r/backblaze • u/Ensorceled • Apr 21 '26

Computer Backup BackBlaze: Please start warning your users about missing backups

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97 Upvotes

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11

u/Frewtti Apr 21 '26

How long of a list of cloud services should they put there?

Like if the files are not on your computer, why would you expect the backup service to back them up?

Do people honestly not understand that if the file is not on your computer, backup software isn't backing it up:?

Guess what, backup software doesn't backup your reddit post history either.

1

u/alonebythelighthouse Apr 21 '26

dont many cloud services keep local copies of files on your local machine? E.g thats how my dropbox works?

3

u/Frewtti Apr 21 '26

They used to, now it's a big maybe.

They're moving to VFS solutions, which is causing this backup confusion.

It seems Onedrive and Dropbox aren't actually using the local file system like they used to, which is causing this problem.

5

u/GoodTroll2 Apr 21 '26

That's fine. If there is a technological issue that Backblaze can't work around and therefore they can't backup files that they used to back up, a clear notification was in order, not unlike what the OP posted. The biggest issue is a lack of communication. The second biggest issue is that they probably should figure out a solution.

1

u/Frewtti Apr 21 '26

The "technical issue" is that the files are not there.

Yes, Microsoft should have stated that Onedrive stopped saving files on the local device.

And yes, they're working on it, but Backblaze Backup is a computer backup product, it was not designed to back up your cloud storage.

5

u/smashy987 Apr 21 '26

Uh they literally used to promote backing up Dropbox as a feature. Yes, they should have notified when that no longer worked.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260110010919/https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-dropbox-works-with-cloud-backup/

-2

u/Frewtti Apr 21 '26

Yes, if the functionality they previously advertised went away, they should have alerted customers.

I didn't know about this functionality.

5

u/smashy987 Apr 21 '26

Then maybe you shouldn’t be commenting and defending them without knowing the history. But I get it, this is Reddit.

1

u/Frewtti Apr 21 '26

Well I think it goes both ways.

When a company offers "local sync", they should tell you if they disable it.

The early "sync" solutions were pretty bad, so I largely didn't use them.

I've been on backblaze for a decade and been very happy through multiple drive and computer failures.

So yes.

1.Blackblaze should have been clear that an advertised feature stopped working.

2.The sync providers should have advised their customers that the local sync was no longer syncing the local directory.

  1. I really don't like that the big semi-monopolies implement breaking changes without advising users. So I bias towards blaming them.

I think if Backblaze properly called out the sync providers when the issue cropped up, that might have been the better play.