Over the past few years, Apple’s made a lot of solid changes to iCloud. They’ve added some features to make it a world-class syncing service. But they’ve also made changes that reduced some functionality, like removing iCloud Documents and Data in an effort to move everyone to iCloud Drive.

That might not sound like much, but it’s indicative of why it’s a mistake to rely on only one provider to protect your data (see our 3-2-1 backup strategy), especially if it isn’t a true backup service.

Apple promotes iCloud to its customers as a way to securely store information, photos, and other vital data, leading to a false sense of security that your data is safe from harm, when it might not be. Let’s talk about some of the pitfalls you can run into if you rely solely on iCloud, and how I back up my mobile devices.

iCloud Sync Does Not = Backing Up

Even if the picture of your puppy’s first bath time is on your iPhone and your iPad, it isn’t backed up. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to assume that since your photos, contacts, and calendar sync between devices, they’re backed up. There’s a big difference between syncing and backing up.

iCloud helps you sync content between devices. Add an event to the calendar app on your phone and iCloud pushes that change to the calendar on your Mac, too. Take a photo with the iPhone and find it in your Mac’s Photos library without having to connect the phone to the computer. That’s convenient, and most of us use that functionality all the time, sometimes without even thinking about it since in most cases, it’s seamless.

Syncing can be confusing, though. iCloud Photo Library is what Apple calls iCloud’s ability to sync photos between Apple devices seamlessly. But it’s a two-way street. If you delete a photo from your Mac, it also gets removed from your iPhone, because it’s all in iCloud. There is no backup copy anywhere else.

A relevant anecdote from a co-worker: They decided that they wanted to keep different photos on their Mac and iPhone. Achieving that state involves turning off iCloud Photo Library and syncing the iPhone and Mac by hand if needed. Now they have extra steps to get everything synced. They have to physically connect the phone to the Mac, and—importantly—remember to do it regularly. Bottom line: When the onus is on the individual to remember to sync, syncs happen less frequently and there’s more opportunity for data to get lost. That is, of course, unless you have a dedicated backup solution. On the other hand, with sync enabled, you run the risk of deleting photos that are important not just on one device, but everywhere.

Relying on any of these features without having a solid backup strategy means you’re leaving it to Apple and iCloud to keep your pictures and other information safe. If the complex and intricate ecosystem that keeps that stuff working goes awry, and as Murphy’s Law demands, stuff always goes awry, you can find yourself without pictures, videos, and important files.

Better to be safe than sorry. Backing up your data is the way to make sure your memories are safe. Most of the people I’ve helped over the years haven’t realized that iCloud is not backing them up. Some of them have found out the hard way.

The Backup Steward’s Mobile Backup Strategy

What’s my mobile backup strategy? We touch on this sometimes when talking about “data scatter” and how your data is all over the place, so I have a central computer that I use as my “main” data host. How does that work? Whether I’m on an iOS device or an Android (I try to maintain ambidexterity), here’s what I typically do:

• Enable sync services (iCloud on iOS, Account Sync on Android).
  • This makes sure that I have a sync running in the background, just in case I lose my phone and haven’t had a chance to do any of the steps below.

• Use a third-party sync service like Dropbox, OneDrive, or even iCloud to sync photos to my computer (I use Dropbox).
  • I leverage my free Dropbox tier to make sure that the photos and videos I’m taking are syncing to my Dropbox account.
  • Since I use a free tier, I occasionally have to scrub my Dropbox folders—see below…

• Move synced files to my central data host (I use a PC) once a month (or more frequently if I’ve amassed a ton of photos or videos).
  • I fire up my computer once every few weeks and move data out of my Dropbox Camera Uploads folder and onto a folder on my computer. (This is a perfect time to practice good naming convention hygiene and name those folders something other than photos48—I recommend something like: 06172022_Dropbox_Photos, where the first digits are the date you moved the photos, which can help things be easier to find later on.)

• Connect my actual mobile device to the computer once a month (or more).
  • Similar to the Dropbox approach, I connect my physical device to my computer and copy the data from it onto the computer (using a different folder name of course). This helps me free up space on my phone and moves the full-resolution photos and videos over to my computer.
  • Sometimes that results in double the data (assuming Dropbox Camera Uploads and my phone have the same content), but luckily my backup service doesn’t have data limits…

• I back up that central data hub, my PC, to Backblaze.
  • That gets everything that I moved and synced from my phone over to the Backblaze Computer Backup cloud and that acts as a proper backup, so if anything happens to any of my syncing accounts or the central data hub itself, Backblaze will have a copy of all my data.

iCloud Doesn’t Back Up Your Computer

Apple does have something called “iCloud Backup.” iCloud Backup backs up critical info on the iPhone and iPad to iCloud. But it’s only for mobile devices—your iPod touch, iPad, and iPhone. The “stuff” on your computer is not backed up by iCloud Backup. It also doesn’t back up anything already stored in iCloud—confusing, we know. This includes contacts, notes, voice memos, calendars, bookmarks, reminders, messages in iCloud, iCloud photos, and shared photos.

