{"slug": "backblaze", "name": "Backblaze", "category": "files", "category_name": "Files, sync and backup", "description": "Cloud backup service for personal computers, plus B2 S3-compatible object storage.", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 25, "warners": 11, "score": -2.392, "rising": 0.69, "first": "2025-11-10", "latest": "2026-10-07", "why": "HN commenters use Backblaze as a cheap off-site layer alongside Time Machine or a NAS, and use its B2 storage as a backend for tools like restic and Kopia.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 7, "compare": 1, "warn": 11}, "spark": [0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Low cost", "Off-site layer"], "caveat": "Silent exclusions", "short_quote": "it's very cheap and the billing is fair (usage based billing", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.backblaze.com", "pricing": "paid", "aliases": ["Backblaze"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters use Backblaze as a cheap off-site layer alongside Time Machine or a NAS,", "cites": [{"id": 799839361, "item_id": 49989960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49989960", "by": "Maximilian_Bet", "date": "2026-10-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Backblaze backs the external drive and all local working files (roughly 16TB altogether) up for ~$100/year.", "excerpt": "Mac: I use Parachute Backup to keep a local copy of my iCloud files and photos on an external drive. Backblaze backs the external drive and all local working files (roughly 16TB altogether) up for ~$100/year.", "context": "Mac user", "use_case": "cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Is Your Personal Backup Methods"}, {"id": 737707985, "item_id": 46106749, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46106749", "by": "stavarotti", "date": "2025-12-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Time Machine and Backblaze", "excerpt": "An underrated and oft understated rule is always have backups, and if you're paranoid enough, backups of backups (I use Time Machine and Backblaze). There should be absolutely no reason why deleting files should be a catastrophic issue for anyone in this space. Perhaps you lose a couple of hours restoring files, but the response to that should be \"Let me try a different approach\". Yes, it's caveat emptor and all, but", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of whole drive"}, {"id": 782630817, "item_id": 48914426, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48914426", "by": "jherskovic", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My wife\u2019s backups also go on BackBlaze", "excerpt": "Have a TrueNAS server at home with a bunch of drives in a RAID-Z array. Backups go there. My pictures, which are probably my single most important item, are also there but get cross-backed up to a very good friend\u2019s NAS in a different city. And his to mine. My wife\u2019s backups also go on BackBlaze because she would be much, much, much less tolerant of a local glitch than I would. TL;DR local-first backups here. Time Ma", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft deleted my account and OneDrive"}, {"id": 777387008, "item_id": 48586688, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586688", "by": "tristor", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "currently I primarily use Backblaze for that purpose but am considering alternatives for several reasons", "excerpt": "I use the 3-2-1 strategy for backups. I keep one copy off-site by using cloud backups, currently I primarily use Backblaze for that purpose but am considering alternatives for several reasons. I keep a second copy on an external SSD via Time Machine, and I keep one copy on-device. I'd like to use network Time Machine to get rid of the inconvenience of having a bunch of USB external SSDs floating around, especially si", "context": "photographer using 3-2-1 backups", "use_case": "off-site cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubiquiti: Enterprise NAS, Built on ZFS"}]}, {"text": " and use its B2 storage as a backend for tools like restic and Kopia.", "cites": [{"id": 764296946, "item_id": 47768559, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768559", "by": "mk12", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Glad I switched from their personal computer backup", "excerpt": "Glad I switched from their personal computer backup to using restic + B2 a while ago. Every night my laptop and homelab both back up to each other and to B2. It takes less than a minute and I have complete control over the exclusions and retention. And I can easily switch off B2 to something else if I want.", "context": "", "use_case": "personal computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764228706, "item_id": 47764294, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764294", "by": "corndoge", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Really lame behavior from backblaze", "excerpt": "I like backblaze for backups, but I use restic and b2. You get what you pay for. Really lame behavior from backblaze as I always recommended their native backup solution to others and now need to reconsider.", "context": "", "use_case": "native backup client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 757014850, "item_id": 47313428, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "by": "GTP", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "another on Backblaze", "excerpt": "Look into self-hosting. Start small with only one or two services that have a big impact on your privacy (e.g., backup of your phone's pics with Immich) and expand from there once you gained some experience. Things will go wrong, expecially in the beginning. So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that, one repository on an external SSD and another on Backblaze.", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "offsite