Backblaze Reviews 218

In common with the other 5 star reviewers here, I’m taken aback by the number of bad revies for this organisation. As a photographer based in Scotland, I’ve used Backblaze to back up my images for over 6 years and have found them to be effective, efficient and communicative. Every single time I’ve reached out to them, a named individual has responded withing 24 hours and that same person has seen the conversation through to a conclusion. Having previously recovered individual images, I’ve just used them to recover 2tb of images due to me (like a total eejit) dropping an external drive. The recovery process was simple and within a week I had a 2tb drive with all my images delivered to my door.
Just my opinion, but I believe that the vast majority of the poor reviews are down to user-error and people simply not taking due care when linking all their drives.
I may not have used them if I’d seen these reviews, but I’ll continue with Backblaze and can’t recommend them highly enough…

Service is horrible and unprofessional.
Website UI is unusable for large amounts of data.
Overall experience was not worth the cost or effort.

I have been a subscriber for several years. My two computers are fully backed up but a lot of data seems to be missing. Due to size I cannot restore my files while i can back them up. Makes sense. I can only buy 2 backup drives for more than 400 dollars of which i will get most back if I return them but being in Belgium the shipping will already be substantial. I just want to restore in the same way that i can backup.

I do not know why the low reviews. I have been using backblaze for years and I am very happy with their services. Only have had to download once and it worked perfectly.

If I could give negatives stars (black hole perhaps) I would. I have been working over a week trying to get the software working since an upgrade of their software last week - and getting incomplete instructions or the same, non-solution solutions for something that probably needs tier 2 support. After 3 tries of reinstalling the software and trying to inherit my original account, I tried one last time. Only to discover that software limitations won't display more than 3 items so won't even display my original account to choose and so I am now DOA. Once again waiting for a couple of days to hear back from customer service. Unless I get resolution this time, I'm cancelling and going with another product. There are no phone numbers to call and trying to resolve complex problems via emails that happen once a day is not adequate customer supsport.

AVOID!! The one time I needed to use the download function, their software does not work and then the backup was missing lot of important files from months earlier even though it was on continuous backup. Their customer service is a joke. Do yourself a favour and avoid at all costs

I have had the year plan for a year, on 1 computer, with 1 big external drive, about 1.3 TB of total data. But whenever that drive was disconnected, Backblaze would begin deleting its backed up files, after just 2 days! The Backblaze docs claim that it will hold my files for 30 days, but it begins losing or deleting them after just 1 or 2 days!! I have contacted support a year ago about this, but nothing was improved, the problem persisted constantly.
It was also extremely difficult to cancel the recurring $99!

NO CUSTOMER SERVICE AT ALL! NON-EXISTENT!
Into second year of a subscription as of 8/1/2023.
My computer has been identified as 'new', or 'switched'
at least 5 times in 15 months by Backblaze’s system.
What happens:
1. Since August 1, 2022, my computer has been
recognized as "new" 5 times by Backblaze and
has ESSENTIALLY restricted access to my paid
account AND started a countdown to cancel my
account if I do not BUY a new subscription.
2. It is impossible to continue under your computer
name as is recorded by Backblaze. YOU CAN
ONLY SIGN-UP FOR A 15 DAY TRIAL.
3. It is IMPOSSIBLE to 'reactivate', or use your
existing account.
4. Technical Service is non-existent. The "BEST"
Backblaze can do is refer you to dozens and
dozens of articles where the customer is left to
flounder about looking and hoping for an answer
PROOF? LOOK AT THE FACTS ON TRUST PILOT:
Trust Pilot has 152 Reviews of Backblaze with 73% of reviews giving a 1 or 2 star rating. (Or, 27% giving a ranking 3 stars or above)
Backblaze has NOT RESPONDED TO A SINGLE NEGATIVE REVIEW SUBMITTED. NONE!

PS: You can invest in Backblaze (BLZE) on the NYSE.

This service is the WORST! Expensive and their crappy Zendesk support is a joke. No way to contact them via phone. They're supposed to be available via chat during business hours, but I've been trying for WEEKS to get assistance. They just send links to outdated Help articles with poorly written, incomplete instructions.

I used Backblaze for over 5 years successfully. Then it suddenly changed behavior, making my backup tasks more troublesome. I opened a support case.

Support was sporadic, ineffective and redundant. After nearly 2 months of communications with -9- different support personnel, including a “lead technical support agent,” I gave up on finding a solution to my issue.

Backblaze support was second only to AT&T in its ineffectiveness. I wasted many hours with them, all to no result. There seems to be little consistency to the organization of this unit - every few days I’d hear from a different agent. They’d profess a desire to help, then often wouldn’t respond for days, sometimes not at all. I suppose there WAS some consistency in the attempts at a solution, in that they kept trying the same failed ideas. I often wondered whether the current agent had read the previous messages in the thread.

Initially, they tried to blame my problem on a piece of system software that has been present in my computer’s operating system through versions dating back over a decade. When I checked the OS support forums, I found that they’d suggested the same “fix” to another customer a couple of months earlier. Responses on the forum indicated that this software has no user interface, and that attempting to modify it would expose the computer to viruses and malware. So they should have known that this was never going to be a viable solution.

It appears that Backblaze is happy to take your money. Beyond that, they’re not interested in you.

As others have commented, there are no longer live chat or phone options. This company grew a lot thanks to us customers, and now they are "too big for us".

E-mail support is lacking. For example, I have recently had an open case for 14 days, without an answer. Finally when I did get an answer, it was irrelevant to my request, and a follow-up reply was an exact copy-paste duplicate.