Making matters worse, it’s a “space permitting” solution. Apple gives you a scant 5GB of free space with an iCloud account. To put that in context, the iPhone 11 (the smallest you can order from the factory) ships with a minimum of 64GB of space. So right off the bat, you have to pay extra to back up a new device. Many people who use the free account don’t want to pay for more, so they get messages telling them that their devices can’t be backed up.

More importantly, iCloud doesn’t back up your Mac. So while data may be synced between devices in iCloud, most of the content on your Mac isn’t getting backed up directly.

Be Wary of “Store in iCloud” and “Optimize Storage”

Starting in 2016 with macOS X 10.12 Sierra, Apple introduced remote storage functions for iCloud including “Store in iCloud” and “Optimize Storage.” Both of these features move information from your Mac to the cloud. The Mac leaves frequently accessed files locally, but files you don’t use regularly get moved to iCloud and purged from the hard drive.

Macs, with their high-performance hard drives, can run chronically short of local storage space. These storage optimization features can offset that problem by moving what you’re not using to iCloud. As long as you stay connected to iCloud. If iCloud isn’t available, neither are your files.

Your data is yours. It should always be in your possession. Ideally, you’d have a local backup of your data (Time Machine, extra hard drive, etc.) AND an off-site copy…not OR. We call that the 3-2-1 backup strategy. That way you’re not dependent on Apple and a stable internet connection to get your files when you want them.

iCloud Drive Isn’t a Backup Either

iCloud Drive is another iCloud feature that can lull you into a false sense of security. It’s a Dropbox-style sync repository—files put in iCloud Drive appear on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. However, any files you don’t choose to add to iCloud Drive are only available locally and are not backed up.

iCloud Drive has limits, too. You can’t upload a file larger than 50GB. And you can only store as much as you’ve paid for—hit your limit, and you’ll have to pay more. But only up to 2TB, which will cost you $9.99/month.

iCloud is an excellent sync service. It makes the Apple ecosystem of hardware and software easier to use. But it isn’t infallible. Many folks have reported problems with calendar syncing, contacts disappearing, and music getting messed up by iTunes in the cloud.

The prospect of downloading thousands of files, and all the time that would take is daunting. That’s why we created the Restore Return Refund program: You can get your backed up files delivered by FedEx on a hard disk drive. You can’t do that with iCloud.

The Bottom Line

Don’t get me wrong here, sync services are great. Heck, I use one (albeit not an Apple product) to get my photos from my phone to my main computer. Being able to see your data across different devices makes managing your data super convenient. However, you can’t rely on a sync service as your only backup unless you’re prepared to be in a world of pain when you accidentally delete that video montage of your cat freaking out on a stuffed fish toy.

If you delete something on one device, it disappears from all of your devices as soon as the next sync happens. Even the most fastidious of us are prone to user error from time to time. When it comes to your data, you don’t want to take any chances.

Lastly, relying on one company’s ecosystem (like not diversifying your investments) is a recipe for disaster if you ever want to or need to switch to another. That new Android phone with the crazy good camera isn’t going to play nice with iCloud. Transferring your data to a new system is rife with opportunities for data loss, but you can avoid that risk if your data is backed up by an agnostic third party.

Your data is precious, and when it’s as easy to protect as it is with Backblaze, there’s no reason not to. Use iCloud (or any other sync service) all you want to make your data accessible across devices, just make sure it’s backed up to a true backup service, too!

If you need more advice for backing up your Mac, check out our Mac backup services by clicking below.

The post Don’t Get Trapped in iCloud appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

If you landed here, you’re probably in the middle of a search for a new backup provider to replace CrashPlan (also known as Code42). Or maybe you’re in the market for the first time, and you’re trying to compare providers. Either way, you probably have some questions about CrashPlan alternatives. But bottom line, you want to make sure your data is safe and protected.

Read on to understand why Backblaze is your best choice for a CrashPlan alternative.

Or, if you know you’d like to get started with Backblaze now, click here to get things underway.

What Is Backblaze Business Backup?

Backblaze Business Backup protects your workstations, servers, NAS devices, and Veeam data by backing up critical data.

Workstation Backup

With Backblaze Business Backup for workstations, you can protect business data automatically on all employee workstations through a centrally managed admin console with unlimited, secure, cloud backup. Once deployed, lightweight, Java-free Mac and PC clients run quietly in the background—no system slow-downs or crashes. Options like Extended Version History allow you to retain files versions for one year or forever, and you can choose from a number of restore options. If you’re looking for a CrashPlan replacement to back up all employee computers, start your free trial here. But, that’s not all you can do with Backblaze Business Backup…

Server Backup

Back up your Windows, Mac, Linux, SQL, and Exchange servers in a matter of minutes by using our streamlined joint solution with MSP360 or one of many other integrations. Data is always hot, with no nearline or offline delays, and storage is only $5/TB per month and $0.01/GB for downloads.

NAS Backup

Using native integrations from Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS, and more, you can easily back up and sync your NAS data. Backblaze NAS backup is built to be reliable and easily accessible for immediate downloads—backed by SLA and affordable at $5/TB per month with no minimum storage and retention requirements.

Veeam Backup

Veeam integrates seamlessly with Backblaze, so you can tier your backups directly into cloud storage with no interruptions to your workflow. Protect your data from ransomware attacks with immutability via Object Lock. And achieve 3-2-1 compliance or offload your restore points to the cloud and free up space on your server. All backup jobs and restores occur directly within Veeam Backup & Replication.