backup storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is that the computer backup client silently stopped backing up .git folders and Dropbox/OneDrive folders,", "cites": [{"id": 764376208, "item_id": 47773513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773513", "by": "regalrubbish", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it was a silent one. No banner, no email, no opt-out prompt", "excerpt": "I use local repos, no GitHub, no remote. My .git directories are my backup. Backblaze was the safety net. Past tense. The data I'd lose isn't recoverable from anywhere else. That's the entire point of an offline backup provider. If I wanted selective cloud sync I'd use a selective cloud sync product. What makes this worse than a bad decision is that it was a silent one. No banner, no email, no opt-out prompt, just a ", "context": "paying customer for years", "use_case": "offline backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764230592, "item_id": 47764412, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764412", "by": "donatj", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Not backing up .git folders however is completely unacceptable.", "excerpt": "I can almost almost understand the logic behind not backing up OneDrive/Dropbox. I think it's bad logic but I can understand where it's coming from. Not backing up .git folders however is completely unacceptable. I have hundreds of small projects where I use git track of history locally with no remote at all. The intention is never to push it anywhere. I don't like to say these sorts of things, and I don't say it lig", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764277616, "item_id": 47767351, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47767351", "by": "nodesocket", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Backblaze to backup my gaming PC.", "excerpt": "I use Backblaze to backup my gaming PC. While .git and Dropbox does not affect me it\u2019s worrisome that OneDrive is not backed up seeing as Windows 11 somehow automatically/dark pattern stores local files in OneDrive. You have to give Apple credit, they nailed Time Machine. I have fully restored from Time Machine backups when buying new Macs more times than I can count. It works and everything comes back to an identica", "context": "", "use_case": "gaming PC backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764268768, "item_id": 47766798, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47766798", "by": "julianozen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this", "excerpt": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said \u201cno problem. This is why we pay for backblaze\u201d We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on", "context": "", "use_case": "parents' computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"text": " which led several long-time users to drop it.", "cites": [{"id": 764280416, "item_id": 47767526, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47767526", "by": "jtagen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I'm dropping Backblaze and recommending all my friends/customers do the same.", "excerpt": "Well shit. If this is right, I'm dropping Backblaze and recommending all my friends/customers do the same. I pay for and rely on Backblaze as the \"back up everything\" they advertise.... to silently stop backing up the vast majority of my work is unacceptable!", "context": "has friends/customers", "use_case": "computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764273136, "item_id": 47767071, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47767071", "by": "runjake", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I already dropped Backblaze over this stuff and I do not intend to ever consider using them again.", "excerpt": "I already dropped Backblaze over this stuff and I do not intend to ever consider using them again. Now, I: - Put important stuff in a SyncThing folder and sync that out to 2 different nodes. - Clone stuff to an encrypted external drive at home. - Clone stuff to an encrypted external drive at work and hide it out in the datacenter (fire suppression, HVAC, etc). It's janky but it works. I used to use a safe deposit box", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764268768, "item_id": 47766798, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47766798", "by": "julianozen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this", "excerpt": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said \u201cno problem. This is why we pay for backblaze\u201d We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on", "context": "", "use_case": "parents' computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764228754, "item_id": 47764297, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764297", "by": "noisy_boy", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Just switched from Backblaze to Cloudflare R2", "excerpt": "Just switched from Backblaze to Cloudflare R2 (using restic). Now it makes me think if I should check for such issues with R2 as well.