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Backblaze S-1 IPO

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Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#211

Post by mindslight »

seaish wrote: post #121
mindslight wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we sure that the proprietary desktop clients don't use convergent encryption (allowing for deduplication), especially for media files?

It's pretty difficult to build up 80TB of stuff that's not original data.

Wat? The easiest way to build up a large collection of files, especially one that is only worth it to back up if you can do so inexpensively, is downloading movies. I would guess this describes most people who store lots of data.

Also, the lesser number of people storing large amounts of original data (eg videographers) probably create enough community goodwill to make up for the cost.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#212

Post by tgtweak »

spoonjim wrote: post #139
tgtweak wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you consider the increase in assets (total value of the # of servers, racks, network gear etc) from the purchase of hardware to accommodate that growth, in order to satisfy those revenues and future revenues, it makes sense. It is entirely intentional and desirable for any gross margins to go fully back into growth or assets to support growth - especially in the cloud game where infrastructure costs and R&…

They don't even need to keep the hard drive spinning since there are no guarantees of immediate access. They can keep them off and spin them up when you need to download a backup.

Regardless, there is a cost associated with having that harddrive (on or not) sitting in a server in a datacenter with air conditioning and resilient power. My point was not accurate to the exact operating cost per drive, but if you want that, here it is:

1) 2.5kWh per month of drive-on power. Datacenter grade power: 30-40c/kWh normalized =~ $1.00 in power per drive. 2) 60 drives per 4U space. 10 storage pods per 1 rack. 600 drives per rack. full rack in a colocation facility: $250-$500 =~ $0.40-0.80 in physical space.

Total cost per year to keep that drive up is, very ballpark, $16-22. The cost of running the drive is minimal vs the initial cost of $500 for the drive and storage server/rack/installation/network equipment etc. Network costs to transfer data from/to that drive are obviously nontrivial but again, the majority of the hurdle is outlay for capital.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#213

Post by prirun »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #199
helloworld11 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Backblaze but couldn't get over its insistence on first backing up my entire primary hard drive instead of allowing me to simply choose directly my most important files in my external drives, or from wherever I prefer. Seems arbitrarily forceful to me, though the pricing and security options are good. Also, the interface of deselecting things to not back up via exclusions, instead of simply being able to spec…

This is not accurate. You are not forced to backup your entire hard-drive. There is a 3rd party program called: rclone That program let's you choose which files/directories get copied over to BackBlaze. We have 150+TB (+10TB/week) stored at BackBlaze and I use rclone exclusively to upload our content for backup. Note, it's a CLI program that works on Linux/BSD. I'm not aware of any other platforms that it works on.

I think the parent post is about the PC Backblaze backup service, not B2. The PC backup service does backup everything, and part of the reason for that is to make it extremely easy to setup. If they allowed selection of what to backup, it would be another user interface, more documentation, and then if the user deselected something important, they'd be mad if they had a problem and something wasn't backed up. Since it doesn't affect the flat-rate price, it's easier just to back up everything.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#214

Post by mkr-hn »

prirun wrote: post #213
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not accurate. You are not forced to backup your entire hard-drive. There is a 3rd party program called: rclone That program let's you choose which files/directories get copied over to BackBlaze. We have 150+TB (+10TB/week) stored at BackBlaze and I use rclone exclusively to upload our content for backup. Note, it's a CLI program that works on Linux/BSD. I'm not aware of any other platforms that it works on.

I think the parent post is about the PC Backblaze backup service, not B2. The PC backup service does backup everything, and part of the reason for that is to make it extremely easy to setup. If they allowed selection of what to backup, it would be another user interface, more documentation, and then if the user deselected something important, they'd be mad if they had a problem and something wasn't backed up. Since i…

You can exclude folders. I use it for a few things where there's no point in backing it up.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#215

Post by silexia »

cupofjoakim wrote: post #155

A friend in the music industry told me about a very cool backblaze moment. They were out touring with an artist in some remote country, I think it was Kazakhstan, when the artists macbook suffered hard drive failure. Everything was backed up on backblaze, but the internet connections they had available was simply too unreliable to get the backup down. They contacted backblaze and for a price that was high (but not in…

I get that backblaze is a cool business, but why would anyone invest in these companies that just lose massive amounts of money?

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#216

Post by [deleted] »

ethbr0 wrote: post #208
ksec wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but is it enough to drive economies down to the point of competing on cloud pricing? More than Enough. When you have 1 Billion iPhone customer who are also in the highest paying basket. The purchasing power is likely over 50% of the total market. As similarly shown in App Store market. The problem is Apple has always had an Asset Light strategy. Keeping many Datacenter of Storage running just isn't their thing. Tha…

Absolutely, Apple can charge $1.5 for something everyone else can charge $1 for, but I was looking it from a cost of goods sold perspective, instead of pricing power. If it costs them $1.25, and everyone else can do it for $0.75 because they have scale and capital... that doesn't seem long-term stable. If one cloud provider becomes dominant, Apple loses. If Apple loses market share, they lose negotiation power, and A…

[deleted]