An Invitation for Former CrashPlan On-Premises Customers

CrashPlan retired its On-Premises backup service as of February 28, 2022. If you’re a former CrashPlan On-Premises customer, check out our recent blog post for more information on how to switch to Backblaze Business Backup for workstations.

Why Backblaze?

So, why is Backblaze a great fit for current or former CrashPlan customers? Here are a few reasons.

1. Easy to Use: Transition in a few simple steps and save countless hours in setup, troubleshooting, and account management thanks to our simple plug-and-play interface.
2. Affordable and Predictable: Protect all employee workstations for just $70/computer per year, with no surprise charges. Plus monthly, yearly, or two-year billing flexibility to suit your needs. Or, back up servers, NAS devices, and Veeam data for $5/TB/month for hot storage free of complicated tiers.
3. Safe and Secure: Protect against ransomware and support compliance with two-factor authentication and single sign-on available for all users when logging in to Backblaze as well as data encryption and data durability that was calculated at 99.999999999% (11 nines).
4. Live Support: Make your transition easy with live support and deployment assistance via our Customer Service team and solution engineers.

Backblaze has 15 years of experience in the backup business, and businesses and organizations ranging from PagerDuty to Kings County, California to a leading research university rely on us for their data protection. Former CrashPlan customers who recently transitioned to Backblaze are getting the value they expected. Recently, Richard Charbonneau of Clicpomme told us more about the ease he gained from switching:

“To be honest, it was the smoothest deployment we’ve had. We should have moved to Backblaze a long time ago.”
—Richard Charbonneau, Founder, Clicpomme

Ready to Get Started?

If you are a CrashPlan user looking to transition to a new cloud backup service, Backblaze makes moving easy. Reach out to us at any time for help transitioning and getting started.

The post Looking for a CrashPlan Alternative? appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Announcing Backblaze Cloud Backup 7.0: The Version History and Beyond Release!

This release for consumers and businesses adds one of our most requested enhancements for our Backblaze Cloud Backup service: the ability to keep updated, changed, and even deleted files in your backups forever by extending version history. In addition, we’ve made our Windows and Mac apps even better, updated our Single Sign-on (SSO) support, added more account security options, became Catalina-ready, and increased the functionality of our iOS and Android mobile apps. These changes are awesome and we’re sure you’ll love them!

Extended Version History

Have you ever deleted a file by mistake or accidentally saved over an important bit of work? Backblaze has always kept a 30-day version history of your backed up files to help in situations like these, but today we’re giving you the option to extend your version history to one year or forever. This new functionality is available on the Overview page for Computer Backup, and the Groups Management page if you are using Backblaze Groups! Backblaze v7.0 is required to use Version History. Learn more about versions and extending Version History.

30-Day Version History

All Backblaze computer backup accounts have 30-Day Version History included with their backup license. That means you can go back in time for 30 days and retrieve old versions of your files or even files that you’ve deleted.

1-Year Version History

Extending your Version History from 30 days to one year means that all versions of your files that are backed up — whether you’ve updated, changed, or fully deleted them from your computer — will remain in your Backblaze backup for one year after being modified or deleted from your device. Extending your Version History to one year is an additional $2 per month and is charged based on your license type (monthly, yearly, or 2-year). As always, any charges will be prorated to match up with your license renewal date.

Forever Version History

Extending your Version History from 30 days or one year to forever means that Backblaze will never remove files from your Backblaze backup whether you’ve updated, changed, or fully deleted them from your computer, or not. Extending Version History to forever is similar to one year, at an additional $2 per month (prorated to your license plan type) plus $0.005/GB/month for versions modified on your computer more than one year ago.

This is a great new feature for people who want increased peace of mind. To learn more about Version History, pricing, and examples of how to restore, please visit the Version History FAQ.

MacOS and Windows Application Updates

More Efficient Performance For Uploads

We’ve changed the way that Backblaze transmits large files on your machine by reworking how we group and break apart files for upload. The maximum packet size has increased from 30 MB to 100 MB. This allows the app to transmit data more efficiently by better leveraging threading, which also smoothes out upload performance, reduces sensitivity to latency, and leads to smaller data structures.

Single Sign-On Updates for Backblaze Groups

We added support for Microsoft’s Office 365 in Backblaze Groups, and have made SSO updates to the Inherit Backup State feature so that it supports SSO-enabled accounts. This means that you can now sign into Backblaze using your Office 365 credentials, similar to using Google’s SSO.

Higher Resolution For Easier Viewing of Information

We updated the way our installers and applications look on higher-resolution displays, making for a more delightful viewer experience!

Windows Only

An OpenSSL issue was causing problems on Intel’s Apollo Lake chipset, but we’ve developed a workaround. Apollo Lake is a lower-end chipset, so not many customers were seeing issues, but now computers using Apollo Lake will work as intended.

MacOS Only

We’ve added support for MacOS Catalina and improved some MacOS system messages. MacOS provides some great new features for the Mac and we’ve changed some of our app’s behavior to better fit Catalina. In Catalina, Apple is now requiring apps to ask for permission more frequently, and since Backblaze is a backup application, we require a lot of permissions. Thus you may notice more system messages when installing Backblaze on the new OS.