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Low cost", "summary": "Commenters call it a bargain, citing about $100/year for roughly 16TB and fair usage-based billing.", "quotes": [{"id": 799839361, "item_id": 49989960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49989960", "by": "Maximilian_Bet", "date": "2026-10-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Backblaze backs the external drive and all local working files (roughly 16TB altogether) up for ~$100/year.", "excerpt": "Mac: I use Parachute Backup to keep a local copy of my iCloud files and photos on an external drive. Backblaze backs the external drive and all local working files (roughly 16TB altogether) up for ~$100/year.", "context": "Mac user", "use_case": "cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Is Your Personal Backup Methods"}, {"id": 764236816, "item_id": 47764801, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764801", "by": "peteforde", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Weirdly, reading this had the net impact of me signing up to Backblaze.", "excerpt": "Weirdly, reading this had the net impact of me signing up to Backblaze. I had no idea that it was such a good bargain. I used to be a Crashplan user back in the day, and I always thought Backblaze had tiered limits. I've been using Duplicati to sync a lot of data to S3's cheapest tape-based long term storage tier. It's a serious pain in the ass because it takes hours to queue up and retrieve a file. It's a heavy enou", "context": "", "use_case": "computer backup", "switched_from": "Duplicati", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 747638448, "item_id": 46727403, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46727403", "by": "horsawlarway", "date": "2026-01-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's very cheap and the billing is fair (usage based billing", "excerpt": "The honest answer is because I backup a large number of other things to backblaze anyways. I went on a mission about 5 years ago to essentially stop paying for SaaS services if there was an opensource alternative available that I could self host. I have old machines lying around anyways since I was upgrading about every 5 years for gaming. So I have a 5 node k8s cluster in my basement serving about 20 different servi", "context": "self-hosts 5-node k8s cluster at home", "use_case": "backups of DBs, media, photos", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday"}]}, {"label": "Off-site layer", "summary": "Used as the off-site copy alongside Time Machine, a NAS or an external SSD.", "quotes": [{"id": 737707985, "item_id": 46106749, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46106749", "by": "stavarotti", "date": "2025-12-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Time Machine and Backblaze", "excerpt": "An underrated and oft understated rule is always have backups, and if you're paranoid enough, backups of backups (I use Time Machine and Backblaze). There should be absolutely no reason why deleting files should be a catastrophic issue for anyone in this space. Perhaps you lose a couple of hours restoring files, but the response to that should be \"Let me try a different approach\". Yes, it's caveat emptor and all, but", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of whole drive"}, {"id": 777387008, "item_id": 48586688, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586688", "by": "tristor", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "currently I primarily use Backblaze for that purpose but am considering alternatives for several reasons", "excerpt": "I use the 3-2-1 strategy for backups. I keep one copy off-site by using cloud backups, currently I primarily use Backblaze for that purpose but am considering alternatives for several reasons. I keep a second copy on an external SSD via Time Machine, and I keep one copy on-device. I'd like to use network Time Machine to get rid of the inconvenience of having a bunch of USB external SSDs floating around, especially si", "context": "photographer using 3-2-1 backups", "use_case": "off-site cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubiquiti: Enterprise NAS, Built on ZFS"}, {"id": 782630817, "item_id": 48914426, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48914426", "by": "jherskovic", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My wife\u2019s backups also go on BackBlaze", "excerpt": "Have a TrueNAS server at home with a bunch of drives in a RAID-Z array. Backups go there. My pictures, which are probably my single most important item, are also there but get cross-backed up to a very good friend\u2019s NAS in a different city. And his to mine. My wife\u2019s backups also go on BackBlaze because she would be much, much, much less tolerant of a local glitch than I would. TL;DR local-first backups here. Time Ma", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft deleted my account and OneDrive"}]}, {"label": "B2 backend", "summary": "B2 works as a storage target for restic, Kopia and similar tools, giving users control over exclusions and retention.", "quotes": [{"id": 764296946, "item_id": 47768559, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768559", "by": "mk12", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Glad I switched from their personal computer backup", "excerpt": "Glad I switched from their personal computer backup to using restic + B2 a while ago. Every night my laptop and homelab both back up to each other and to B2. It takes less than a minute and I have complete control over the exclusions and retention. And I can easily switch off B2 to something else if I want.", "context": "", "use_case": "personal computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 757014850, "item_id": 47313428, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "by": "GTP", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "another on Backblaze", "excerpt": "Look into self-hosting. Start small with only one or two services that have a big impact on your privacy (e.g., backup of your phone's pics with Immich) and expand from there once you gained some experience. Things will go wrong, expecially in the beginning. So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that, one repository on an external SSD and another on Backblaze.", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "offsite backup storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?"}, {"id": 735716916, "item_id": 45982307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982307", "by": "monerozcash", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Backblaze might be a nicer backend to use.", "excerpt": "This needs more information. 