1. Control Panel Windows 10
2. Download Backblaze Control Panel
3. Control Panel Screen Settings
4. Backblaze Control Panel Installation

Backblaze is a pioneer in robust, scalable low cost cloud backup and storage services. Personal online backup to enterprise scale data storage solutions.

Backblaze, Inc. is a cloud storage and data backup company, founded in 2007 by Gleb Budman, Billy Ng, Nilay Patel, Brian Wilson, Tim Nufire, Damon Uyeda, and Casey Jones.^[1] Its two main products are their B2 Cloud Storage and Computer Backup services, targeted at both business and personal markets.

Products[edit]

Cloud Backup[edit]

1. On 2021-04-12 the control panel claimed that 'You are backed up'. The ISSUES tab was like: # SkippedFilesReportStarted: 2021-04-12 14:59:57 No Issues Found. 3) And yet, I suspected something was fishy, so took a look at the explainfile (generated by the Backblaze debug tool) - there WERE in fact issues with at least one on my files and it was.
2. I have a Kingston Data Traveler Vault Flash Drive that I would like to back up to Backblaze Personal. When I plug it in, I need to execute an app where I enter my password, then the drive appears as drive E. But when I go to the Backblaze Control Panel, under 'Select Hard Drives to Backup', the drive does not appear. How do I backup this drive?

Backblaze's first product was its computer backup, offering users to back up their computer data continuously and automatically with a monthly subscription service. The service makes use of AES encryption for security, and uses data compression and bandwidth optimization to reduce upload and download times. Files that need to be restored can be delivered in the form of a digital download,^[2] on an external hard drive or flash drive.^[3] File versioning and history is available, however there is a cap to 30 days or an additional cost per month.

Backblaze B2 Storage[edit]

In September 2015, Backblaze launched a new product, B2 Cloud Storage. Being an Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), it is targeted at software integration for different kinds of businesses. It directly competes with similar services, such as Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.^[4] In April 2018, Backblaze announced cloud computing partnerships^[5] that directly connect Backblaze's data centers with its partners, Packet and ServerCentral.

Technology[edit]

Data centers[edit]

Backblaze has four data centers; three are in the United States and one is in Europe. Two U.S. data centers are in Northern California near Sacramento, and one is in Phoenix, Arizona. Backblaze's data center in the European Union is located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.^[6]

Redundancy[edit]

In order to increase redundancy, data uploaded onto Backblaze's data center is sharded into 17 data pieces and three parity shards for each file. Parity shard bits are computed by the Reed–Solomon error correction algorithm. The shards are stored in 20 different drives, each in a separate cabinet to increase resilience to a power loss to an entire cabinet, or other physically-based issue. Backblaze states that its 'Vault' architecture is designed with 99.999999999% annual durability.^[7]

Encryption[edit]

For Computer Backup, Backblaze uses a combination of AES and SSL encryption to protect user data. Data is stored in Backblaze storage using Reed-Solomon erasure coding^{[citation needed]} and encrypted with the user's private key, which is secured with the user's password and username. The default encryption of private keys is done server side, which is unlikely to protect against government subpoena or serious data breach. Users desiring additional security and privacy can use the optional private encryption key (PEK),^[8] but the PEK passphrase is sent to the server when it is initially set, and must be sent again to restore any data.^[9]

Encryption for their B2 storage is handled entirely by the user and client software to manage the stored data, making it immune to government subpoena or data breach and protecting the data during transfer and ultimate storage in Backblaze's data centers.

Storage Pod open design[edit]

In 2009 and 2011, the company released CAD drawings of the computer case used by the storage servers in its datacenters. With commercial off-the-shelf components such as x64 processors, disks, and motherboards, high-density storage servers can be built at a lower cost than commercial ones.^[10] The company has since made six iterations of the design over the years.

References[edit]

1. ^'Backblaze Team'. Backblaze.com. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
2. ^'Backblaze: Online Backup With Time Machine's Finesse'. TechCrunch. 2008-06-02. Retrieved 2016-03-28.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
3. ^'Larger Longer Faster Better'. BackBlaze. Retrieved 24 February 2019.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
4. ^'B2 Cloud Storage Pricing'. 2 January 2018.
5. ^'Backblaze Announces B2 Compute Partnerships'. Backblaze.com. Retrieved 2018-04-03.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
6. ^'Backblaze opens data center in Amsterdam, retains same pricing as US'. TechRepublic.com. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
7. ^'Backblaze Durability is 99.999999999% — And Why It Doesn't Matter'. Backblaze.com. Retrieved 2018-07-17.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
8. ^'Online Backup Security & Encryption'. Backblaze. Retrieved 2016-03-23.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
9. ^'Security Question Round-up!'. Backblaze. 2017-09-12. Retrieved 2019-11-08.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
10. ^'Petabytes on a Budget v2.0:Revealing More Secrets'. Blog.backblaze.com. Retrieved 2016-03-28.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)

Control Panel Windows 10

External links[edit]

Backblaze offers no-frills, unlimited backup for Windows and Mac OS based computers for $5 per month per computer. There are no free backup offerings except for a 15 day trial that doesn't require a credit card number to start. You can select a monthly subscription or a yearly option for a small savings.

Backblaze also has a 'for business' offering, which has the same exact features and costs. The differences for Backblaze Business are:

• Central billing for multiple unique accounts. (Where each account is tied to an individual person & could have multiple computers like the standard service.)
• Central reporting for multiple accounts. (A weekly email summary with which computers are backed up, how much data is left, etc.)
• Ability to pay via invoice. (In addition to pay via credit card.)

The service is focused on backup and doesn't offer options to store anything that doesn't reside on the computer being backed up.

By default, Backblaze selects most everything on your computer to be backed up. If that's not what you want, it offers only exclude-type selection for drives, folders and files types. You can't however, exclude the C drive or individual files.

Also by default, Backblaze will save files up to 4 GB in size, but this can be extended to 9 GB, or reduced to as low as 5 MB. Upload bandwidth use is controlled via a simple slider.

Backblaze doesn't offer archiving, but will save an unlimited number of file versions out to a 30 day limit.

Restore

Download Backblaze Control Panel

The service has a web interface where you can select files and folders for restore. Selections are packed into a zip file for download; you can't download individual folders and files directly.

Control Panel Screen Settings

For large restores there are options to have a DVD or USB hard drive overnighted.

Backblaze Control Panel Image Gallery

Backblaze Control Panel Installation

Access, Support, Security

In keeping with its no-frills approach, Backblaze doesn't offer remote file access, browsing or retrieval optimized for mobile devices. But any device that supports a web browser and the ability to open zip files can retrieve files.

Support is strictly via email and online ticket, with no option for phone support or online chat.

Finally, for the ultra paranoid, there is the ability to specify a private encryption key using 1-50 characters. If you lose this key, however, Backblaze can do nothing to recover your data.

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