Of Note: Backblaze Restores

In order to implement the Version History features, we had to change the way our restore page handled dates. This may not seem like a big deal, but we had a date drop-down menu where you could select the time frames you wanted to restore from. Well, if you have 1-Year or Forever Version History, you can’t have an infinitely scrolling drop-down menu, so we implemented a datepicker to help with selection. You can now more easily choose the dates and times that you’d like to restore your files from.

Backblaze 7.0 Available: October 8th, 2019

We will be slowly auto updating all users in the coming weeks. To update now:

• Perform a Check for Updates (right-click on the Backblaze icon)
• Download from www.backblaze.com/update.htm

This version is now the default download on www.backblaze.com.

Want to Learn More? Join Us on October 15th, 2019 at 11 a.m. PT

Want to learn more? Join Yev on a webinar where he’ll go over version 7.0 features and answer viewer questions. The webinar will be available on BrightTalk (registration is required) and you can sign up by visiting the Backblaze BrightTALK channel.

The post Backblaze 7.0 — Version History And Beyond appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Now that all the students have stopped listening and likely it’s just us now, I’d like to address the parents of students who are starting or about to return to school in the fall.

You’re likely spending a large sum of money on your children’s education. That money is well spent as it will help your child succeed and be responsible adults and citizens in the future. We’d like to help by highlighting something you can do to protect your investment, and that is to ensure the safety of your students’ data.

Our Lives Are Digital Now — Students’ Especially

We don’t have to tell you how everything in our lives has become digital. That’s true as well of schools and universities. Students now take notes, write papers, read, communicate, and record everything on digital devices.

You don’t want data damage or loss to happen to the important school or university files and records your child (and possible future U.S. president) has on his or her digital device.

Maybe your student is ahead of the game and already has a plan for backing up their data while at school. That’s great, and a good sign that your student will succeed in life and maybe even solve some of the many challenges we’re leaving to their generation.

Parents Can Help

If not, you can be an exceptional parent by giving your student the gift of automatic and unlimited backup. Before they start school, you can install Backblaze Computer Backup on their Windows or Mac computer. It takes just a couple of minutes. Once that’s done, every time they’re connected to the internet all their important data will be automatically backed up to the cloud.

If anything happens to the computer, that file is safe and ready to be restored. It also could prevent that late night frantic call asking you to somehow magically find their lost data. Who needs that?

Let’s Hear From the Students Themselves

You don’t have to take our word for it. We asked two bona fide high school students who interned at Backblaze this summer for the advice they’d give to their fellow students.

We couldn’t have said it better. Having a solid backup plan is a great idea for both parents and students. We suggest using Backblaze Personal Backup, but the important thing is to have a backup plan for your data and act on it no matter what solution you’re using.

Learning to Back Up is a Good Life Lesson

Students have a lot to think about these days, and with all the responsibilities and new challenges they’re going to face in school, it’s easy for them to forget some of the basics. We hope this light reminder will be just enough to set them on the right backup track.

Have a great school year everyone!

P.S. If you know a student or the parent of a student going to school in the fall, why not share this post with them? You can use the Email or other sharing buttons to the left or at the bottom of this post.

The post Reading, Writing, and Backing Up — Are You Ready to Go Back to School? appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

The digital landscape has changed over the years, with the cloud becoming increasingly used for storing digital data. As a cloud storage company, it’s important for us to understand how and why people use the tools at their disposal. Knowing how people use tools helps us hone our services to better match that usage. While people become more comfortable using and leveraging cloud services to meet various needs, we still find ourselves repeatedly answering the same questions: “how is this service different from that service?,” “how do I incorporate best practices to ensure we never lose data?,” and “why use a backup service when I already have sync?”

It’s not just average Joes that struggle. Organizations of all shapes and sizes are finding it difficult to navigate service offerings to find ones that meet their needs. A great example is St. John’s School, a top-tier K-12 learning facility with almost 600 students enrolled, who modernized their on-premises data infrastructure. They made the decision to move into the cloud and use a combination of sync (Google Drive for Education) and backup (Backblaze Business Backup) services to cover all of their bases. These hybrid approaches are a great example of how services differ and the unique benefits each provides.

What is the Cloud? Sync vs Backup vs Storage

The cloud is still a term that causes a lot of confusion, both about what it is and how services utilize it. Put simply, the cloud is a set of computers that someone else is managing. When talking about syncing and sharing services like Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, OneDrive, or any of the others, people often assume they are acting as a cloud backup solution as well. Adding to the confusion, cloud storage services are often the backend for backup and sync services as well as standalone services, meaning some of your favorite apps are built in the cloud, sometimes using third party cloud storage. To help sort this out, we’ll define some of the terms below as they apply to a traditional computer setup with a bunch of apps and data.

Cloud Sync (e.g. Dropbox, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Box, Google Drive)

These services sync folders on your computer or mobile device to folders on other machines or into the cloud, allowing users to work from a folder or directory across devices. Typically these services have tiered pricing, meaning you pay for the amount of data you store with the service, or for tiers of data that you are allowed to use. If there is data loss, sometimes these services even have a version history feature. Of course, only files that are in the synced folders are available to be recovered, resulting in sync services not being able to get back files that were never synced.