5TB is far from \"BIG\" when it comes to cloud backups. You can probably get away with google drive+rclone+borg/restic/whatever, but it will be rather clunky. Backblaze might be a nicer backend to use. I use rsync.net with borg, but not sure about your budget. Their 1TB lifetime plan is very competitive though.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is the current state of the art in BIG (>5TB) cloud backups?"}]}, {"label": "Hands-off setup", "summary": "People install it on family and non-technical friends' machines so they don't have to worry about backups.", "quotes": [{"id": 734137504, "item_id": 45883594, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45883594", "by": "theamk", "date": "2025-11-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've used Backblaze backup for a long time (for my non-techinical friends)", "excerpt": "> The current Backblaze client excludes non-physical drives not connected via a USB or Firewire connector. While this has been Backblaze's policy for some time, our Client Teams have taken steps to reduce the number of allowed exceptions. Ah, I see. The backblaze backup cost is not size-based - people pay per computer, and this includes all internal and external hard drives (the external ones have to be attached ever", "context": "sets up backups for non-technical friends", "use_case": "computer backups for friends", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze is silently breaking backups from Veracrypt drives without warning"}, {"id": 782630817, "item_id": 48914426, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48914426", "by": "jherskovic", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My wife\u2019s backups also go on BackBlaze", "excerpt": "Have a TrueNAS server at home with a bunch of drives in a RAID-Z array. Backups go there. My pictures, which are probably my single most important item, are also there but get cross-backed up to a very good friend\u2019s NAS in a different city. And his to mine. My wife\u2019s backups also go on BackBlaze because she would be much, much, much less tolerant of a local glitch than I would. TL;DR local-first backups here. Time Ma", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft deleted my account and OneDrive"}, {"id": 764268768, "item_id": 47766798, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47766798", "by": "julianozen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this", "excerpt": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said \u201cno problem. This is why we pay for backblaze\u201d We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on", "context": "", "use_case": "parents' computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Silent exclusions", "summary": "The client stopped backing up .git folders and cloud-synced folders without notifying users.", "quotes": [{"id": 764376208, "item_id": 47773513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773513", "by": "regalrubbish", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it was a silent one. No banner, no email, no opt-out prompt", "excerpt": "I use local repos, no GitHub, no remote. My .git directories are my backup. Backblaze was the safety net. Past tense. The data I'd lose isn't recoverable from anywhere else. That's the entire point of an offline backup provider. If I wanted selective cloud sync I'd use a selective cloud sync product. What makes this worse than a bad decision is that it was a silent one. No banner, no email, no opt-out prompt, just a ", "context": "paying customer for years", "use_case": "offline backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764230592, "item_id": 47764412, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764412", "by": "donatj", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Not backing up .git folders however is completely unacceptable.", "excerpt": "I can almost almost understand the logic behind not backing up OneDrive/Dropbox. I think it's bad logic but I can understand where it's coming from. Not backing up .git folders however is completely unacceptable. I have hundreds of small projects where I use git track of history locally with no remote at all. The intention is never to push it anywhere. I don't like to say these sorts of things, and I don't say it lig", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764268768, "item_id": 47766798, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47766798", "by": "julianozen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this", "excerpt": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said \u201cno problem. This is why we pay for backblaze\u201d We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on", "context": "", "use_case": "parents' computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"label": "Broad exclusions", "summary": "Some file types and drives are excluded, such as VMware VM files and some non-USB external drives.", "quotes": [{"id": 764225472, "item_id": 47764092, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764092", "by": "tomkaos", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "VMware VMs files were excluded from the backup. They are so many exclusion", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been using it for years, and the one time I needed to restore a file, I realized that VMware VMs files were excluded from the backup. They are so many exclusion that I start doing physical backup again.