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#217

Post by ksec »

ethbr0 wrote: post #208
ksec wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but is it enough to drive economies down to the point of competing on cloud pricing? More than Enough. When you have 1 Billion iPhone customer who are also in the highest paying basket. The purchasing power is likely over 50% of the total market. As similarly shown in App Store market. The problem is Apple has always had an Asset Light strategy. Keeping many Datacenter of Storage running just isn't their thing. Tha…

Absolutely, Apple can charge $1.5 for something everyone else can charge $1 for, but I was looking it from a cost of goods sold perspective, instead of pricing power. If it costs them $1.25, and everyone else can do it for $0.75 because they have scale and capital... that doesn't seem long-term stable. If one cloud provider becomes dominant, Apple loses. If Apple loses market share, they lose negotiation power, and A…

>If one cloud provider becomes dominant, Apple loses.

Apple has been basically funding Azure Expansion. Microsoft needed Apple to scale their Cloud business in a multi-year contract. And Apple using Microsoft to drive AWS price down. I think for one reason or another ( politics, strategic, or technical ) they have avoided GCP. Apple also partner with other Cloud Services Provider in different Region. And they are doing exactly what you described as Multi Cloud. Even their CDN are split between Akamai, ( used to be Limestone and they switch to something else I cant remember ) and their own.

I would not be surprised if their next move is to fund Cloudflare R2 Storage services. ( Once it becomes mature enough )

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#218

Post by prirun »

AnonC wrote: post #108
hatware wrote: post #42

I feel bad for taking advantage of their personal backup plan ($60/yr) now that I see they're struggling to gross a profit. I just can't find a better way to back up 80TB offsite with that value.

An opinion that may be contrary to some of the other replies here. Don’t feel bad about it. There is a commercial (and capitalistic) contract between Backblaze and you where it provides a service for a payment. Both ends are keeping up the deal. If Backblaze deems your usage as “abuse” (many companies use unpublished soft and hard limits for making such decisions), it will let you know and give you options. Your main…

Brian from Backblaze posted a graph for 2018 showing how much data customers were backing up. More than 50% of customers were backing up less than 300GB. They're paying $6/mo for backups that would cost only $1.50/mo on B2. The graph did show one customer backing up over 400TB, which I would consider abusive, but as long as it's just one / a few customers doing crazy shit like this, it's not worth changing their unlimited backup offer to an unlimited* offer, and having fine print saying there actually are limits.

If it were me, I'd continue offering the $6/mo unlimited plan, throttle upload bandwidth for personal backups larger than a TB, and offer a high-performance option for $6/mo/TB with no throttle that also supports Linux, network drives, and anything else you want to backup. That's still a 20% premium over B2, and they have control over the client behavior which is also an advantage.

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#219

Post by iFreilicht »

iyn wrote: post #176
vadfa wrote: post #142

For a long time I have wanted to use one of these systems, but I would never upload anything to the cloud unless I encrypted it with an algorithm that I trust like GNU's gpg first. Is there any application, preferably for Windows, that can handle this for me? Synchronise files with a cloud system, but encrypting/decrypting them transparently as they are uploaded/downloaded.

I use Borg: https://www.borgbackup.org/ works well on client machines and servers.

Especially easy with Vorta [1] and hosted on BorgBase [2]. It's definitely for the technically literate user, but if you are, then it's a dream, and the tutorials by borgbase are super nice.

I was searching for something the could replace Backblaze on Linux for me, and Vorta+BorgBase was even better than that.

Encrypted and compressed by default, deduplicated, life-long (if desired) and diffable history, every snapshot can be mounted locally, alerts on missing backups, just a breeze to use, and works for my personal machines just like my VPS.

[1]: https://vorta.borgbase.com/

[2]: https://borgbase.com/

Re: Backblaze S-1 IPO

#220

Post by mtwittman »

AnonHP wrote: post #210
cupofjoakim wrote: post #155

A friend in the music industry told me about a very cool backblaze moment. They were out touring with an artist in some remote country, I think it was Kazakhstan, when the artists macbook suffered hard drive failure. Everything was backed up on backblaze, but the internet connections they had available was simply too unreliable to get the backup down. They contacted backblaze and for a price that was high (but not in…

A counter fact: Backblaze is also the company that has scheduled maintenance every Thursday afternoon between 2 and 4 p.m. Pacific Time, when there may be disruptions to the services. [1] [1]: https://www.backblaze.com/scheduled-maintenance.html

This is important to be aware of, but there is some nuance.

According to this BB blog post[0] certain functions are unavailable ("making a new purchase, installing new trials, signing in to your account, creating new accounts, enabling B2, and creating a master Key"), and two B2 API calls (b2_create_bucket, b2_delete_bucket).

If these are the only disrupted features, then impact depends on the details of the use case (perhaps get object and friends have to be on demand but other changes can be async).

Now, why these specifics are in their blog post and not in the Scheduled Maintenance page itself, that is a fair question, because it leaves room for doubt that only this exact set of functions are affected each and every window.

[0] https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/227807447-Backb...

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