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Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

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Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#121

Post by [deleted] »

jamwt wrote: post #113
codemac wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can get a lot bigger than 6T Come on - most companies reasonably can't. There's a WD 10T smr/helium drive, and seagate is selling that crap 8T video drive. Unless you're talking ssd 3d/TLC density (more $), or the vapor-ware 20T drives that some storage vendors hint at and don't let me file a PO for, I literally don't know what you're referring to (now I'm getting where I can't name names) The reason I'm compla…

> You merely state that it's just not state of the art, and to come work at dropbox. That's about all I can do. However... > This is what I mean by being disingenuous. I'm don't think disingenuous is what I'm being. Maybe I'm not being as forthcoming as you'd like. Maybe my comment wasn't useful without details I'm not providing. But I'm not lying or misrepresenting anything. So let me try to be helpful without using…

[deleted]

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#122

Post by venomsnake »

budmang wrote: post #48
venomsnake wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just needed to think of something big. Anyway there is big stuff that is not that important - lets say couple of gigabytes of logs but nice to have. BB folder and file type structure makes it relatively hard to back up just some files of given type. And some stuff like tars and zips could be arbitrary in size and importance.

We definitely focus on ease-of-backup vs. choices-for-backup. One of the initial things we found we the "pick and choose files & folders to backup" approach is what kept most people from setting up a backup at all because they were confused by the process. Having said that, we offer the ability to exclude folders and filetypes if you have certain things you want to backup later. (Not disagreeing with anything you're…

I know from a product design and engineering standpoint why you have made the service that way. Every user have unique best backup strategy- it is a nightmare to accommodate all. Just proving the simple second best strategy to all is a good decision. And as I said I know what have I purchased and I am fine with the service. I stopped juggling directories and file types after couple of reinstalls though - those settings are not transferred on backup transfer and setting them all again is too much PITA.

Backups transfers are also a minor pain point - the error horse (on freshly installed BB on windows) and when, how and why it disappears and allows you to do the backup is still a mystery.

I guess that the BB cloud storage will solve some of the customization problems though - if you are power enough user you could write a custom strategy on top of the API.

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#123

Post by acdha »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #116
acdha wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that basically long-form restatement that you should know what you need before spending money? The storage pods are pretty openly targeted at large-scale operations where the lower storage costs pay for a dedicated ops team and things like redundancy are handled at the software layer. Dinging them for not having hardware RAID is like buying a semi-truck and complaining that it doesn't fit in your garage.

The post itself makes the same points.

Yes, but the headline and tone is different until you slog through to the discussion & the comments making similar points.

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#124

Post by jamwt »

jacquesm wrote: post #119
jamwt wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, maybe I was being tone deaf? I've repeatedly tried to state in subsequent children in this thread that it seems as though Backblaze made the right set of tradeoffs given their previous gen, and their time to recoup their investment in this, etc. I was also (somewhat selfishly, I suppose?) trying to tap into the excitement of a group of readers who where thinking about big storage, and let them know that the poss…

The way to tap into that excitement is by making a blog post of your own highlighting what makes DB unique and special and how you do your thing, not by making disparaging comments about companies active in the same space. I'm sure your post would get just as much or even more attention as this one. It's very easy to do what you just did and quite hard to do what Backblaze did. Essentially, if you're not willing to d…

Okay, fair point. Given empirical evidence wrt my blogging discipline (and the fact that I probably can't), it's unlikely that blog post will ever happen.

I'll leave this thread alone because there's some useful technical information in here, and amend with an apology.

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#125

Post by ilogik »

greglindahl wrote: post #64
wyldfire wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I will email my attorney that "Some guy named atYevP on HN told me it was okay." ;)

Having sold a company to IBM, I can attest that this issue would be a Big Problem. {Edit: I mean for any company that used BlackBlaze diagrams labeled "proprietary."}

We are talking about the company that got a license to use json for evil

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#126

Post by josefresco »

noja wrote: post #76
jamwt wrote: post #31

Worth pointing out (for those of you not in the storage game) that these appliances, while cool, are pretty far from state of the art. We're (Dropbox) packing up to an order of magnitude more storage into 4U. And costs aren't close, let alone the addressable throughput given that you guys just went to 10G. Serious kudos though are due for the Backblaze blog. You're all at least talking about what you're up to, which…

But Backblaze is for backup. Dropbox.. isn't.

I concur. I tried on several occasions to use Dropbox, and Google Drive for my backup needs, but the initial sync was so large (numerous files) that the Windows software would crash (memory). No 64-bit client on the horizon so...

I found Backblaze and never looked back.

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#127

Post by jamwt »

jamwt wrote: post #31

Worth pointing out (for those of you not in the storage game) that these appliances, while cool, are pretty far from state of the art. We're (Dropbox) packing up to an order of magnitude more storage into 4U. And costs aren't close, let alone the addressable throughput given that you guys just went to 10G. Serious kudos though are due for the Backblaze blog. You're all at least talking about what you're up to, which…

I can't edit the parent anymore, but it has been fairly pointed out that my tone of piggybacking on Backblaze's great blog post is a shameful bit of thunder-stealing. The technical community owes a great debt to them for their transparency about building storage clusters.

I get excited about large storage systems since that's what I've been focusing on for the last few years, and my enthusiasm overran my tact/prudence. Sorry Backblaze.

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#128

Post by josefresco »

therobot24 wrote: post #94
jakeva wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used BB for years on multiple machines and have been more than satisfied, in fact I recommend it to everyone. I'm not affiliated with them at all, just a happy customer. Confused as to why someone would find their service disappointing but to each their own.

it takes months to get everything backed up, and now the just the file lists or whatever is taking up 8GB+ on my disk (i use a smaller SSD as the primary drive so space is precious). I contacted support and their only solution is to create a new account and go through many more months of backing everything up again.

Does someone from BB want to jump in here and explain why this guys "file list" could be 8GB and how re-starting the sync will fix it? Sounds like something went awry.

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#129

Post by mrbill »

atYevP wrote: post #25
gnufied wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please make a Linux version of your client. Even a CLI based tool that works in background will do. From afar it looks very compelling, but unfortunately I can't use it, because no Linux :(

We've got that coming up with Backblaze B2, we have APIs and CLIs that you'll be able to use for Linux builds and servers! If you go to: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/ you can read our docs!

Please! I'd love to switch from Crashplan for my Linux boxes back to rsync/rsnapshot to a cloud provider of some sort.

Re: Backblaze Storage Pod 5.0

#130

Post by gurkendoktor »

budmang wrote: post #72
ausjke wrote: post #60

so this is cheaper than even glacier? and it supports client-side-encryption? and it will have a linux client (CLI is good enough)? if that's the case I'm sold. in fact do you have the storage located in various locations? if so can I store a paid-copy to a separate location physically, just to be safe.

Just to be clear, there are 3 different things: * Backblaze Online Backup - $5/month unlimited backup for Mac/Win; automatically does client-side-encryption * Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage - $0.005/GB/mo for object storage (lower cost than Glacier, but we don't yet offer a client, though others are building) * Backblaze Storage Pod - the hardware that underlies both of these, which we also open source for anyone to use…

> automatically does client-side-encryption

But server-side decryption :(

I have been looking into Backblaze every time it was mentioned on a podcast, and as far as I can tell you still cannot download your backup and then decrypt it on your own machine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_se...

Such a pity. I'm still stuck with CrashPlan (yuck!) for this one reason. I've been evaluating Arq, but I'm not yet confident enough to move all my/relatives' machines over.

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