Last month I dug into drive failure rates based on the 25,000+ consumer drives we have and found that consumer drives actually performed quite well. Over 100,000 people read that blog post and one of the most common questions asked was: “Okay, so the consumer drives don’t fail that often. But aren’t enterprise drives so… Continue reading Enterprise Drives: Fact or Fiction?
Year: 2013
Comcast Secure Backup & Share Shut Down
Comcast, the largest high speed internet provider in the US with over 20 million subscribers, launched an online backup service called Secure Backup & Share in 2010 through a partnership with Mozy. This Thanksgiving weekend, December 1, 2013, Comcast Secure Backup & Share is shutting down and deleting all customer data. Comcast Secure Backup &… Continue reading Comcast Secure Backup & Share Shut Down
Farming Hard Drives: Two Years and $1 Million Later
We are two years removed from the horrific flooding that caused the Thailand drive crisis that created a worldwide shortage of hard disk drives. Prices for hard drives spiked and have remained stubbornly high, only returning to pre-crisis levels in the last couple of months. The market and competitive forces that over the past 30… Continue reading Farming Hard Drives: Two Years and $1 Million Later
Restoring Data From the NSA
It All Started With a Meme I’m an avid Redditor, though my karma doesn’t show it, and around the time the NSA PRISM story broke, I started seeing this image appear in my feeds: I’m also the social guy at Backblaze, so I felt it was my duty to post it. After receiving many tweets… Continue reading Restoring Data From the NSA
Backblaze Stores 75 Petabytes of Data: One Fourth as Much as Facebook
In Jan 2011, we published that Backblaze was storing 10 petabytes of customer data. Today, Backblaze stores 75 petabytes of customer data. Backblaze data storage has grown 750% in less than three years! You guys are truly storing an incredible amount of data. ;-) Of course, all of this data is stored in our custom,… Continue reading Backblaze Stores 75 Petabytes of Data: One Fourth as Much as Facebook
Growth Hackers Conference 2013: A Detailed Bullet Point Summary
Yesterday, I attended the third Growth Hackers Conference put on by Gagan Biyani and Erin Turner. I attended the previous one, loved it, and signed up to attend this one as soon as tickets went on sale. My one regret? That I didn’t bring my whole team. Growth is a mindset (a “philosophy,” James Currier… Continue reading Growth Hackers Conference 2013: A Detailed Bullet Point Summary
Western Digital Warning Customers of Data Loss with Apple Mavericks
Apple customers upgrading to OS X 10.9 Mavericks are complaining in droves about data loss on their Western Digital (WD) hard drives. WD has acknowledged the issue today in an email to its customers and is working to determine the root cause and a solution. Western Digital’s Recommendations At this point, WD recommends customers either… Continue reading Western Digital Warning Customers of Data Loss with Apple Mavericks
Nirvanix Cloud Storage Shuts Down: Alternatives, Options, and Prices
In 2007, Nirvanix saw that cloud storage was going to be a major necessity for companies in the future and believed they could differentiate from Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) S3 storage service by focusing on the enterprises that also wanted sales engineers, tech support, and other dedicated services. To pursue this mission, Nirvanix raised $70… Continue reading Nirvanix Cloud Storage Shuts Down: Alternatives, Options, and Prices
Spooky! Our Halloween Contest Winner!
Thanks to everyone for participating! Since you took the time to make a video for our silly contest, we’ll send you and all of your actors a T-shirt! Just private message us on Facebook with your email and we’ll coordinate from there! Enjoy these great videos, and a giant thanks to everyone who submitted! Here… Continue reading Spooky! Our Halloween Contest Winner!
Meet Brian Beach: TiVo VP of R&D Joins as Backblaze Distinguished Engineer
I’m very excited to announce that Brian Beach has joined Backblaze to continue innovating on our cloud storage. Brian was a 15-year veteran of TiVo, having joined the company when there were just a handful of people and no commercial product. He helped architect and develop both the TiVo box that millions of customers have… Continue reading Meet Brian Beach: TiVo VP of R&D Joins as Backblaze Distinguished Engineer
Alas, Poor Stephen Is Dead. Or, What it Takes to be a Backblaze Hard Drive
Data Worthy Drives Backblaze stores over 70 petabytes of data for our customers. That data currently resides on 561 Backblaze Storage Pods containing 25,245 spinning hard drives. Each month we add another 15-20 Storage Pods with each Pod adding another 45 hard drives to our collection. Getting to be a hard drive in a Backblaze… Continue reading Alas, Poor Stephen Is Dead. Or, What it Takes to be a Backblaze Hard Drive
Meet Sona: Account Executive for Backblaze Business Backup
Sona has joined the Backblaze team as an Account Executive. Her job is to help organizations determine if Backblaze is a good fit for them. What attracted you to Backblaze? I worked with a handful of the founders at a previous company and watched them from day one as they grew Backblaze into the successful… Continue reading Meet Sona: Account Executive for Backblaze Business Backup
Computers Need Electricity
Yesterday (October 24, 2013) six cabinets in the Backblaze data center lost all electricity at the same moment (10:58 a.m.). No customer data was lost, but during the repair of the electrical circuits, the Pods containing some customer data were offline for the next few hours until 9:42 p.m. when the final Pod was brought back up… Continue reading Computers Need Electricity
Mavericks? We’re Ready!
Backblaze loves our Mac users and we’re guessing some of you have been waiting with bated breath for OS X Mavericks to be available for download. That’s why we’ve worked hard to make sure Backblaze is ready for OS X Mavericks. Apple released the developer version of OS X Mavericks back in June, and we… Continue reading Mavericks? We’re Ready!
Backblaze Mobile for iOS 7
Our iOS app just got a fresh coat of paint and a performance increase! What’s new: iOS 7-themed visual redesign Looks better on iPhone 5, 5S, and 5C Rewrote the app for faster performance Added options for file sharing, including sending via text messages Haven’t used the app before? The Backblaze Mobile app for iOS… Continue reading Backblaze Mobile for iOS 7
Recent Malware Forcing Victims to Pay for Data Retrieval
Lately, Backblaze has been seeing a few reports stating that a very specific type of ransomware, known as CryptoLocker, that takes control of a victim’s computer and holds it hostage until that victim pays to get it removed. It is known as ransomware because if Cryptolocker is not paid within a specific timeframe, it will… Continue reading Recent Malware Forcing Victims to Pay for Data Retrieval
Backblaze Halloween Contest
Want to win an iPad Mini or a Nexus 7? We’re having a scary video contest! Want the rules? Read below, and don’t forget to check out the example video at the bottom! Oh, and hurry! The contest ends October 29th! How to Enter the Contest: 1. Prepare a short, 30 seconds or less, video… Continue reading Backblaze Halloween Contest
MobileMe’s Complimentary iCloud Storage Is Shutting Down
Apple announced the closure of MobileMe on July 1st, 2012, hoping that its users would flock to the newly announced iCloud service. As part of the push to enhance iCloud usage, MobileMe users were given a complimentary 20GB iCloud storage plan if they moved over to the new service. Those plans are now expiring, and… Continue reading MobileMe’s Complimentary iCloud Storage Is Shutting Down