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 734137504, "item_id": 45883594, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45883594", "by": "theamk", "date": "2025-11-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've used Backblaze backup for a long time (for my non-techinical friends)", "excerpt": "> The current Backblaze client excludes non-physical drives not connected via a USB or Firewire connector. While this has been Backblaze's policy for some time, our Client Teams have taken steps to reduce the number of allowed exceptions. Ah, I see. The backblaze backup cost is not size-based - people pay per computer, and this includes all internal and external hard drives (the external ones have to be attached ever", "context": "sets up backups for non-technical friends", "use_case": "computer backups for friends", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze is silently breaking backups from Veracrypt drives without warning"}]}, {"label": "Restore failures", "summary": "Users report finding files missing only when they tried to restore them.", "quotes": [{"id": 764214272, "item_id": 47763392, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47763392", "by": "klausa", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I've had Backblaze _fail to restore a file_.", "excerpt": "Exclusions are one thing, but I've had Backblaze _fail to restore a file_. I pay for unlimited history. I contacted the support asking WTF, \"oh the file got deleted at some point, sorry for that\", and they offered me 3 months of credits. I do not trust my Backblaze backups anymore.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764268768, "item_id": 47766798, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47766798", "by": "julianozen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this", "excerpt": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said \u201cno problem. This is why we pay for backblaze\u201d We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on", "context": "", "use_case": "parents' computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764225472, "item_id": 47764092, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764092", "by": "tomkaos", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "VMware VMs files were excluded from the backup. They are so many exclusion", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been using it for years, and the one time I needed to restore a file, I realized that VMware VMs files were excluded from the backup. They are so many exclusion that I start doing physical backup again.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"label": "Users leaving", "summary": "Several commenters switched to restic with B2 or R2, or to self-managed backups.", "quotes": [{"id": 764273136, "item_id": 47767071, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47767071", "by": "runjake", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I already dropped Backblaze over this stuff and I do not intend to ever consider using them again.", "excerpt": "I already dropped Backblaze over this stuff and I do not intend to ever consider using them again. Now, I: - Put important stuff in a SyncThing folder and sync that out to 2 different nodes. - Clone stuff to an encrypted external drive at home. - Clone stuff to an encrypted external drive at work and hide it out in the datacenter (fire suppression, HVAC, etc). It's janky but it works. I used to use a safe deposit box", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764228754, "item_id": 47764297, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764297", "by": "noisy_boy", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Just switched from Backblaze to Cloudflare R2", "excerpt": "Just switched from Backblaze to Cloudflare R2 (using restic). Now it makes me think if I should check for such issues with R2 as well.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764296946, "item_id": 47768559, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768559", "by": "mk12", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Glad I switched from their personal computer backup", "excerpt": "Glad I switched from their personal computer backup to using restic + B2 a while ago. Every night my laptop and homelab both back up to each other and to B2. It takes less than a minute and I have complete control over the exclusions and retention. And I can easily switch off B2 to something else if I want.", "context": "", "use_case": "personal computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}], "who": [{"by": "Maximilian_Bet", "context": "Mac user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49989960", "date": "2026-10-07"}, {"by": "tristor", "context": "photographer using 3-2-1 backups", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586688", "date": "2026-06-18"}, {"by": "GTP", "context": "self-hoster", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "date": "2026-03-09"}, {"by": "horsawlarway", "context": "self-hosts 5-node k8s cluster at home", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46727403", "date": "2026-01-22"}, {"by": "anentropic", "context": "macOS user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46069309", "date": "2025-11-27"}, {"by": "theamk", "context": "sets up backups for non-technical friends", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45883594", "date": "2025-11-10"}], "tags": ["for Mac users", "for non-technical family", "with restic or Kopia", "for large data sets"], "use_cases": ["backup", "cloud backup", "computer backup", "backups", "storage", "off-site cloud backup"], "compared": [{"slug": "restic", "name": "restic", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "time-machine", "name": "Time Machine", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "rsync-net", "name": "rsync.net", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "backblaze-b2", "name": "Backblaze B2", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "cloudflare-r2", "name": "Cloudflare R2", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "syncthing", "name": "Syncthing", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47762864", "title": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data", "mentions": 13}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49986855", "title": "Ask HN: What Is Your Personal