Backblaze Reviews 218

No phone support at all not even in the case of trying to do disaster recovery. Interface and processes are *not* intuitive, making the lack of support even more onerous. - process of trying to recover files is a time-consuming nightmare, requiring DAYS - yup, that's right, DAYS.

They lost my data. There was a billing issue with the credit card on file and I did not receive any email warning that the account was in jeopardy. I am fairly certain it wasn't a spam filter issue because I had gotten account related and payment emails from them for previous credit card failures due to re-issued credit cards.

The big issue is that they don't archive your data and there is no way to recover it once your account and it's data has been deleted. So whether there's a user or company error, once they have deleted your data, its gone and there's no recourse. That is an issue for a service where you are relying on them to back-up your data and you may not be closely monitoring the account because you really only need it in time of crisis.

I just came here to leave a review because of yet another positive experience with Backblaze's customer services team and I'm really surprised at the negative reviews. I've only ever had very minor problems with this service, which they have always sorted out for me within 24 hours. The backup works extremely well for my personal needs (less than 1 TB data) and I've been able to download and restore files when needed with no problems. Maybe it is different if you have huge amounts of data you need to restore quickly *shrug*, but personally I wouldn't have a problem with ordering the hard drive because at least they do refund the $200 - which is more than other backup services I've used do (my previous one charged $250 flat with no offer of a refund!).

IMO this is an extremely good value service that works well and has great customer service.

IMPORTANT: Their software is completely broken. The software says that all files are backed up as of today, but multiple TB can just be missing all together. In my case several drives were just omitted even though they are checked off in the settings. Their support is useless as well - you will only get an automated robot response.

I would like to take this moment to tell you about Backblaze and the scam of a service!! They offer UNLIMITED cloud backup of all of your data for a monthly fee. On their website it says ...

"You can download a free restore of 1 file or all your files anywhere in the world. There is an option to have a 256 GB flash drive ($99) FedEx to you or an external drive up to 8 TB ($189). Access files on iPhone, iPad or Android."

Well this is a LIE! You CAN NOT download 1 file because you cannot download more than 1 GB of data from their server per day...I HAVE OVER 4 TB OF DATA ON THEIR SERVICE and my ONLY choice is to pay nearly $200 for you to send me a hard drive (which goes for $50 at Fry's and Best Buy by the way) with my data on it, and if I don't do it in 15 days my old account gets deleted!!

Do the math ...It will take me 4000 days to download my data from your servers. THAT'S 11 YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So basically what I am saying is I have 4TB of data that I THOUGHT was being backed up to cloud storage when it hasnt....or rather it HAS but its going to cost me $200 dollars to get it back. Which they DO NOT tell you up front!!

Oh but thats refundable .... Oh really? So I have to send you $200, wait for you to send me my data which could take up to 2 weeks, get the drive, put it back on my machine, then go back to the post office and send you your $50 drive back to get my money back?? If you would have charged me for a hard drive fine I get it $50 for the hardware... But $200 dollars??? $200 DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!

DO NOT USE BACKBLAZE ONLINE CLOUD BACKUP!!! Be smart!! Buy a NAS and back everything up yourself!! Its WAY cheaper then their service in the long run!!

Not S3-Compatible , Existing API is extremely unstable for uploading. Upload fails very frequently and lots of API call to upload a single item.

I really wanted to use this solution for backup, but after the trial month the application got stuck and everyday it found more files to upload, going back in progress.
That maybe was because the boot drive C: was indexed for backup.
I wanted to remove that drive from backup but that is not allowed, even editing the exclusion file (that is a bit complicated to edit properly).
My connection was 20~30Mbps upload on Wi-Fi.
Every time i started the app, Backblaze started to backup all the smallest files, going stuck every 15 uploads.
After one month it backupped about 300GB and told me it required around 210 days to complete!

I highly recommend a better GUI to exclude folders and the possibility to choose only secondary drives.
Adding an option to choose the backup method, like a choice to upload first the heavier files then the smaller, or upload first the older files, that more rarely would be deleted. That would speed up the upload plan.
The most important issue to resolve is absolutely the upload, that gets stuck for minutes once every 20 seconds (and was not my connection problem, because my speedtest worked great)!
The restore is very slow. Would be great if the .zip compressor will be faster so that the online restore can begin earlier.

I signed up for a trial, asked 3 times to be unsubscribed for their constant emails and it was not honored. Despite them promising "never to spam you or sell your email." Even contacted support and they wouldn't take me off. No wonder they have a 2.3 star average rating at the time of writing. Backup your data elsewhere.

Originally I didn't like their service, but with the B2 and European data centers it seems to work much better.

Pros: very fast, doesn't hog CPU or memory like CrashPlan

Cons: deleted files are only retained for 30 days. Backblaze is essentially only useful in cases where a hard drive completely fails / external hard drive is physically broken.

If a hard drive starts slowly corrupting over time, or if you accidentally delete files and don't realize it within the 30 day limit, you're screwed. Absolutely useless in those cases.

