I back up my data to BackBlaze. Doing for years. I’ve never restored a file from it (yes, i tested it), because my local backups cover that. Backblaze ist for scenarios like “my appartment burned to the ground”.
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I never use the TC via wifi , too slow. Whenever I wanted to backup my Mac I always used Ethernet. THe HDD is bad, it’s trying to seek but sounds like it cant figure out which cylinder it’s on.
Which model of Time Capsule do you have, tall one or low flat one? Replacing the drive in it isn’t too hard.
I also used the old crashplan plan and stayed with them when they moved to a more business plan structure (ie they charged more). I was really interested in moving to backblaze and think its frontend is a lot better than crashplan.
My main concern with backblaze is - they do perform client side encryption, but if you want to restore, the information is actually decrypted on their server and then sent over an encrypted connection.
In crashplan if you’ve set your own key it is never transmitted to the crashplan servers. (This level of security is not the default option). They send the encrypted file back to your computer (over an encrypted connection) where its decrypted with your key. All encryption and decryption happens on your own computer.
What is everyones thoughts? Am I being too paranoid? . . . . probably . . . But I do ascribe to @MacSparky paperless workflow and everything is up there in that electron filled cloud. BTW looking forward to the next update 
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Back when I don’t have my files stored in iCloud, I have files that a client need through email. But since I was out for the entire day with no access to my Mac, I used the Backblaze iOS app to download the file and sent it to my client. I think that was the only instance that I used Backblaze to “recover” a file. Nonetheless, I still see a tremendous value out of Backblaze as multiple points of back up besides iCloud and Time Machine.
Now you have me curious as to what “everything” is (launch codes?)
I’ve always preferred TNO (Trust No One) backup software. Using that allows me to backup to any cloud storage provider and know that my data is secure. And it allows me to keep permanent backups so I can recover files that may have been deleted or corrupted months or years ago. The downside is I can’t take advantage of the all you can eat $6/month backup plans like those offered by Backblaze.
Since I do not backup my ripped music and movie files offsite, I don’t backup massive amounts of data. So paying per GB is not prohibitively expensive. So I’ve been a long time user of Arqbackup and currently upload to Backblaze B2.
I have recommended Backblaze to my “normal” friends and associates for years. While it’s security may not check all the boxes for “paranoids”, I am confident that its security is as good, or better, as any currently available.
Love BackBlaze, but don’t throw away your time capsule yet… I put a new 10Tb drive in mine to give it a second life. A bit of a surgery, but you can find how to’s on YouTube. It’s been spinning very well ever since with ample space for time machine backups.
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I love BackBlaze – but only after I upgraded to a longer storage time limit.
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Ditto. This is also my setup and has saved my bacon when one of the external SSDs conked out. Backblaze + TimeMachine + CarbonCopyCloner. Money well spent for peace of mind.
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Just to put another option in: Big fan of arq backup. (The current version 6 has some bugs, so get version 5 for now until the developer releases v7).
It allows you to specificy exactly what you want to backup, what you want to exclude and where to send it, with a different encryption key per location you specify. You could for example have:
- A offsite backup to backblaze b2 cloud storage
- A onsite backup to your local USB stick / NAS with only the most important data
If you upload to a cloud storage like b2 or wasabi, it shouldn’t be more than $10 a month up to 1TB, but arq can also enforce budget limits like “all the combined backups shouldn’t take more than 500gb”
I used arq extensively after I reinstalled my mac and was able to restore files perfectly to their previous location from the cloud.
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I am doing exactly this. Been a BackBlaze user since Crashplan ended home accounts. And I do a weekly backup with Carbon Copy Cloner. Plus, all current document are either on Dropbox or Google Drive (preferably Dropbox, but some clients use Google Drive).
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A year and a half on, is backblaze still the best option?
Is encryption server side still an issue?
Or is there a better solution available now?
Don’t know if it is better, but Arq Premium is what I selected over BackBlaze. If you want to turn on a “backup process” and just let it run in the background, choose BackBlaze. If you want to schedule or manually run your backups, choose Arq. (The “Premium” part just means that you use their backend storage solution and don’t have to set up one of your own.)
And 13896 backups later I’m still using Arqbackup and Backblaze B2. 
Arq is a major competitor to Backblaze.
Which is “better” might depend on your particular needs. The developers of Devonthink strongly recommend Arq so I have used it for a couple years and have been pleased.