Backup Methods", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49666587", "title": "DeCloudflare", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48911452", "title": "Microsoft deleted my account and OneDrive", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585866", "title": "Ubiquiti: Enterprise NAS, Built on ZFS", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313152", "title": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 2, "compare": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {"warn": 11, "recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 799839361, "item_id": 49989960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49989960", "by": "Maximilian_Bet", "date": "2026-10-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Backblaze backs the external drive and all local working files (roughly 16TB altogether) up for ~$100/year.", "excerpt": "Mac: I use Parachute Backup to keep a local copy of my iCloud files and photos on an external drive. Backblaze backs the external drive and all local working files (roughly 16TB altogether) up for ~$100/year.", "context": "Mac user", "use_case": "cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Is Your Personal Backup Methods"}, {"id": 794672705, "item_id": 49667044, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49667044", "by": "dawnerd", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the free egress from backblaze.", "excerpt": "Same, I\u2019d rather not use them but there\u2019s really not much else out there that can offer what Cloudflare does for the price (free). In particular I love the free egress from backblaze. I\u2019d gladly jump ship if there was a competent competitor, even if paid\u2026 within reason.", "context": "", "use_case": "storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeCloudflare"}, {"id": 782630817, "item_id": 48914426, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48914426", "by": "jherskovic", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My wife\u2019s backups also go on BackBlaze", "excerpt": "Have a TrueNAS server at home with a bunch of drives in a RAID-Z array. Backups go there. My pictures, which are probably my single most important item, are also there but get cross-backed up to a very good friend\u2019s NAS in a different city. And his to mine. My wife\u2019s backups also go on BackBlaze because she would be much, much, much less tolerant of a local glitch than I would. TL;DR local-first backups here. Time Ma", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft deleted my account and OneDrive"}, {"id": 777387008, "item_id": 48586688, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586688", "by": "tristor", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "currently I primarily use Backblaze for that purpose but am considering alternatives for several reasons", "excerpt": "I use the 3-2-1 strategy for backups. I keep one copy off-site by using cloud backups, currently I primarily use Backblaze for that purpose but am considering alternatives for several reasons. I keep a second copy on an external SSD via Time Machine, and I keep one copy on-device. I'd like to use network Time Machine to get rid of the inconvenience of having a bunch of USB external SSDs floating around, especially si", "context": "photographer using 3-2-1 backups", "use_case": "off-site cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ubiquiti: Enterprise NAS, Built on ZFS"}, {"id": 764376208, "item_id": 47773513, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47773513", "by": "regalrubbish", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "it was a silent one. No banner, no email, no opt-out prompt", "excerpt": "I use local repos, no GitHub, no remote. My .git directories are my backup. Backblaze was the safety net. Past tense. The data I'd lose isn't recoverable from anywhere else. That's the entire point of an offline backup provider. If I wanted selective cloud sync I'd use a selective cloud sync product. What makes this worse than a bad decision is that it was a silent one. No banner, no email, no opt-out prompt, just a ", "context": "paying customer for years", "use_case": "offline backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764296946, "item_id": 47768559, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768559", "by": "mk12", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Glad I switched from their personal computer backup", "excerpt": "Glad I switched from their personal computer backup to using restic + B2 a while ago. Every night my laptop and homelab both back up to each other and to B2. It takes less than a minute and I have complete control over the exclusions and retention. And I can easily switch off B2 to something else if I want.", "context": "", "use_case": "personal computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764280416, "item_id": 47767526, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47767526", "by": "jtagen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I'm dropping Backblaze and recommending all my friends/customers do the same.", "excerpt": "Well shit. If this is right, I'm dropping Backblaze and recommending all my friends/customers do the same. I pay for and rely on Backblaze as the \"back up everything\" they advertise.... to silently stop backing up the vast majority of my work is unacceptable!", "context": "has friends/customers", "use_case": "computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764277616, "item_id": 47767351, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47767351", "by": "nodesocket", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Backblaze to backup my gaming PC.", "excerpt": "I use Backblaze to backup my gaming PC. While .git and Dropbox does not affect me it\u2019s worrisome that OneDrive is not backed up seeing as Windows 11 somehow automatically/dark pattern stores local