Managed to back up my corporate system files so that it automatically deletes the oldest files. I can configure each bucket to have a different life cycle and the linux system syncs with B2 without a problem. Not sure about recovery yet.

I love it. I'm not sure why there are so many negative reviews. I've been using the service for several years. I've had a motherboard and a hard drive die in the past and lost everything. Now I do a triple-duty backup. I keep most of my files on Dropbox. Larger files (and a periodic Dropbox backup) are kept on my external hard drive.

Backblaze was a lifesaver when I was on vacation and my computer had a power failure issue making it unusable. I was able to use my dad's computer to go onto Backblaze and pull the files I needed to work on to his desktop.

You can change the backup settings. As far as the reviewer who had an issue that he wanted to back up an external HD once and leave that backup indefinitely. It takes all of 5 minutes to plug in your external HD once a month or so and get it backed up. They email you several times if your drive hasn't been backed up in a while. Just plug it in, let it verify that it's backed up and then pull it out. Easy. Depending on the size of the external hard drive, it sounds like Dropbox might be a better fit for his needs. I suppose it would be nice to be able to extend it for 6mos-year. If it's a really large hard drive, indefinitely is unreasonable to ask, IMO.

The only bothersome thing for me is that they are now charging for another computer backup. I think it used to be up to 3 computers for the monthly fee. Regardless, an extra $6/month isn't a huge price to pay for the assurance that you won't ever lose work or personal files.

Maybe I would give fewer stars if this were my only backup instead of my "last resort"/out of town backup.

My Mini PC I chose to upload my external HD runs for more than a year now, constantly. My upload speed is not the best but this is crazy long, isn't it? A few weeks ago there where just 80 files left and I was ready for party: Buuuut the BB program started to synchronise again and after it was done it said: 12.700 files to go. What? Service said: No problem, just let your PC run as long as you can. Ja, give it a few more month since it is all RAW files. Nice. I test downloaded 1,7 GB files and it took 20 minutes ladies and gentlemen. Just bad. All the work, controlling. DONT DO IT

I wish I had read these reviews before I signed up for Backblaze.
I uploaded 8tb of files and all went smoothly until I removed the external drives for a few days from the laptop. I then received a message that the external drives were not being backed up because the drives had been given different names. I contacted them and told them I needed exact directions on how to fix the problem. I did not receive such help, and I could foresee this happening each time I removed the external hard drive from the laptop. I was not impressed with customer service. I asked for a refund and they indicated I would receive a partial refund. I hope they follow through on that. I would advise anyone to read these reviews before investing time and money in Backblaze.

I backed up all of my data on my macbook as well as an external drive. About a month later I got an email stating that the data from the external drive would be deleted if I didn't re-connect it within a few days. This is nonsensical. The whole idea of cloud backup is peace of mind, but they're telling me now that if the drive is not "checked-in" every 30 days they won't retain the data. So now I have to connect my drive even when I'm not using it just to make sure my backed up data isn't deleted? Come on.

Stay away. No option to back up only external harddrives, Backblaze starts chewing and uploading all files on your computer and there is not option do deselect your computer. I rapidly cancelled my agreement to Backblaze and uninstalled the program, but too late. I use Dropbox as my main backup of all computer files. Dropbox now has started syncing all files (20K+ files) all over again. It seems that Backblaze has been modifying important Dropbox-files and that all Dropbox-files will have to upload all over again. Very bad.

Poor customer service. It seems that they never read the entire ticket. Currently the Backup now button does start the backup process. How difficult is that to program?

The problem with Cloud backup is that you do not what sort of cloud...rain, fog, or a poof of smoke!

I have been using Backblaze for a while now, but won't anymore. The service have become unreliable and expensive. There is also zero accountability, forget about talking to someone who will actually be willing to address your questions / concerns. I don't know what have changed at Backblaze, but things don't work like it used to. Previously, about a year ago, I had to restore all my files. I could do this directly from their server while working, with a slower internet connection than what I have now....and everything worked fine, no problem. One year later, my hard drive crashed again and I am in the situation where I need to restore all my files again. It's been taking me over 8 hours to restore a 20mb zip folder...It's basically impossible to restore files directly from their server! I am therefore now in the situation where I had to order a flash drive, for which I will apparently get a refund. I am having to pay for custom clearance though, and on top of that I will need to pay to courier the drive back...and then, on top of that I will probably be liable to pay further custom charges...so it does not even make sense sending the drive back...lol, what a joke, $99+ later just to get my files :(

Recently ran a DR test and they pulled through! Cheap, cheerful and would recommend!!!

I thought it was great for two years. Then a hard drive with a lifetime of photos crashed.

At first, it looked good Backblaze had all my folders and subfolders there online. But as soon as I went to download them, I got nothing.

Understand the Backblaze program has told me back up complete every time I ran it.

I found Backblaze Tech support not only to be useless. But also insulting.

If you decide to use them good luck.