Cloud Backup (e.g. Backblaze Computer Backup and Carbonite)

These services should typically work automatically in the background. The user does not usually need to take any action like setting up and working out of specific folders like with sync services (though some online services do differ and you may want to make sure there are no gotchas, like common directories being excluded by default). Backup services typically back up new or changed data that is on your computer to another location. Before the cloud became an available and popular destination, that location was primarily a CD or an external hard drive, but as cloud storage (see below) became more readily available and affordable, quickly it became the most popular offsite storage medium. Typically cloud backup services have fixed pricing, and if there is a system crash or data loss, all backed up data is available for restore. In addition, these services have version history and rollback features in case there is data loss or accidental file deletion.

Cloud Storage (e.g. Backblaze B2, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud)

These services are where many online backup, syncing, and sharing services store their data. Cloud storage providers typically serve as the endpoint for data storage. These services usually provide APIs (application program interfaces), CLIs (command line interfaces), and access points for individuals and developers to tie in their cloud storage offerings directly. This allows developers to create programs that use the cloud storage solution in any way they see fit. A good way to think about cloud storage is as a building block for whatever tool or service you want to create. Cloud storage services are priced per unit stored, meaning you pay for the amount of storage that you use and access. Since these services are designed for high availability and durability, data can live solely on these services, though we still recommend having multiple copies of your data, just in case.

Which Backup Service is Right For You?

Backblaze strongly believes in a 3-2-1 Backup Strategy. A 3-2-1 strategy means having at least three total copies of your data, two of which are local (or quickly accessible) but on different mediums (e.g. an external hard drive in addition to your computer’s local drive), and at least one copy offsite. A good way to think about this is a setup where you have data (files) on your computer, a copy of that data on a hard drive that resides somewhere not inside your computer (commonly on your desk), and another copy with a cloud backup provider.

Following data best practices is similar to investing. You want to diversify where copies of your data live to decrease the likelihood of losing your data. That is why services like Backblaze Cloud Backup are a great complement to other services, like Time Machine, iCloud, Dropbox, and even the free-tiers of cloud storage services.

What is The Difference Between Cloud Sync and Backup?

People are often confused about how sync tools work, so let’s take a look at some sync setups that we see fairly frequently.

Example 1)  Users have one folder on their computer that is designated for Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or one of the other syncing/sharing services. Users save or place data into that folder when they want the data to appear on other devices. Often these users are using the free tier of those syncing and sharing services and only have a few GB of data uploaded in them.

Example 2)  Users are paying for extended storage for Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc, and use those folders as their Documents folder, essentially working out of those directories. Files in that folder are available across devices, however, files outside of that folder (i.e. living on the computer’s desktop or anywhere else) are not synced or stored by those syncing and sharing services.

What both examples are missing however is the backup of photos, movies, videos, and the rest of the data on their computer. That’s where cloud backup providers shine. They automatically back up user data with little or no setup, and no need for the dragging-and-dropping of files.

If Backblaze Backup is added to this example, the application scans your hard drive(s) to find all the user’s data regardless of where it might be stored. This means that all the user’s data is kept as a backup in the Backblaze cloud, including the data synced by sync services like Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or OneDrive, as long as that data resides on the computer.

Data Recovery

Beyond just where and how your data is stored, it’s important to consider how easy it is to get your data back from all of these services. With sync and share services, retrieving a lot of data, especially if you are in a high-data tier, can be cumbersome and take a while. Generally, the sync and share services only allow customers to download files over the internet. If you are trying to download more than a couple gigabytes of data, the process can take time and can be fraught with errors. If the process of downloading from your sync/share service will take three days, one thing to consider is having to keep the computer online the entire time or risk an error if the download were to get interrupted. One thing to be wary of with syncing and sharing services is that if you are sharing your folders or directories with others, if they add or remove files from shared directories, they will also be added or removed from your computer as well.

With cloud storage services, you can usually only retrieve data over the internet as well, and you pay for both the storage and the egress of the data, so retrieving a large amount of data can be both expensive and time consuming.

Cloud backup services enable you to download files over the internet too and can also suffer from long download times. At Backblaze, we never want our customers to feel like we’re holding their data hostage. That is one of the reasons why we have a lot of restore options, including our Restore Return Refund policy, which allows people to restore their data via a USB hard drive and then return that drive to us for a refund. Cloud sync providers typically do not provide this capability.

One popular data recovery use case we’ve seen when a person has a lot of data to restore is for that user to download just the files that are needed immediately, and then order a USB hard drive restore for the remaining files that are not as time sensitive. The user gets all their files back in a few days and their network is spared the download charges.

The bottom line is that all of these services have merit for different use cases. For additional information, you can see a comparison of online backup and cloud storage services on this webpage.

Have questions about which is best for you? Sound off in the comments below!

•  •  •

Note: This post was updated from June 20, 2017.

The post What’s the Diff: Sync vs Backup vs Storage appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Just filing taxes can be stressful enough. The last thing you need is a hassle with the IRS or your state’s Department of Revenue because you’ve lost or misplaced necessary paperwork.

