Also, are there ready solutions for B2 and incremental backups of Ubuntu server?
Eventually we decided to use tapes. With our data usage just after 2 years the tapes will be cheaper...
Support was useless. I was repeatedly asked if the IP address I gave them was public or private, when they should've had training or tooling to know at a glance. The help system closes tickets aggressively, ignores replies, and the link to keep a ticket open just leads to a knowledge base. Eventually support agreed to take a curl that reliably reproduces their bug, but I got no tracking number or even a vague promise they'd get back to me when it's fixed.
I concluded that if the product was broken and support was broken, there's probably something upstream in the business that's broken and I am not confident I'd be able to restore data.
> Any time I log in, I get a warning that someone's been trying to brute force my account and it's been locked for 24 hours.
We had a bug where anybody who "cleared their cookies" would get exactly that behavior. It is fixed. I apologize for the inconvenience. I'm assuming you run some sort of cookie blocking software?
If you used stock Chrome browser or stock Safari or stock Microsoft Edge and didn't clear cookies, it always worked.
I just use b2 sync, and don't synchronize deletes. It took a few minutes to get set up, and I haven't thought much about it since, other than seeing the bill for a few dollars a month. The cron job should e-mail me if something goes wrong. I've also checked a couple times to ensure the latest files are visible in B2 storage, just to be certain.
Haven't tried a restore yet.
I'm stoked, they're already the cheapest, now they're even cheaper. I think the only thing left on my "wish list" would be some sort of lower pricing for using it from regions of the internet with lower transfer costs. Like, if there was some VPS provider Backblaze would partner with, then offer B2 at a discounted access rate when used from that provider, akin to how S3 access is cheap when used from EC2.
I really miss a node module for B2 API though.
Haven't done any file restores yet.
> since B2 is a single datacenter
Backblaze now has three datacenters spread about (two in Sacramento area 50 miles apart, and one datacenter in Phoenix). However, if you store exactly one file in B2, it will land in one of those three datacenters. Very soon we will allow you to choose which of the three datacenters your one file lands in.
> I like a bit of extra paranoia
So do I, and I would NEVER keep a valuable piece of data in only one datacenter with only one vendor. My advice to my closest friends is you value a piece of data highly, you should have three copies with three separate vendors and technologies. For example, one copy on your local laptop, one copy in Amazon S3, and one copy in Backblaze B2. You might also make sure the Amazon S3 is not hosted in the same building as the Backblaze B2.
Since Backblaze B2 does not share a single line of code with Amazon S3 and no employees and a different billing system, this means a bug or network outage or malicious employee inside Amazon S3 won't affect your copy in Backblaze B2. For bonus points, use two different credit cards to pay for it that expire at different times. If you forget to pay your Amazon S3 bill, they will delete your data for sure.
> ... three separate vendors and technologies ...
> ... does not share a single line of code with ...
> ... use two different credit cards ...
This person legit thinks about failure modes.
I run Backblaze (backup) for Desktop but also have a local NAS that stores copies of critical items. That NAS also serves bulk storage (like old Premier Pro projects) which is backed up to B2. So critical data follows 3-2-1 backups [3]. Desktop, NAS, Backblaze. Less critical bulk data is only 2 copies, NAS & Backblaze B2.
That's a really long way of saying that 1 remote datacenter is enough for me. My data is important to me, I'm a digital packrat, but the likelyhood of something taking out my home (SF Bay Area) and Sacramento (Backblaze DC) ... likely means TEOTWAWKI [4] - and my data will be of very little concern then.
Caveat. I'm just a person. Not a business. If you're a business using B2 for backup... you probably want to worry more about multiple AZ/Region storage.
[1] https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217667468-B2-Se... [2] https://www.backblaze.com/blog/data-center-design/ [3] https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivalism#Survivalist_termin...