Backblaze ( https://www.backblaze.com/ ) is an awesome company who not only create a mega reliable backup infrastructure but they also tell us how they do it and tell us what hard drives are good or bad.
Use my link and get your first month of Backblaze backups free: https://secure.backblaze.com/r/00e1wj
They are so confident and experienced that they offer unlimited backups for $6.60 a month here in Australia. They state they have 750 Petabytes stored on their infrastructure & have restored over 40 billion files to customers.
Check our my other related posts
- Backing up files to a Backblaze B2 Cloud Bucket with Duplicati
- How to back up an iPhone (including photos and videos) multiple ways
Main features of Backblaze.
- No limit to files that you back up (number or size or files)
- Web-based file recovery (if needed)
- They will mail you a hard drive if you need to restore large amounts of files.
- Ability to locate lost or stolen computers.
- Mobile app access your backups.
- Business options for large computer fleets.
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Creating a Back Blaze Account
Go to backblaze and create an account.
Login to backblaze at https://secure.backblaze.com/user_signin.htm
Choose a Backblaze Plan
Go to: https://secure.backblaze.com/buy_plan.htm to choose a backup and payment plan. Use my link and get your first month free.
Australian Prices below (add +10% GST).
- $6 AUD a month
- or $60 for 12 Months
- or $110 for 24 Months
Choose a payment plan
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Enter payment details
Click “Buy Backblaze”
Use my link and get your first month of Backblaze backups free: https://secure.backblaze.com/r/00e1wj
Done, now I can download the client.
Installing the Backblaze Software
When the download is down you can start the install.
You will need to login to the install to streamline the setup.
After you login the installation will begin.
Backblaze now reports that the install has complete. Backblaze reports that I have 379GB to backup.
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Pressing OK shows Backblaze is already uploading my files.
Also, I have 15 days of free trial before being billed.
Clicking on the backblaze system tray icon reveals a few options
Backblaze Preferences
Backblaze preferences can be opened by clicking Settings from the main screen.
I..
- Renamed the computer.
- Disabled backup on battery power
- Set upload threads to 5 (then lowering if the network gets busy or when the backup is almost complete)
- Disabled Automatic throttling and set faster backups
- I set a private encryption key
There is a 50 char limit on encryption keys
Warning about not forgetting the encryption key
All other preferences look ok.
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That’s it the backup is uploading automatically and there is nothing else I need to do.
Backblaze Portal
If you login to the backblaze portal ( here ) you can view your files (you will need to enter the private encryption keys if you opted to encrypt your files).
Initial Backup time
Your initial backup may have a while to upload depending on your backup size and internet connection speed.
I was able to upload 400GB in 3 days on my Internet Plan. Smaller files are uploaded first then larger ones. I have 2 files left to upload totalling 7GB.
Read the official guide on speeding up uploads here.
One way to make the initial backups faster is to see what files are queues to upload in the Backblaze preferences and then excluding unwanted files and folders.
I can see my Internet Explorer cache and Google Chrome Temporary Internet File(s) folders are queued to be back up.
Time to exclude these folders in the Backblaze Settings under exclusions
C:\Users\Simon Fearby\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\IE
C:\Users\Simon Fearby\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Profile 1\Code Cache\
C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\Data\#innodb_temp\
C:\ProgramData\USOShared\Logs\
C:\Users\Simon Fearby\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\SLData\SLCache\Time to exclude these folders.
That knocked off a few thousand files to backup 🙂
Restore Files from Backblaze
If you restore files you have a few options
- Download the files (free)
- Save files to B2 Cloud (Backblaze)
- USB Flash Drive
- USB Hard Drive
Choosing to download files you are given a treeview to restore files from.
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I selected a test file to restore (restores are not instant) and was informed I would be emailed when the files are ready to download. Thats cool
I waited 3 minutes and received an email that my files were ready to download.
I hope this helps someone.
Other Links
Check out my guide on How to back up an iPhone photos and videos blog post here.
Use my link and get your first month of Backblaze backups free: https://secure.backblaze.com/r/00e1wj
View Official Backblaze guides here.
Version
v1.3 Initial Backup section
v1.1 Added free month link
v1.0 Initial Draft