files in OneDrive. You have to give Apple credit, they nailed Time Machine. I have fully restored from Time Machine backups when buying new Macs more times than I can count. It works and everything comes back to an identica", "context": "", "use_case": "gaming PC backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764273136, "item_id": 47767071, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47767071", "by": "runjake", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I already dropped Backblaze over this stuff and I do not intend to ever consider using them again.", "excerpt": "I already dropped Backblaze over this stuff and I do not intend to ever consider using them again. Now, I: - Put important stuff in a SyncThing folder and sync that out to 2 different nodes. - Clone stuff to an encrypted external drive at home. - Clone stuff to an encrypted external drive at work and hide it out in the datacenter (fire suppression, HVAC, etc). It's janky but it works. I used to use a safe deposit box", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764268768, "item_id": 47766798, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47766798", "by": "julianozen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this", "excerpt": "We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said \u201cno problem. This is why we pay for backblaze\u201d We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on", "context": "", "use_case": "parents' computer backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764236816, "item_id": 47764801, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764801", "by": "peteforde", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Weirdly, reading this had the net impact of me signing up to Backblaze.", "excerpt": "Weirdly, reading this had the net impact of me signing up to Backblaze. I had no idea that it was such a good bargain. I used to be a Crashplan user back in the day, and I always thought Backblaze had tiered limits. I've been using Duplicati to sync a lot of data to S3's cheapest tape-based long term storage tier. It's a serious pain in the ass because it takes hours to queue up and retrieve a file. It's a heavy enou", "context": "", "use_case": "computer backup", "switched_from": "Duplicati", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764230592, "item_id": 47764412, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764412", "by": "donatj", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Not backing up .git folders however is completely unacceptable.", "excerpt": "I can almost almost understand the logic behind not backing up OneDrive/Dropbox. I think it's bad logic but I can understand where it's coming from. Not backing up .git folders however is completely unacceptable. I have hundreds of small projects where I use git track of history locally with no remote at all. The intention is never to push it anywhere. I don't like to say these sorts of things, and I don't say it lig", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764228754, "item_id": 47764297, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764297", "by": "noisy_boy", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Just switched from Backblaze to Cloudflare R2", "excerpt": "Just switched from Backblaze to Cloudflare R2 (using restic). Now it makes me think if I should check for such issues with R2 as well.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764228706, "item_id": 47764294, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764294", "by": "corndoge", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Really lame behavior from backblaze", "excerpt": "I like backblaze for backups, but I use restic and b2. You get what you pay for. Really lame behavior from backblaze as I always recommended their native backup solution to others and now need to reconsider.", "context": "", "use_case": "native backup client", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764225472, "item_id": 47764092, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764092", "by": "tomkaos", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "VMware VMs files were excluded from the backup. They are so many exclusion", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been using it for years, and the one time I needed to restore a file, I realized that VMware VMs files were excluded from the backup. They are so many exclusion that I start doing physical backup again.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764214272, "item_id": 47763392, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47763392", "by": "klausa", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I've had Backblaze _fail to restore a file_.", "excerpt": "Exclusions are one thing, but I've had Backblaze _fail to restore a file_. I pay for unlimited history. I contacted the support asking WTF, \"oh the file got deleted at some point, sorry for that\", and they offered me 3 months of credits. I do not trust my Backblaze backups anymore.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 764210400, "item_id": 47763150, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47763150", "by": "o10449366", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "this kind of behavior seems like the first step on the path of enshittification", "excerpt": "I've recently been looking for online backup providers and Backblaze came highly recommended to me - but I think after reading this article I'll look elsewhere because this kind of behavior seems like the first step on the path of enshittification.", "context": "", "use_case": "online backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 757014850, "item_id": 47313428, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "by": "GTP", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "another on Backblaze", "excerpt": "Look into self-hosting. Start small with only one or two services that have a big impact on your privacy (e.g., backup of your phone's pics with Immich) and expand from there once you gained some experience. Things will go wrong, expecially in the beginning. So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that, one repository on an external SSD and another on Backblaze.", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "offsite backup storage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?"