So how long should you keep your tax records? The IRS recommends you keep records for up to 7 years. Don’t let data insecurity add to your tax season stress: make sure your digital tax files and any supporting documentation are well-protected with these tips.

Prepare Backups From Your Tax Prep Software

If you’re using TurboTax or another app to prepare this year’s taxes, make sure to save a copy of your tax data file on your device. And to be extra safe, export it to a universal format. A read-only format like PDF will do the job. The important thing is that you can look at the information you’ve submitted without needing proprietary software.

Intuit offers instructions on its web site to perform a TurboTax file backup. TaxAct also offers instructions for TaxAct file backup. If you’re using another tax prep software package, make sure to check the Help files or online support documentation for instructions on saving and exporting your tax data files.

The same goes for any accompanying files you’ve used as supporting documentation: scanned receipts, bank statements, 1099s, real estate tax, mortgage statements, insurance receipts, and any other records you’ve accounted for on your tax forms. Digital copies — file formats like JPG, GIF or PDF — are fine with the IRS, as long as they’re legible.

Put them all of your records in a “Taxes Year ####” folder that’s stored prominently in your Documents folder, or wherever you keep the digital records that are most important to you.

Back Up Your Tax Returns Locally and Offsite

Once you’ve got all your tax return files in a single location, back them up. Start by saving your data locally using Time Machine, Windows Backup, cloning software, or whichever method you prefer. Don’t rest on your laurels with that, though: you need offsite backup, too, to make sure that your data is safe no matter what happens.

Backblaze customer? Rest assured that Backblaze backs up that folder you created safely and securely. Backblaze backs up all your important files.

You can (and should) verify your files are being backed up from time to time. You should also test your backup periodically to make sure everything’s working as you expect.

Encrypt your tax records when transmitting and storing them in the cloud. Encryption is built-in to Backblaze. The same can’t be said for all cloud services, so check with other services to make they protect your data. Password-protecting individual files and folders adds another layer of protection.

If you’re not ready to come up with a complete backup strategy and are just looking for a quick fix, start with Backblaze and a USB thumbstick. Copy your files to the thumbstick and store it somewhere safe. If you’re not already backing up your computer, we can help. We’ve published guidelines for you in our Computer Backup Guide.

Don’t Depend On Just Any Cloud

Intuit used to offer a Backup to Cloud service for Turbotax customers. They later canceled the service the following year. Intuit gave only a short period to save the data before deleting it. That was a critical reminder for anyone to keep multiple copies of important documents.

You wouldn’t want what happened to Myspace files to happen to your tax documents. Myspace lost millions of users’ uploaded music files, videos, and photos due to a botched server migration. If MySpace was the only place those customers kept those files, they lost everything.

It may sound odd coming from us (as a cloud storage company), but we wouldn’t depend alone on iCloud or any other cloud storage or sync solution. Keep a local backup and a cloud backup — that way you’ll be able to restore no matter what happens.

Some people like to add an extra layer of redundancy by printing out paper records of their tax returns too — a truly universal file format. If you have the space to do it and can store them safely, it couldn’t hurt. Mark them for deletion no less than 3-7 years from your filing date.

Give Copies To Someone (or Something) You Trust

For an extra layer of redundancy, pass along copies of your tax documents to someone you trust for safekeeping. A spouse or close family member, accountant, attorney — whomever you think can be trusted to keep the documents safe. It’s the real-life equivalent to our 3-2-1 Backup Strategy because the goal here is to keep a copy offsite for safekeeping with a trusted third party (like Backblaze). Perhaps exchange thumbsticks with a family member or friend, so you both have offsite copies. If you wish, you can encrypt your thumbdrive for privacy. We suggest FileVault for Mac and Bitlocker for Windows to encrypt the USB thumbdrive.

Don’t Let Backing Up Be Taxing

It has been said that it’s impossible to be sure of anything but death and taxes. We can’t help you with the former, but hopefully we’ve given you some good ideas on how to make the latter less stressful by making sure all your tax data is available, secure, and safely archived. That way, if and when you eventually need it, it’ll be no more than a few taps or clicks away. If you have other ideas for good tax backup solutions, sound off in the comments — we want to hear from you.

•  •  •

Note:  This post was updated from April 6, 2017.

The post Back Up Your Tax Data To Keep Your Records Safe appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Around this time last year, we all learned that Carbonite was acquiring Mozy from Dell Inc. That deal closed on March 19, 2018 for $145 million. One year later, we’ve seen reports that Mozy users will be forced to update to the Carbonite service.

We’re always sad to see a competitor exit the marketplace. When Backblaze burst onto the scene in 2008, Mozy and CrashPlan (also no longer offering a consumer service) were some of our most formidable peers in the online backup space. Much like after CrashPlan exited the consumer space, we’d like to reaffirm our commitment to simple, inexpensive, and unlimited cloud backup for businesses and consumers.

A Message to Mozy Backup Customers

If you’ve been using Mozy and are unsure about the transition to Carbonite, we invite you to take a look at our comparison page to see how Backblaze stacks up against the cloud backup competition. We invite to take a free trial of Backblaze. It takes less than 5 minutes to get started and once installed, Backblaze will automatically start backing up your computer — no credit card is required until you decide to buy a license.