Stop spitting into the well you drink from. Bring back direct support, or else the growth we all gave you would soon be gone.

I have use BB for several years and have overall been pleased with their product. They saved me 3 times when I had external hard drives crash and needed to recreate them. I had a new harddrive in just a few short days.
My only complaint is their customer service. They do not do online chat or a phone call. Only email. When I have issues I do not have 12 hours to sit and wait by the computer for a response that usually does not remedy my problem. I respond to that email only to wait another 12 hours for another response.... I hate to leave them because their product has worked for me but their lack of online help may be the straw...

Finally rid of them. Took quite awhile, and wasn't easy. Couldn't delete the payment method because I had an active computer. Once the machine was deleted, then couldn't remove the payment method because there were active licenses. Finally deleted the licenses and was able to delete the payment method. I saw someone mention below the adjective "faceless". Perfect way to describe this company. One of these cloud-based companies that have pretty much no technical support and work as hard as possible to avoid interaction at all costs with their customers. It's a very common business model, but it doesn't have to be that way, if people would punish these types of companies by witholding their business from them. There is one thing they have done - probably as a reaction to the many people who have complained that they lost their data - now you can "extend" the amount of time your computer can be idle before you lose your data. Hmmm. OK, but for me, too little, way too late.

4star because their customer support pulled through. I kept subscribing for months after my computer died, because the process for canceling was way harder than it should be. I finally got my act together and asked for backup of my data on a $204 1TB drive. I had some issues recovering data that if unresolved, which would have resulted in a 1star review, but within 1 day their support gave me a workable solution and I am satisfied.
The process for canceling service is ridiculously tough, and I checked through 3-4 different options and it seemed to work, but I don’t know if I checked too many or not enough. Regardless, it worked out, and if I needed an automatic backup in the future, I wouldn’t hesitate to consider Backblaze.

Backblaze is a scam! I installed it. It kept saying that my backups were frozen. After contacting tech support to try to fix it five times I uninstalled it, but was told that since 30 days had passed they wouldn’t refund my money! Stay away!

They keep sending me emails saying my computer is not connected - when it is. The Restore and download functions are all messed up on the website and the options are so badly laid out that you end up going round in circles. Such a waste of time! I was interested to see so many one-star reviews - and no responses from the company. Very poor! I'm out!

For me backblaze does do what it advertises - an unlimited backup for a fixed price - one I have relied on several times to recover *recently* deleted data over the past few years.
However when something goes wrong - and believe me it WILL go wrong - they simply couldn't care less if they tried: backups fail, databases get corrupted, restoring through the website is appalling and restoring using their download tool is worse, unresponsive CPU & RAM hogging app which launches a web browser whenever it feels like for you to log in for no reason, no Linux support, billing and technical queries answered by robots spouting from scripts and a condescending attitude to their customers you can detect from space - calling your customers liars when they report a bug or account issue they're experiencing isn't support.
It is NOT a set-and-forget system yet lacks so many features you need to adequately administer it successfully yourself, if you can find another solution I encourage you to explore that (just not Carbonite).
OK for home users who have time to fight with them; use this alongside some cheap USB drives for local backups, but business-grade disaster recovery this is not.

I’ve been using Backblaze for a few years. In 2018 I had a problem with my hard drive and attempted a back up from Backblaze. Many of my files were missing. I intended to switch to another online back company but unfortunately never got round to it.

I have again lost some data from my hard drive, mainly thousands of photographs. Once again Backblaze have been absolutely hopeless and the majority of my files are not available, apparently not being traceable. The online help is also useless.

I strongly advise you to avoid this company unless you want to lose your data. I shall be ending my contract with them and switching to an alternative backup company.

At some point my backup continued in a loop saying All Files backed up and a few hours later it found 300.000 files that weren't backed up. This continued for months and at some point figured I couldn't have that many files.

Contacted BB and they admitted it was a bug and my backup was obsolete and I had to start all over with a new license.

I should actually buy a new license but they gave me a credit on the new so I wouldn't pay for 2. It was very difficult to navigate through their systems and I needed help from them.

The supporter I first talked to told me how to establish a new backup as it was rather complicated and he specifically wrote: "This will allow you to add the second license without having to purchase it."

Took several months before backup was ready and back online and then they started charging me for BOTH backups even though the first one was dead and useless.

For months they illegally charged me FOUR times the price of ONE license!

I contacted them and suddenly they wrote in the case files that I had to remove the old backup to get a refund for only the last month. A stunt trying to 'legalize' they illegally over charged my credit card for months.

Writing back and forth they continued to claim that because I did not delete the old backup they charged me for 120 dkk instead of 28 dkk. through several months. FOUR times what ONE license cost. Every month. That's what they tried to 'legalize' by adding the note on refunding last months payment a few days ago.

They had a serious bug that rendered me with a dead backup and several months of backing fully up, back to where I was before their bug destroyed my backup. And a gigantic extra electricity bill.

These guys needs to be right rather than admitting they had a bug that caused me problems for months. They do not really care about customers. Not at all.

THEY had a bug and no matter how they twist what was written in the files THEY have to pay for that and make the transition as smooth as possible for the users. They failed utterly.

THEY HAD A BUG = THEY PAY THE COST! Not me!

This is the worst customer service I have ever experienced. It stinks so bad I hope it drains the company.

If I could I would give them MINUS five stars.

BTW. This is not the first time I have found bugs in their software. They deny and a few months later it is fixed. Don't trust them!

STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM THEM AS POSSIBLE!

Forgot I had an old computer with about 65mb of files on their system. I realised 5 years later and asked for a refund or at least a partial refund as they could see I hadn't backed up or accessed the files in that time but they refused.