We recently filled a Backblaze Storage Pod with 45 HGST Ultrastar® He8 hard drives. For the uninitiated, these are 8TB drives filled with helium. The helium, so says the literature, allows the drives to run cooler and quieter, and reduces power consumption. When we wire up a new hard drive model into our infrastructure, one… Continue reading SMART 22 Is a Gas, Gas, Gas
CSI: Backblaze—Dissecting 3TB Drive Failure
Beginning in January 2012, Backblaze deployed 4,829 Seagate 3TB hard drives, model ST3000DM001, into Backblaze Storage Pods. In our experience, 80% of the hard drives we deploy will function at least four years. As of March 31, 2015, just 10% of the Seagate 3TB drives deployed in 2012 are still in service. This is the… Continue reading CSI: Backblaze—Dissecting 3TB Drive Failure
There’s No “B” in Ryan
A new addition joins the Backblaze ranks! This time we went ahead and hired a Ryan, which is different than the typical Brian or Bryan that we’ve hired in the past. It’s good to diversify! Ryan is joining our support team as a Junior Support Tech. He’s jazzed about joining the Support squad and from… Continue reading There’s No “B” in Ryan
Backblaze 2: The Search for More Revenue
After we released Backblaze Online Backup 4.0, people starting uploading data crazy quickly! 1TB backed up per day? That’s not bad! Once that happened, we realized that we needed to buy a bunch more Backblaze Vaults to store all that data. The question we had to ask ourselves was, “How do we maintain our $5/month… Continue reading Backblaze 2: The Search for More Revenue
The Complete Guide to Computer Backup
“How do I backup my computer?” That should be an easy question to answer, but if you’ve spent any time at all searching online you know that a simple query produces a myriad of results that are often confusing, incomplete, and in the end are not very helpful. What would be great is a single… Continue reading The Complete Guide to Computer Backup
Backblaze Online Backup 4.0: It’s All About the Pace
We are proud to introduce Backblaze Online Backup 4.0, our fastest release for backing up and recovering customer data. There are a lot of cool things in 4.0, but making sure our customers can back up and recover their data fast is at the top of the list. We have always allowed customers to back… Continue reading Backblaze Online Backup 4.0: It’s All About the Pace
Looking for a Junior Staff Accountant
Accounts Payable: Ensure timely and accurate payment to vendors and employees. Obtain approval and/or confirmation of receipt/completion of services. Check expense reports submitted for completion/accuracy. Enter approved invoices and expense reports in Quickbooks. Handle and resolve invoice/payable discrepancies. Ensure there are receipts for all charges on the credit cards & accuracy of account assignment. Maintain… Continue reading Looking for a Junior Staff Accountant
150 Petabytes of Cloud Storage
Backblaze now has 150 petabytes of customer data safely stored by our cloud backup service and waiting to be restored by our customers when requested. This customer data is stored encrypted on 980 Backblaze Storage Pods which contain 44,100 data hard drives of sizes ranging from two to six terabytes. Each week, new Storage Pods… Continue reading 150 Petabytes of Cloud Storage
10 Billion Files Restored and Counting…
As an online backup provider, people pay us to backup their data so they can recover their files when needed. On March 2nd, a little after noon Pacific Time, Backblaze reached a data recovery milestone. We restored our 10 billionth file. No alarms went off, no bells rang, no one sang the Backblaze jingle, 10… Continue reading 10 Billion Files Restored and Counting…
Storage Pod 4.5: Tweaking a Proven Design
To get the latest updates and information on ALL of the Storage Pod versions. Click Here. It has been nearly a year since we published an update to our Storage Pod design. Over the last few months we have been deploying Storage Pod 4.5, which is known internally as Storage Pod Classic. The reason for… Continue reading Storage Pod 4.5: Tweaking a Proven Design
Translating Morse Code for Verizon
Yesterday, the FCC announced that it would be reclassifying internet service providers as Title II utilities. Net neutrality has been a topic of great debate over the last few months, and while many people are excited about the change, there is also some dissent. Verizon for their part, looked to the past, claiming that the… Continue reading Translating Morse Code for Verizon
The Backblaze Song
Backblaze has a new jingle, courtesy of Jonathan Mann. Here’s the crazy story of how this came to pass. A few years ago, Jonathan set on the seemingly impossible path of creating a song a day and posting those songs to his YouTube channel. Some of those songs he’s written each day have turned in… Continue reading The Backblaze Song
My Permanent Out of Office Email: One Month Later
Back Story: After a vacation last year I realized how much freedom my out of office email notification provided, so with the new year starting, I decided to try an experiment and make my email management plan permanent. I promised to check back in and let you know what happened. My Original Plan Here was… Continue reading My Permanent Out of Office Email: One Month Later
Reliability Data Set for 41,000 Hard Drives Now Open-source
Stats geeks: Now it’s your turn. Backblaze has released the raw data collected from the more than 41,000 disk drives in our data center. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest data set on disk drive performance ever to be made available publicly. Over the past 16 months, I have been posting… Continue reading Reliability Data Set for 41,000 Hard Drives Now Open-source
Hard Drive Stats: FAQ
Recently, Backblaze released our 2015 hard drive failure rate statistics. After each blog post, and especially popular ones, I spend a large amount of time reading through the comments, answering what I can, and gathering a series of frequently asked questions to help us frame future blog posts better. In order to answer some of… Continue reading Hard Drive Stats: FAQ
Broadband Is Getting Broader
Today, the Federal Communications Commission took measures to redefine broadband as 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up in the United States. This is wonderful news for internet users, and will hopefully lead to more broadband availability for everyone in the US! The increase to 25/3 is up from 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps… Continue reading Broadband Is Getting Broader
What Is the Best Hard Drive?
Check out the latest Hard Drive Stats. It was one year ago that I first blogged about the failure rates of specific models of hard drives, so now is a good time for an update. At Backblaze, as of December 31, 2014, we had 41,213 disk drives spinning in our data center, storing all of… Continue reading What Is the Best Hard Drive?
Ode to Macworld
Macworld Expo San Francisco It’s January. Normally at this time of the year we would just be getting back from CES and getting in to the swing of lining up our booth to exhibit at Macworld, but this year is different. Macworld is currently on hiatus, with no clear indication of when or if it… Continue reading Ode to Macworld