As part of the transition from Mozy to Carbonite, Mozy customers will need to reupload all of their data to Carbonite. If you’re concerned about the time it will take to complete a new backup with Carbonite, Backblaze has recently made our service much faster with the release of Backblaze Computer Backup v6.0. Now is the perfect time to switch to Backblaze, where you’ll be able to back up more data, more quickly, and less expensively.

Set a Reminder

While Carbonite does have promotional pricing for existing Mozy customers, that pricing will expire after your first renewal and subsequent charges will be at regular Carbonite rates. You can compare some of Carbonite’s plans against Backblaze on our comparison chart. If you’d like, we can send an email one month before your renewal, reminding you that it might be coming up, and that it would be a great time to try Backblaze. Just fill out the form below and we’ll send you the reminder.

Give Backblaze a Try

Backblaze has been a leader in online backup since 2008 — providing unlimited, inexpensive, and simple online backup to everyone. We currently store over 750 petabytes of data and have restored over 40 billion files for our customers. You can try Backblaze for free at any time by visiting https://www.backblaze.com/free-trial.html.

We’d like to extend a warm welcome to anyone joining us from Mozy and look forward to taking care of your backups and data!

The post Farewell to Mozy appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Whether you’re working with video, photo, audio, or other data, preserving the security of your data has to be at the top of your priority list. Data security might sound like a challenging proposition, but by following just a handful of guidelines it becomes a straightforward and easily accomplished task.

We’d like to share what we consider best practices for maintaining the safety of your data. For both seasoned pros and those just getting started with digital media, these best practices are important to implement and revisit regularly. We believe that by following these practices — independently of which specific data storage software, service, or device you use — you will ensure that all your media and other data are kept secure to the greatest extent possible.

The Five Best Practices to Keep Your Digital Media Safe

1 — Keep Multiple Copies of Your Media Files

Everyone by now is likely familiar with the 3-2-1 strategy for maintaining multiple copies of your data (video, photos, digital asset management catalogs, etc.). Following a 3-2-1 strategy simply means that you should always have at least three copies of your active data, two of which are local, and at least one that is in another location.

Mind you, this is for active data, that is, files and other data that you are currently working on and want to have backed up in case of accident, theft, or hardware failure. Once you’re finished working with your data, you should consider archiving your data, which we’ve also written about on our blog.

2 — Use Trustworthy Vendors

There are times when you can legitimately cut corners to save money, and there are times when you shouldn’t. When it comes to your digital media and services, you want to go with the best. That means using topnotch memory sticks, HDD and SSD drives, software, and cloud services.

For hardware devices and software, it’s always helpful to read reviews or talk with others using the devices to find out how well they work. For hard drive reliability, our Drive Stats blog posts can be informative and are a unique source of information in the data storage industry.

For cloud storage, you want a vendor with a strong track record of reliability and cost stability. You don’t want to use a cloud service or other SaaS vendor that has a history of making it difficult or expensive to access or download your data from their service. A topnotch service vendor will be transparent in their business practices, inform you when there are any outages in their service or maintenance windows, and try as hard as possible to make things right if problems occur.

3 — Always Use Encryption (The Strongest Available)

Encrypting your data provides a number of benefits. It protects your data no matter where it is stored, and also when it is being moved — potentially the most vulnerable exposure your data will have.

Encrypted data can’t be altered or corrupted without the changes being detected, which provides another advantage. Encryption also enables you to meet requirements for privacy and security compliance and to keep up with changing rules and regulations.

Encryption comes in different flavors. You should always select the strongest encryption available, and make sure that any passwords or multi-factor authentication you use are strong and unique for each application.

4 — Automate Whenever Possible

Don’t rely on your memory or personal discipline alone to remember to regularly back up your data. While we always start with the best of intentions, we are busy and we often let things slide (much like resolving to exercise regularly). It’s better to have a regular schedule that you commit to, and best if the backups happen automatically. Many backup and archive apps let you specify when backups, incremental backups, or snapshots occur. You usually can set how many copies of your data to keep, and whether backups are triggered by the date and time or when data changes.

Automating your backups and archives means that you won’t forget to back up and results in a greater likelihood that your data will not only be recoverable after an accident or hardware failure, but up to date. You’ll be glad for the reduced stress and worry in your life, as well.

5 — Be Mindful of Security in Your Workflow

Nobody wants to worry about security all the time, but if it’s ignored, sooner or later that inattention will catch up with you. The best way to both increase the security of your data and reduce stress in your life is to have a plan and implement it.

At its simplest, the concept of security mindfulness means that you should be conscious of how you handle your data during all stages of your workflow. Being mindful shouldn’t require you to overthink, stress or worry, but just to be aware of the possible outcomes of your decisions about how you’re handling your data.

If you follow the first four practices in this list, then this fifth concept should flow naturally from them. You’ve taken the right steps to a long term plan for maintaining your data securely.

Data Security Can Be Both Simple and Effective

The best security practices are the ones that are easy to follow consistently. If you pay attention to the five best practices we’ve outlined here, then you’re well on your way to secure data and peace of mind.

•  •  •

Note:  This post originally appeared on Lensrentals.com on September 18, 2018.

