fly by night hacks they always turn out to be when someone gets burnt?

Haha, I appreciate the defense. At the same time, I understand the economical aspect of the service, and there is a measure of "you get what you pay for."

To be fair, I wouldn't call Backblaze hacks by any means, but I understand your point about the business responsibilities of companies and not giving them a pass just because they're a price-friendly SaaS.

Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#32

Post by howellnick »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #19
howellnick wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from working in IT support, it's frustrating to me that you've made a big public ordeal over something that, firstly was fixed by rebooting your PC, and secondly you haven't tried downloading the file a second time. I'm not necessarily defending Backblaze here, but posting this when it doesn't work quite right the first time seems a bit harsh. I feel like we need more information before we all grab our pitchfo…

There is no excuse for independent download software to fail because chrome is running, I don't care how fixed it is by a reboot.

He's not even sure that Chrome.exe was at fault. Why are you so quick to assume that it's Backblaze's fault in this one customer instance? He could have just reinstalled his machine, did a lot of weird configurations, etc. and not have even rebooted his computer a single time yet. Anyway, my point is that there is a lot of missing variables and information to make such assumptions. The customer is _not_ always right, you know.

Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#33

Post by crazygringo »

goldenkey wrote: post #5

Please don't singly use cloud backups. Your first line should be a local backup solution like a Time Capsule or other NAS device. Blind trust in a black box backup is not prudent.

If you're going to only have one backup (which is the case for most people, realistically), your first choice should be cloud, not local.

As far as I know, the chances of something physically happening to your local backup (the hardware fails, someone knocks it off the shelf, it gets lost in a move, there's a fire) is vastly greater than the chance that your online provider loses your data.

Yes, obviously it's better to have both, but the fact that cloud is both off-site and stored redundantly off-site makes cloud the obvious first choice for most people (since most people are not setting up RAID arrays at separate locations).

Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#34

Post by SeanKilleen »

bydo wrote: post #25
SeanKilleen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I gather, my situation may be the anomaly. Still concerning though. I'm still processing a 340 GB restore in the hopes that this one will go better. We'll see. Your success has me hopeful!

Your situation is an anomaly, or this specific incident? You _have_ actually tested restoring from your only backup solution at a service you've been evangelizing for years, right?

A fair point. Yes, I've tested and restored things before. However, those were normally smaller footprints and not the entirety of my data. Given the rest of the public's generally good experience with them that I could find (and kept seeing), I felt fairly confident that my data is safe (which is to say, I might not be able to get to it easily, but it's not going to disappear into thin air either).

I'm thinking given prior experiences, other users, etc. that my experience currently is the anomaly (and hoping so).

Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#35

Post by free652 »

My current backup strategy:

MacBook & Mini -> Time Machine on Mini (second hd), everything is using FileVault

Pictures -> Bitcasa & local copies

Personal Documents -> TrueCrypt Volume on Dropbox with local copies, coding projects are on dropbox also, obviously I have code in SVN/GIT repositories.

I have 2 local copies, one in the safe deposit box and rotate them about every 3 months. This is pictures + personal files on a FileVault volume.

Currently I don't backup my windows gaming pc aside from game saves on Bitcasa.

Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#36

Post by Dylan16807 »

howellnick wrote: post #32
Dylan16807 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no excuse for independent download software to fail because chrome is running, I don't care how fixed it is by a reboot.

He's not even sure that Chrome.exe was at fault. Why are you so quick to assume that it's Backblaze's fault in this one customer instance? He could have just reinstalled his machine, did a lot of weird configurations, etc. and not have even rebooted his computer a single time yet. Anyway, my point is that there is a lot of missing variables and information to make such assumptions. The customer is _not_ always right,…

This was a different machine, but you're right that that problem might not have been backblaze's fault.

But if he had problems downloading on both computers it's quite likely that backblaze is at the very least providing a low-quality downloading application, if not having outright broken features.

It's ambiguous but I think he did the 6GB download on the restored machine?

Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#37

Post by SeanKilleen »

res0nat0r wrote: post #22
Dylan16807 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no excuse for independent download software to fail because chrome is running, I don't care how fixed it is by a reboot.

The point the poster above is making is: Generally when you see posts with not a whole lot of troubleshooting which are decrying that the major component of your entire company (IE: restoring backups), is fundamentally broken, usually this leads to PEBCAK. After 10+ years dealing with users who claim that $ITEM is broken (yet has been working for years for the majority of customers) sets off the PEBCAK meter in that…

I understand this concept. I also would not describe me as "decrying" Backblaze at all, nor saying that restoring backups is fundamentally broken. It's broken for me _right now_, and I think the UX and approach could be better.

I've been in IT for 10+ years, and while force killing chrome worked, it was a genuine surprise, given that every other site (including bandwidth-sensitive) activities performed fine. On that one, I should have dug deeper. Rather than closing and reopening the windows, I should have killed the processes sooner. I'm willing to give them a pass on that.

I'm more concerned about waiting 12+ hours for a 6GB restore that then can't be extracted and restored, even when I used their downloader to ensure better results.

These issues also happened on two different machines, both of which work fine in every other respect.

Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#38

Post by SeanKilleen »

howellnick wrote: post #32
Dylan16807 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no excuse for independent download software to fail because chrome is running, I don't care how fixed it is by a reboot.

He's not even sure that Chrome.exe was at fault. Why are you so quick to assume that it's Backblaze's fault in this one customer instance? He could have just reinstalled his machine, did a lot of weird configurations, etc. and not have even rebooted his computer a single time yet. Anyway, my point is that there is a lot of missing variables and information to make such assumptions. The customer is _not_ always right,…

By "not being sure if it was Chrome", I mean that by any user's standards, I had closed and re-opened the application several times.

The first issue (downloads not working) was on an otherwise-fine laptop that I checked to ensure could do other bandwidth-sensitive tasks (streaming HD video, etc.) it was only the Backblaze site and downloader that showed 0-3kb/sec and then failed.

I could have done a lot of weird configurations, but just to be clear, in this situation, I did not. On the first download that didn't work, I was restoring to a laptop that I had just booted up and had not performed any configuration on. In the second case, I was downloading a 6GB file to newly restored system that I'd rebuilt from scratch, and I'd tested all of the components (including the network connection, disks, etc.) prior to considering the rebuild complete. After that and all of the updates, it had run in a stable condition for some time before I attempted the download.

I agree that the customer is not always right. But also note that I am not claiming that backblaze is evil. I'm claiming that this process and my experience makes me question their model as well as my own idiocies.

And I also should note that while I might not seem that adept in this scenario, I've spent years as an IT support person, systems administrator, and developer. Which is not saying I'm right all the time or to bolster my case, just to note that I didn't do _no_ troubleshooting before I wrote the post.

Re: "It's the (Backblaze) restores that fail."

#39

Post by kyle_t »

I had the exact same situation three years ago with Carbonite. Had 80GB of data that I was never able to be restore. Their only means of amending the situation was offering a year for free. Never again. I had a local backup but it was unfortunately 3+ months out of date. Now I keep everything locally backed up with a NAS and a mix of dropbox/google drive.
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