The better goal? Keep your head down, make a great product, and build a successful business. Silicon Valley prays at the altar of the billion-dollar business. And for good reason: These companies define industries, give the founders so-called “F-you money,” and provide VCs with a return that can counterbalance a dozen lousy investments. I don’t… Continue reading Don’t Build a Billion-Dollar Business. Really.
A Behind the Scenes Look at Designing the Next Storage Pod
Tim holds up a drive beam and shows the design to Matt, who is attending the meeting courtesy of a telepresence robot. They are discussing the results of a prototype Storage Pod developed using Agile development methodology applied to hardware design. The Storage Pod they are discussing was the result of the fifth sprint (iteration)… Continue reading A Behind the Scenes Look at Designing the Next Storage Pod
TurboTax Ends Backup to Cloud Service
In early 2015, a limited number of customers who used the TurboTax® desktop software were offered the opportunity to save their 2014 tax returns in the Turbo Tax cloud—for free. In early July, TurboTax decided to end their Backup to Cloud pilot program and sent those users an email notifying them that the program was… Continue reading TurboTax Ends Backup to Cloud Service
Five Dorm Life Tips From a Resident Assistant
College student or a parent of one? Here are five things you may want to think about before heading out to the dorms. My qualifications? I was a Resident Assistant in college, spending three years taking care of a co-ed floor with 70+ residents. It was hard work, but I learned a lot in the… Continue reading Five Dorm Life Tips From a Resident Assistant
How to Use Free Cloud Storage and Unlimited Online Backup Together
Where do you store your files? This has become a modern dilemma, thanks to the proliferation of online storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive and online backup services like Backblaze. Using multiple services offers additional protection for your precious data, but you don’t want your files scattered everywhere either. Here’s my layered approach for… Continue reading How to Use Free Cloud Storage and Unlimited Online Backup Together
A 16TB SSD: OMG
It was reported today by Ars Technica UK, Slash Gear, and others, that Samsung is introducing a 16TB SSD. The world’s largest hard drive was unveiled at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California. What’s even more amazing is the 2.5″ form factor—it would fit in your laptop. Before you run out (OK, log… Continue reading A 16TB SSD: OMG
Backblaze Labs: Center for Hardware Design
In September 2009, Backblaze introduced and open sourced our Storage Pod 1.0 design. Storage Pod 1.0 was the result of an iterative yet informal design process where ideas were designed, built, tested, and evaluated in a matter weeks and sometimes days. Rapid iteration was key, but over time, with each major Storage Pod release, rapid… Continue reading Backblaze Labs: Center for Hardware Design
World Traveler Kendall Settles In…tern
The summer is coming to a close, but we decided to add another intern in to the mix. Kendall is joining us for a few weeks to work on a few “special ops” projects before heading back the UK to finish off her last year of boarding school. Kendall loves to travel, and we’re happy… Continue reading World Traveler Kendall Settles In…tern
Two-Factor Verification for Backblaze
Backblaze users can now activate and use two-factor verification on their Backblaze Online Backup account. When enabled, two-factor verification, known widely as two-factor authentication, requires that a person present both their account credentials and a verification code from a second device to gain access to their Backblaze account. This feature is available immediately to all… Continue reading Two-Factor Verification for Backblaze
Hard Drive Reliability Stats for Q2 2015
Each quarter, Backblaze updates our hard drive statistics with the latest data. As of the end of Q2 2015, there were 47,561 drives spinning in our datacenter. Subtracting out boot drives, drive models with less than 45 drives and drives in testing systems, we are publishing data on 46,038 hard drives spread across 21 different models, from 1.5TB to 8.0TB in size.
Helping Hands: Steve Joins the Data Center
We’ve never had an intern in the data center before, but that changed last week when Larry’s son Steve joined the data center ranks! We needed an extra set of hands to move and tear down a lot of our old chassis, and Steve was a willing victim volunteer! Lets learn a bit more about… Continue reading Helping Hands: Steve Joins the Data Center
How to Make the Most of Working Remotely
I’m sitting in a hotel room in a small remote town in the south of Germany, where I’m spending the week working. I did not come here because of a customer, partner, or work event. Instead my wife and I coordinated a week of vacation in Berlin with a work trip for her in this… Continue reading How to Make the Most of Working Remotely
We Need a Data Center Facilities Manager!
Thank you for your interest, but this position has been filled. Please check out our jobs page for additional great opportunities at Backblaze. The Backblaze Data Center team is responsible for Backblaze’s cloud infrastructure. This is the team that defines our data center requirements and finds and/or builds facilities that meet our needs. This team… Continue reading We Need a Data Center Facilities Manager!
You Can Never Have Too Many Brians
Because we like to order large batches of name tags, we have to continue hiring Brians. Our latest intern continues the Brian trend! He’s joining us for a few weeks and working on some back-end and mobile projects; awesome! Let’s get to know Brian number five a bit better, shall we? What is your Backblaze… Continue reading You Can Never Have Too Many Brians
What You Would Do With a Storage Pod
A few weeks ago, we held a contest offering a free Storage Pod chassis as a prize to people who came up with creative ways to use/reuse a Backblaze Storage Pod chassis. The response was outstanding! We reviewed all the submissions and selected 20 we thought the most deserving—it was hard work. Here are some… Continue reading What You Would Do With a Storage Pod
Happy 4th of July!
Happy July 4th to everyone in the USA. Backblaze is celebrating the 4th of July with a blaze of our own! Have a safe and wonderful Independence Day!
Director of Marketing, Jim, Joins Backblaze
The hiring continues at Backblaze (anyone know a good Senior Automation Engineer?), and the newest addition to the team is Jim! Jim’s joining the Marketing team as the Director of Marketing! It’s been a while since our team has grown and we couldn’t be more excited! Let’s learn a bit more about Jim, shall we?… Continue reading Director of Marketing, Jim, Joins Backblaze
Kelly Joins Us as a Sr. Front-End Developer!
We’re pleased to announce Kelly joining the Backblaze team. We’re thrilled to have a dedicated front-end developer around to make the site more whiz-bang awesome! Bilingual in Vietnamese and English, Kelly has previously worked at Skunkworks (Vietnam) and Skype in Palo Alto. Let’s learn a bit more about Kelly, shall we? What is your Backblaze… Continue reading Kelly Joins Us as a Sr. Front-End Developer!