The post Five Best Practices to Securely Preserve Your Video, Photo, and Other Data appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup.

Since 2008, we have offered unlimited Computer Backup for $5 per month. Today, after more than a decade of providing unlimited backup at that same price while also continuing to add features and functionality, we are announcing a price increase.

Effective for new purchases and renewals after March 11, 2019 at 5PM Pacific, our prices will change to:

More than ten years ago, a friend’s computer crashed, taking with it all her writing and other files. Since she had no backup, she lost everything. As a result, we asked friends, family, and co-workers what they did for backup. The answers were primarily “nothing” or “not enough.” Five of us decided to quit our jobs and commit to working on this problem for a year with no salary in the hopes that we could help save a few people from this type of loss.

A lot has changed since then. Apple’s Time Machine, iPhone, iPad, Watch, and iCloud didn’t exist when we first started; Google Drive, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure were years away from being announced. Even for techies, the arrival of clouds mostly meant the need to bring an umbrella. Maxtor, at the time the third-largest hard drive vendor, had just been acquired by Seagate, and HGST was still a stand-alone hard drive company. The 1TB hard drive was a breakthrough in capacity.

Why The Change?

The short answer is that we have enhanced the service in many ways and storage costs have gone up. We have continually removed impediments to getting data backed up — no file size restrictions, speeding up uploads, all while data sets have grown larger and larger. We’ve worked hard to avoid raising our prices, which resulted in some great storage innovations and has allowed us to keep our original prices for more than a decade. By making this decision now, we are ensuring we can continue to offer unlimited backup and keep improving our Computer Backup service. I’d like to go into further detail on the two primary sources of our increased costs: 1) enhancements to the service, and 2) the market cost of storage.

1) Enhancements to the service

When we launched our service, we were (and still are) committed to providing unlimited backup. In addition, over the years, we’ve introduced many enhancements to improve the product in ways that have increased our costs. As consumer data has expanded, we have made sure that we continually back up all data as quickly as possible.

When we say unlimited, we mean unlimited. Here are a few examples of that commitment:

• Removed all limits on what can be backed up. Originally 4GB was the maximum size any individual file could be and VM images, ISOs, plus other file types that aren’t typically user data were excluded.
• Sped up backups. Combined small files into bundles, added threading to allow 30 backup processes at once, and added automatic thread management. This means your data gets backed up as fast as your setup allows.
• Expanded restore options. Expanded the maximum size of Restore by Mail from 0.5 TB to 8 TB on a hard drive, and from a 4 GB DVD to a 256 GB flash drive. We also introduced the Restore Return Refund program. It’s a program our customers love but most other players in the industry have abandoned due to the costs of shipping, packaging, drive replacement, etc.
• A bunch of other features. Locate My Computer, Preview/Access/Share, two-factor verification, iOS/Android apps, network management, Save to B2, and many of the other features/functions not only incurred development costs but have ongoing server/bandwidth expenses.

Other services have moved away from unlimited plans in favor of tiered pricing options (and different feature sets for different customers). Our customers tell us they love simplicity and predictability. While we are changing our prices, we remain fully committed to providing simple, reliable computer backup.

2) Market cost of storage

The volume of personal data has been skyrocketing for the last decade. In many ways our daily lives generate more data. We now carry a HD video camera in our pockets, music/video downloads are ubiquitous, and no event goes by without memorializing it with a photo or a social media post.

Historically, Backblaze benefitted from hard drives growing in capacity and decreasing in price. Over our first few years, these two trends approximately canceled each other out (customer data grew at approximately the same rate as hard drives decreased in price). Unfortunately, the 2011 floods in Thailand caused a step-function increase in the cost of drives that the market has still not recovered from, and the rate of price decreases on hard drives has slowed down.

Our team works aggressively to reduce our cost of storage year over year. And we have managed to create enough efficiencies to have kept our 2008 pricing. We designed our own Storage Pods, wrote our cloud storage file system, used consumer hard drives and analyzed which had the best price/reliability mix for our use-case, built client-side deduplication, went to crazy extremes during the Thailand drive crisis, and continue working proactively every day to drive down the cost of storage.

As a result, we believe that we have the lowest cost of storage in the industry. (An indicator of this is that we offer our infrastructure-as-a-service cloud storage at 1/4th the price of Amazon, Google, or Microsoft.) Despite that, the amount of storage per customer has grown faster than the reduction in costs.

Going Forward

A lot has changed in the decade since we founded Backblaze. We now offer backup for consumers and businesses, as well as raw object storage. We store over 750 petabytes of data for hundreds of thousands of customers in over 150 countries, and have helped customers recover over 35 billion files. What hasn’t changed is our desire to continue providing a service we’re proud of.

With all of that, we determined that it was important for us to take this step. It was not a decision we took lightly. We are committed to unlimited backup and want to be able to continue to invest in the service. We spent months making sure that we made this change the right way, including providing something for our existing and loyal customers.

To say thank you, we are offering existing customers the ability to extend existing Computer Backup licenses by one year for $50 per computer (the price of our original annual plan from 2008). Please read the Subscription Extension Program FAQ to learn more about this program and how you can extend your existing license for one year at the current pricing.

Thank you for being a customer and we look forward to protecting your data for many years to come.

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