}, {"id": 755198657, "item_id": 47199916, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47199916", "by": "vulkoingim", "date": "2026-02-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "with backblaze and I periodically sync to a git repo for a second backup", "excerpt": "I used iCloud in the past, but found that syncing between a few devices sometimes left my notes in a weird state - sometimes overwritten, missing, etc. I switched some time ago to https://github.com/remotely-save/remotely-save with backblaze and I periodically sync to a git repo for a second backup. No issues since then.", "context": "", "use_case": "note sync storage backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "Obsidian Sync now has a headless client"}, {"id": 749627089, "item_id": 46851693, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46851693", "by": "dangus", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "something like tossing $5 a month at backblaze backup", "excerpt": "Apple should honestly just deprecate and remove it with the level of effort they put into Time Machine. Look, face it, Time Machine is not really what Apple wants you to do. They want you to buy cloud storage and just store your documents (desktop and documents in iCloud Drive) there. Photos are in the photos app. Etc. Maybe they should make a Time Machine cloud service to help them justify putting time into it just ", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe"}, {"id": 747638448, "item_id": 46727403, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46727403", "by": "horsawlarway", "date": "2026-01-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it's very cheap and the billing is fair (usage based billing", "excerpt": "The honest answer is because I backup a large number of other things to backblaze anyways. I went on a mission about 5 years ago to essentially stop paying for SaaS services if there was an opensource alternative available that I could self host. I have old machines lying around anyways since I was upgrading about every 5 years for gaming. So I have a 5 node k8s cluster in my basement serving about 20 different servi", "context": "self-hosts 5-node k8s cluster at home", "use_case": "backups of DBs, media, photos", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday"}, {"id": 737707985, "item_id": 46106749, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46106749", "by": "stavarotti", "date": "2025-12-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Time Machine and Backblaze", "excerpt": "An underrated and oft understated rule is always have backups, and if you're paranoid enough, backups of backups (I use Time Machine and Backblaze). There should be absolutely no reason why deleting files should be a catastrophic issue for anyone in this space. Perhaps you lose a couple of hours restoring files, but the response to that should be \"Let me try a different approach\". Yes, it's caveat emptor and all, but", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of whole drive"}, {"id": 737108944, "item_id": 46069309, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46069309", "by": "anentropic", "date": "2025-11-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "started using BackBlaze for backups", "excerpt": "I used to have big HDDs attached to my Thunderbolt dock. But it was always annoying having to 'eject' them before unplugging the laptop from the dock. Or sometimes overnight they would disconnect themselves and fill up my screen with dozens of \"you forgot to eject\" notifications. Yes I'm on macOS. Do NAS avoid this issue? Or you still have to mount/unmount? Why does there seem to be much more market for NAS than for ", "context": "macOS user", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "DIY NAS: 2026 Edition"}, {"id": 735716916, "item_id": 45982307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982307", "by": "monerozcash", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Backblaze might be a nicer backend to use.", "excerpt": "This needs more information. 5TB is far from \"BIG\" when it comes to cloud backups. You can probably get away with google drive+rclone+borg/restic/whatever, but it will be rather clunky. Backblaze might be a nicer backend to use. I use rsync.net with borg, but not sure about your budget. Their 1TB lifetime plan is very competitive though.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup backend", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is the current state of the art in BIG (>5TB) cloud backups?"}, {"id": 734137504, "item_id": 45883594, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45883594", "by": "theamk", "date": "2025-11-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've used Backblaze backup for a long time (for my non-techinical friends)", "excerpt": "> The current Backblaze client excludes non-physical drives not connected via a USB or Firewire connector. While this has been Backblaze's policy for some time, our Client Teams have taken steps to reduce the number of allowed exceptions. Ah, I see. The backblaze backup cost is not size-based - people pay per computer, and this includes all internal and external hard drives (the external ones have to be attached ever", "context": "sets up backups for non-technical friends", "use_case": "computer backups for friends", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze is silently breaking backups from Veracrypt drives without warning"}]}