Best alternative to Backblaze? (Backblaze seems to have deleted my data)

Long story short, I just reinstalled my computer. I followed Backblaze’s directions, asked it to inherit my previous backup state, and it scanned through everything. Same drives, same names except the “main” drive obviously had less data on it.

After Backblaze’s scans, 6 terabytes of my original backup is nowhere to be found. It thinks that my 8 terabyte external drive that’s 3/4 full has 68 gigabytes of data total.

So…

I have a ticket in. But the online interface says the data isn’t there. The software on my computer doesn’t recognize it.

Any good alternatives to Backblaze that are somewhat budget-friendly?

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BackBlaze is the best priced, reputable consumer product. If you aren’t willing to wait to see if they can handle this problem, then the best product I’d recommend will cost you 65% more: Crashplan Business, for $10/month. That said, Joe Kissell, whose tech chops I highly respect, gives props to iDrive as the #2 service after Backblaze over at The Wirecutter. iDrive is only $10/yr more than Backblaze.

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I have a ticket in, but Backblaze doesn’t answer tickets on weekends. So I’d like to get something in place over the next couple of days for my critical data, and I may or may not keep it in place afterward.

I’ll check out iDrive and Crashplan. :slight_smile: Thanks!

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I’ve been very happy with Arq for the last couple of years.

I’m using their standalone product and providing my own cloud storage.

But they do provide their own cloud storage now as well.

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I use my synology to do an encrypted backup to Synology C2, and Arq to do an encrypted backup to a remote drive.

Has both security and practical reasons. Mainly because Backblaze still can’t do full on client encryption and decription. They still require your key for some operations.
So that’s a no go for me.

Id buy more storage. Try getting two 4tb drives, and backing up your computer with something like time machine. Anyways, you don’t have to pay a subscription fee then.

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And what’s the offsite storage you use without a subscription?

Well, if you want offsite storage, couldn’t you just setup a server at a friend or relatives house, and keep your offsite backup there. If you want more detail, here’s a YouTube video explaining how this guy does it, he really does a good job. It might not be exactly the same, but I’d watch it: https://youtu.be/Ev0PL892zSE

It’s not a matter of want; it’s simply part of a good backup strategy, which has been the general recommendation for people for decades. Throwing external drives onto a computer for backup doesn’t save your data if your place gets burgled or there’s a fire.

My larger point is that an established online service is well worth the few bucks a month cost. Penny wise and pound foolish. And it’s a lot less work - and a lot less cost - than that video’s use of two synced Synology drives.

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Yeah, that’s why I’d just give backblaze another chance

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I use Arq with OneDrive. I am Microsoft 365 subscriber and Arq does a very good job of encrypting and backing up to my OneDrive

I was going to go with $5 a month Backblaze but I figured why pay extra when Onedrive is working well.

Microsoft 365 subscription is really worth it especially the family one considering all the benefits that are available. Each family member gets 1tb storage. So I just use one specific account just for backup.

I use iDrive and it works without any issues. You can get a nice discount for your first year and when the next payment is coming you can choose to cancel the service and iDrive will offer you a new discount for the next year :slight_smile:

did you ever get to the bottom of this?
And of course, did you get your data back?

If one is setting up a server at a friend’s house, the cost of doing such is almost certainly going to be more than $6-ish a month. One could sneakernet the occasional hard drive over to their friend to have a copy frozen in time I suppose, but…there’s significant cost + time to anything that involves “get extra hard drives and physically move them around”.

FWIW, anybody that’s actually been burned by a backup provider typically won’t give them another chance. :slight_smile:

Since this post is a solid year old, I don’t remember the troubleshooting steps I went through with them anymore - but yes, at the end of the day all of my data was safe and they were able to sort things out. There was some real weirdness between their app and my computer for a period of time, but we’re all sorted currently. :slight_smile:

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Again, which is the reason I’d give backblaze another chance. It’s just so cheap, but a good service. It’s worth giving it another chance

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Hello… I am considering becoming a backblaze customer. We have a couple of mac minis, a macbook pro and a synology in the house. Is there a way to have all that data get backed up with a single backblaze account? I have not found that language on their site. and how is backing up to backblaze different to the data we have stored in icloud?

You’ll need to have all the data you want to back up on a single computer if you want to use a single account.

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It’ll be one account, but you’re charged per computer.

Backblaze is a backup, meaning there’s a separate copy of your data. If you delete files, Backblaze keeps copies of them for 30 days or longer (depending on your plan), and you can restore.

iCloud Drive is more of a sync service. So if you delete a file, it helpfully deletes it from all of your devices and the cloud.

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I love backblaze for one computer, however I haven’t done the cost calculation on multiple computers and the synology. It’s something I’ll look into for my next research project.

I found a link that can give you more details for comparison between backup and sync:

To backup the synology, check out:

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