Ok.. after loosing two. External harddrives... one to just shorting out and one to being fried after dog knocked over..we did a huge project of installing bigger internal this time...but I'd still like to back up. I don't want to loose precious items Talk to me on backups... how online ones work How much you pay? If you don't pay do you loose everything? Hows it all go down... work??best ones.
Fan of backblaze here. I pay yearly, used to be $50 per year but I think it went up. You can get notifications of how much is backed up and when the last time a backup is run. It will also let you know if it hasn't been able to connect to your system. You can download from their website if you lose your information but it takes awhile if you have a lot. You can also have them send you an EHD with everything on it and if you return it, it is a minimal charge. I chose to keep it even though it cost more than I wanted because I couldn't get things transferred off it within the window of time they give you to return. I know others here use Backblaze as well. @Tree City @gonewiththewind I also have 2 EHD's that I use as backups. One uses the EHD backup software. The other is a mirror of the most important information on my C: drive.
I think everyone who stores stuff off of their computer needs an ehd as well as a cloud service. That way, the cloud service can back up both the computer--to backup new stuff--and back up the EHD--to back up old files or whatever isn't kept on your computer. If you have time machine or Microsoft OneDrive, those are mirror storage, meaning they delete whatever you delete, so if you need a file you accidentally deleted, then you're in trouble. It isn't a true "backup." Same with backblaze, but that's why they recommend having an external hard drive that you also back up. ( @HavaDrPepper is right: I have BB and I really like it! ) I've heard that it's harder to back up ehds with OneDrive and time machine but I've never tried so don't quote me lol. BB is great because there's no storage capacity and as Digi scrappers, we have A LOT of GBs to back up!
So if you don't pay yearly thing.. lets say your broke..all your files get held hostage? Or lost? Or does it just stop backing up recent stuff...
You can pay monthly. They raised the price ... I think it's like $6/month? Or maybe I'm wrong. I can tell you that BB keeps stuff in your "trash" for 30 days. (So if you delete a file from your computer but then find you need it, you have 30 days to retrieve it from backblaze.) Maybe that means you have access to your files for 30 days after your last payment? IDK.
For me, the yearly payment I make for Backblaze is just like insurance. I don't drive my car without insurance. I have household insurance for my home. So I'm not going to have a computer without Backblaze.
I also use backblaze and have done for a little over 3 years I think now cause I know I did an online restore/download when my laptop was stolen 3 years ago - was a slow process but that was mainly because our internet here is just not the same speed as elsewhere in the world. Like @HavaDrPepper I also consider it “insurance” and wouldn’t be without it.
Backblaze is now $60 per year. So at $5 per month, it's very reasonable for backup. I mean, you can spend that buying a fast food burger or breakfast or at least that's my reasoning. I have had one EHD fail during the time that I've been with Backblaze. They were prompt about sending me an EHD (I had way too much to try to download). It was well worth the amount of money I paid. For questions about payments, refunds, and what happens to your files if you stop paying, check out this page on Backblaze's website: Payments and Refunds. But essentially, yes, your files will be deleted if you stop paying.
I also have Backblaze. Thankfully, I've never had to use it, but it's worth $60 a year to know that my files are all backed up.
As I answer this I am currently transferring files from the EHD BackBlaze sent me to the new one I bought. (I hear you on the animals! Bunnies ate the old ehd cord and apparently fried it too!) I use Backblaze. When I was broke, the first year, I paid for it out of grocery money. I figured out something every month to save $5 (now it's $6) to fund it. I used my tax return the next few years. I've used them for many years. I think about 7? Maybe 8? My older experiences: I've used it to download files here and there as needed. This is free. They only save your deleted files for 30 days unless you want to pay an extra fee for never delete. 30 days has always been enough for me, and I make sure because I like the cheaper price. This really only affects plugging in my ehd every 30 days to make sure it's recognized. My current experience: Discovered the EHD was dead. EHD holds like 2.5 TB of stuff. So, I got online and scheduled a restore. I paid $189 to have BackBlaze send me an EHD with all my stuff. I was able to select what I wanted, I could have had just that EHD sent, but I wanted to see what it looked like with both my computer and EHD. So I opted for both. There's no additional fee for how much you have sent, just the initial $189. I ordered it on Sunday afternoon. They gave me a warning that it would take extra time because of how much data I asked for (3.61 TB total). On Thursday I received an email letting me know the hard drive had been shipped. In the meantime, I went to Amazon and found a 6TB for $129 and ordered it. Both the backblaze hard drive and the Amazon hard drive showed up today (Friday). They ship from California, and I'm in Nevada, so it was super quick for me. They sent it FedEx Express. I plugged in the BB harddrive. There were instructions on how to download the encryption program to decrypt the EHD and where to find the key in my account. I thought the encryption was a nice touch! They ended up sending me an 8TB EHD with my data. My plan is to spend the weekend transferring data, then I will mail their drive back (I have 30 days from receiving the hard drive to get it in the mail). So, restoring my data will cost me the shipping of the EHD back. 2 TB was too much to download. The process has been very easy and straight forward. An online backup is my piece of mind for photos. The other things are just icing. I read about a scrapper who paid $2000 to get some (3/4?) of her photos back when her hard drive failed and she had no backup. At that point, I decided it was worth the cost to pay for online backup. It definitely gives me peace of mind when there's severe weather too!
