Backblaze-Jim

Hi, Jim from Backblaze here.

About 2 years ago now, we started including the 1-Year Extended Version History for all accounts.

We did not automatically turn it on for everyone, as it is not something everyone wants.

But there is no longer an extra charge for the 1-Year Extended Version History option when enabled.

You can also enable the Forever Extended Version History option, which will keep any deleted/changed/updated file for a year as part of the base plan, and then after that year that file will begin accruing a storage cost at our current B2 per GB storage cost.

So if you have 1TB of files in the Forever Extended Version History plan, it would cost you an extra $6 per month on top of your current plan.

The storage charge is only charged on files that have not been seen on the customer's computer in over 365 days.

I hope this helps, but please don't hesitate to email us still if you have questions. We are here to help.

Hello, Jim from Backblaze here. I wanted to offer some insight into what happened with backing up cloud-synced folders.

It is true that we recently updated how Backblaze Computer Backup handles cloud-synced folders. This decision was driven by a consistent set of technical issues we were seeing at scale, most of them driven by updates created by third-party sync tools, including unreliable backups and incomplete restores when backing up files managed by third-party sync providers.

To give a bit more context on the “why”: these cloud storage providers now rely heavily on OS-level frameworks to manage sync state. On Windows, for example, files are often represented as reparse points via the Cloud Files API. While they can appear local, they are still system-managed placeholders, which makes it difficult to reliably back them up as standard on-disk files.

Moreover, we built our product in a way to not backup reparse points for two reasons:

1. We wanted the backup client to be light on the system and only back up needed user-generated files. 2. We wanted the service to be unlimited, so following reparse points would lead to us backing up tons of data in the cloud

We’ve made targeted investments where we can, for example, adding support for iCloud Drive by working within Apple’s model and supporting Google Drive, but extending that same level of support to third-party providers like Dropbox or OneDrive is more complex and not included in the current version.

We are currently exploring building an add-on that either follows reparse points or backs up the tagged data in another way.

We also hear you clearly on the communication gap. Both the sync providers and Backblaze should have been more proactive in notifying customers about a change with this level of impact. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me or our support team directly if you have any questions. https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

We are here to help.

Hello, Jim from Backblaze here. I wanted to offer some insight into what happened with backing up cloud-synced folders.

It is true that we recently updated how Backblaze Computer Backup handles cloud-synced folders. This decision was driven by a consistent set of technical issues we were seeing at scale, most of them driven by updates created by third-party sync tools, including unreliable backups and incomplete restores when backing up files managed by third-party sync providers.

To give a bit more context on the “why”: these cloud storage providers now rely heavily on OS-level frameworks to manage sync state. On Windows, for example, files are often represented as reparse points via the Cloud Files API. While they can appear local, they are still system-managed placeholders, which makes it difficult to reliably back them up as standard on-disk files.

Moreover, we built our product in a way to not backup reparse points for two reasons:

1. We wanted the backup client to be light on the system and only back up needed user-generated files. 2. We wanted the service to be unlimited, so following reparse points would lead to us backing up tons of data in the cloud

We’ve made targeted investments where we can, for example, adding support for iCloud Drive by working within Apple’s model and supporting Google Drive, but extending that same level of support to third-party providers like Dropbox or OneDrive is more complex and not included in the current version.

We are currently exploring building an add-on that either follows reparse points or backs up the tagged data in another way.

We also hear you clearly on the communication gap. Both the sync providers and Backblaze should have been more proactive in notifying customers about a change with this level of impact. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me or our support team directly if you have any questions. https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

We are here to help.

Hello, Jim from Backblaze here. I wanted to offer some insight into what happened with backing up cloud-synced folders.

It is true that we recently updated how Backblaze Computer Backup handles cloud-synced folders. This decision was driven by a consistent set of technical issues we were seeing at scale, most of them driven by updates created by third-party sync tools, including unreliable backups and incomplete restores when backing up files managed by third-party sync providers.

To give a bit more context on the “why”: these cloud storage providers now rely heavily on OS-level frameworks to manage sync state. On Windows, for example, files are often represented as reparse points via the Cloud Files API. While they can appear local, they are still system-managed placeholders, which makes it difficult to reliably back them up as standard on-disk files.

Moreover, we built our product in a way to not backup reparse points for two reasons:

1. We wanted the backup client to be light on the system and only back up needed user-generated files. 2. We wanted the service to be unlimited, so following reparse points would lead to us backing up tons of data in the cloud

We’ve made targeted investments where we can, for example, adding support for iCloud Drive by working within Apple’s model and supporting Google Drive, but extending that same level of support to third-party providers like Dropbox or OneDrive is more complex and not included in the current version.

We are currently exploring building an add-on that either follows reparse points or backs up the tagged data in another way.

We also hear you clearly on the communication gap. Both the sync providers and Backblaze should have been more proactive in notifying customers about a change with this level of impact. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me or our support team directly if you have any questions. https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

We are here to help.

Hello, Jim from Backblaze here. I wanted to offer some insight into what happened with backing up cloud-synced folders.

It is true that we recently updated how Backblaze Computer Backup handles cloud-synced folders. This decision was driven by a consistent set of technical issues we were seeing at scale, most of them driven by updates created by third-party sync tools, including unreliable backups and incomplete restores when backing up files managed by third-party sync providers.

To give a bit more context on the “why”: these cloud storage providers now rely heavily on OS-level frameworks to manage sync state. On Windows, for example, files are often represented as reparse points via the Cloud Files API. While they can appear local, they are still system-managed placeholders, which makes it difficult to reliably back them up as standard on-disk files.

Moreover, we built our product in a way to not backup reparse points for two reasons:

1. We wanted the backup client to be light on the system and only back up needed user-generated files. 2. We wanted the service to be unlimited, so following reparse points would lead to us backing up tons of data in the cloud

We’ve made targeted investments where we can, for example, adding support for iCloud Drive by working within Apple’s model and supporting Google Drive, but extending that same level of support to third-party providers like Dropbox or OneDrive is more complex and not included in the current version.

We are currently exploring building an add-on that either follows reparse points or backs up the tagged data in another way.

We also hear you clearly on the communication gap. Both the sync providers and Backblaze should have been more proactive in notifying customers about a change with this level of impact. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me or our support team directly if you have any questions. https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

We are here to help.