Yesterday was World Backup Day, so this seemed like the perfect time to mention that a critical part of your backup strategy is to have a copy of your critical data off-site. That could mean a hard-drive in your safe deposit box, but using an online backup service is a much better option. A backup service is not only going to be much farther away from you in the event of a regional catastrophic event like a flood, fire, or storm. It is also going to have the benefit of having professionals monitor the backup servers, and have backups of their own.
Backblaze, the service that I use has all that and much more. Backblaze runs in the background on my Mac and uploads the data either constantly, at a time I select, or on demand. With its default settings, it will back up all my data, but I can also select folders to include or exclude as my needs dictate.
One of the big benefits to Backblaze is that it will also backup anything connected to your Mac, so if you have a large hard drive or two as extra storage, they can be included in the backup. The only requirement is that those drives have to be connected at least once every 30 days so that Backblaze can verify them. If they are disconnected longer than that, the data will be deleted from the BackBlaze servers.
- Backblaze Mac Backup Free
- Backblaze Backup Services
- Backblaze Backup Mac Photos
- Backblaze Mac Backup App
If you use virtual machines (VMs) on your Mac, Backblaze can back them up, but there's some things you should know. This information applies primarily to VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop, but will also apply to VirtualBox and other virtualization software titles. A Mac's Boot Camp partition can not be backed up using these methods.
Finally, Backblaze will let you “seed” your backup by sending them a hard drive, and can deliver a hard drive filled with your data in the event of a loss at your location. While that does come at a price, it is easier than trying to download terabytes of information when time is an important factor.
There are other services out there and I’ve had some less-than-pleasant experiences with some of them. I’ve had no issues with Backblaze, and can recommend them highly.
Backblaze is one of a few photo backup systems that I use. When I first started getting into photography, I had a hard drive with some of my first digital photos and negative scans on it. I lost the power cable to the hard drive, and then the hard drive eventually went missing after moving a few times. At the time, I had no cloud backups or copies of these photos. The photos are gone. Forever 😿.
- Back up using Time Machine, Clone your hard disk daily to a disk connected to your Mac or Use a cloud backup or peer-to-peer backup service. These three strategies, are available. In this post we will be discussing Crashplan and Backblaze (cloud backup).
- P.S.: If any Backblaze employee reads this - A local program to decrypt and download my Backup would be great. As i understand it now, i would need to hand you my key on your website for an online restore which looks like a security threat to me. I would prefer if my Backup would get decrypted locally.
Backing up photos with Backblaze is a solid option if you don’t want to lose any of your photos or digital files. Backblaze makes it easy because they have a simple app for your computer and an easy-to-use-web interface. If you encounter a drive failure, Backblaze can even send you a replacement hard drive with all of your photos and digital files.
How much does Backblaze cost?
Backblaze is currently $5/mo and $50/year.
I like Backblaze because the desktop app (I use the Mac app) is simple to use. It runs in the background and backs up your photos quickly. In the past, I recovered a 200GB hard drive from Backblase and the process was very seamless!
There are no limits on how much you can back up, either. You’re able to download a ZIP file of your data or have your data sent to a location of your choice. Your data is safe because everything is encrypted. I’ve been using Backblaze for almost three years, and it’s been a seamless and passive way to back up my photos.
See why Backblaze is great!
Backblaze Mac Backup Free
You'll get three months for free! The free trial is a great way to evaluate if Backblaze is right for you.
Sign up for BackblazeBackblaze vs Carbonite vs Crashplan
Backblaze has an excellent guide describing the differences between Backblaze vs. Crashplan. Some of the major takeaways for my uses are the various restoring options and being able to back up multiple external hard drives.
Backblaze has a similar guide for choosing the difference between Backblaze vs. Carbonite. The big difference falls in price. The Carbonite Basic plan has a lot of features that are useful, but are only included in their more expensive Carbonite Prime plan. The most significant advantages that I see are backing up multiple hard drives and some various recovery options.
Why is Backblaze good for photographers?
Backblaze has less customization over which data you want to back up than its competitors do. I think this is an advantage for Backblaze because the external drives that I want to backup only contain photo and video files. There are no selective sync options that I need to enable with my backup drives.
There’s an interface for browsing and restoring your files. With my backup system, I have a few hard drives and partitions that split up my workflow. I don’t always have my external hard drives with me, and that could cause a problem if I needed to access a file. With Backblaze, it’s almost like you did have all of your external hard drives, because you can access whatever you need. You can even search for a specific file name and get a breakdown of where those files exist. I don’t recommend that you treat this as a way to normally access files. But, in a pinch, you can find the files that you’re looking for if need be.
There’s no limit to the size of a file or the total backup size. If you have 5000 TB worth of photos, you’re technically able to back them up (although I bet they might contact you and try to figure out why you have so many photos).
Why is Backblaze a good backup service?
There’s more to Backblaze than the typical features, the low price and the its quality app. Under the same account, you’re able to enable B2 Cloud Storage. With B2, you can back up a RAID system and other large amounts of data. B2 is considered cold storage, and you pay to access and store. Because I travel so often, it doesn’t make sense to own a NAS drive, like Synology or something else. When I’m ready to have a stable office, a NAS is on the top of my list. To back up that NAS, B2 is my go-to option.
With Backblaze, you can share files with anyone. This is good if you have large files that you don’t want to store on Dropbox. You’re easily able to create a share link and have someone download your file. This sharing capability is only a feature on B2.
Backblaze Backup Services
One feature that isn’t mentioned too often is the ability to locate your computer. If your laptop is stolen or you somehow forget where you left it, you can sign into your Backblaze account and locate your laptop. Computer theft is tricky, because computers often get stripped and sold for the parts that make them up. Using this feature of Backblaze is one additional measure that you can take to try and locate a stolen machine.
How can you get started with Backblaze?
If you’re interested in starting a trial with Backblaze to start backing up all of your photos, check out their website. When you sign up, you’ll get three months for free! Without Backblaze, I wouldn’t feel ensured that my photos are safe and secure. This is one of the best options that you can choose to back up your photos.
See why Backblaze is great!
You'll get three months for free! The free trial is a great way to evaluate if Backblaze is right for you.
Sign up for BackblazeHow I use Backblaze
I made a video talking about my hard drive thought process and how I back up everything with Backblaze.
Why photo backups with Backblaze is important?
Backblaze Backup Mac Photos
I use external hard drives for all of my photo backups. External hard drives are the easiest to travel with, and they’re inexpensive. You can find 2TB hard drives for about $150. You can find a 500GB solid state hard drive for about $100. Without backing up your photos, there’s very little you can do if your main working hard drive fails.
If your working hard drive does fail, you can pay a lot of money to try and have the data recovered. If you have any backup system, you don’t have to worry about any data loss if you have a hard drive failure.
I think of digital photos the same way that I think of physical photos. I have a lot of physical photos from my childhood that don’t exist anymore. I want to make sure that my digital photos live on forever so that I can share them many years in the future.
Backblaze Mac Backup App
Last updated on February 11th, 2021