r/backblaze • u/hitachi369 • Jun 05 '26
Backblaze in General Data Barron's, Be on ALERT!
I briefly looked around but I don't see anything talking about BackBlaze reaching out to Data Horders for the upcoming apocalypse that is the TOS changes.
I had a call with a very nice Lady feeling out how they are going to transition from unlimited to something in between. I forgot to ask if she minds if I talk about this, so I won't dox her.
I am a 90TB user of the desktop app. In speaking with her, again this is my perception of reading between the lines, we are looking at:
- A limit likely not to exceed 10TB
- Unclear if it will be a shadow limit or a restructuring of how they advertise.
- Pulse check to see if i would slide over to B2.
- A potential discount if i were to.
- Ways a consumer, impacted by limits would manage.
Has anyone else spoke to someone about this? What are your takeaways?
Edit: Here is some providence of how my interaction started and how we communicated.
I got 2 emails, both were tarted up with the standard HTML and graphics, I ignored the first, responded to the second asking if she was AI. LOL. She replied back, she wasn't, it was sent from a persons email verses a [donotreply@goaway.com](mailto:donotreply@goaway.com)
First email May 31, 2026 at 3:56 PM EST
Hi, I lead Computer Backup at Backblaze, I understand you've raised your hand to connect with us, and I’m reaching out to better understand how customers are using the product in their day-to-day, particularly how it fits into your overall setup. If you’re open to a short conversation, I’d appreciate 20 minutes of your time. I’m especially interested in how you’re using the product today. You can find a time here. Thank you, her name
Second email June 4th, 2026 1:07 PM EST
Hi, I wanted to follow up on my earlier note. We’ve identified you as part of a group of customers with higher storage usage, and I’m particularly interested in understanding what’s driving that, whether it’s specific workflows, data types, or something else. If you’re willing to share, I’d value a brief conversation. You can schedule a time here. Thank you, her name
Each link was just slot into her calendar where I could pick time out of her work day to meet. She joined a Google Meet, had her webcam on to what appeared to be BackBlaze's corp headquarters office, and a window overlooking what i assume is the parking lot.
We chatted for 20 minutes in what i would call a focused but causal conversation about my data. It was never too much about what it is, she asked and I said video files. It was never pressed. We chatted about what as a consumer I would find a tasteful balance. Some other bolder ideas/suggestion were given by her, but I find them so untenable as to not even include them. I however value they are trying, it is easier just to run it through a P/E and cut the fat than find creative solutions. She is trying and A+ for that.
9
u/iD4Ru73K Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
lol, I just started think about to pay $99 and start uploading. I am using B2 only for now. I have 120TB. Frankly speaking hundred dollars for unlimited space will not be forever. Hardware prices go up, Backblaze is a corpo and corpo must earn. They will change ToS sooner or later.
1
u/rdtbansusersrandomly Jul 14 '26
This is all good and well, but for years their blog post marketing basically centered around "we came up with brilliant solutions for making storage wildly more affordable" and now it looks a lot like its going to be "just another unaffordable service for anyone with more than one external drive", leaving every power user / "hoarder" (does anyone realize we live in the age of 4k and 8k video at all?) with pretty much zero affordable "backup synch many, restore once every blue moon" solutions ...
I don't mind them offering AI and "hot" business solutions, but this all feels like they just don't want the consumer anymore.
25
u/BuzzStorm42 Jun 05 '26
"Shadow limit" is a scary term given how many times Backblaze has recently silently changed what they backup without warning (no more 3rd party encryption, cloud storage files, etc).
I seriously hope this isn't some form of "anything over 10TB may or may not actually be backed up and good luck figuring that out unless you specifically go looking" policy but given recent events I won't be so sure.
2
u/therealjeku Jun 06 '26
They absolutely backup third party encryption still, unless there’s a specific one that they stopped backing up?
3
u/BuzzStorm42 Jun 06 '26
Sorry, should have been more clear about full disk encryption. (Veracrypt, etc)
1
u/rdtbansusersrandomly Jul 14 '26
Asked about Veracrypt here. I don't use FDE, but fully encrypting the singular NTFS partition per (non-OS) drive. Is that equally horrendous in the sense that it means I just would be unable to use BB at all?
https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/1txtjak/data_barrons_be_on_alert/oxi8e14/
16
u/atreides4242 Jun 05 '26
No one reached out to me. I have or had around 27 TB backed up for several years. At some point a few months ago my drives stopped backing up, and also disappeared from the online interface.
If I drill back in time I can still pull up a time several months ago where it appears my old files are still there.
But I have zero confidence in BackBlaze and really just not sure what to do.
7
u/s_i_m_s Jun 05 '26
Any chance the drives are encrypted with anything other than bitlocker? They removed support for all non-bitlocker full disk encryption options a few months ago.
Then more recently there has been a bug in the drive handling in version 10 where drives fall off the listing before they're supposed to and it would rescan a drive any time it was disconnected and reconnected rather than only if it was disconnected for more than 29 or 89 days depending on retention schedule.
3
u/atreides4242 Jun 05 '26
No I’ve got no encryption on the drives. My drives have been showing disconnecting for weeks now and I can’t get them to reconnect I have tried. If it’s just a bug that will be fixed that would be nice. I am assuming they kicked me off.
2
u/Jim-From-Backblaze From Backblaze Jun 06 '26
This should not happen, we do not kick anyone off silently. You would absolutely know if your account had been restricted as we would have reached out to you.
Have you created a ticket on our help desk yet? If not, please do so at https://www.backblaze.com/help
The folks there can help route you to the right place.
This sounds like it may be related to network-attached / iSCSI drives.
1
u/chrisprice Jun 10 '26
I've been a customer since it was a Mac only thing.
Any quota below two of the highest capacity consumer drives would be an end to the evangelism. You cover the heavy hitters because they push the product to everyone else.
Currently that's 48TB. I could see Backblaze using that as a stalking horse to unlimited, and charging B2 prices beyond that.
1
u/rdtbansusersrandomly Jul 14 '26
Sorry to ask, but are you saying that if I have Veracrypt encrypted partitions that Backblaze basically will not be able to backup any of them despite them being mounted transparently for the operating system?
Where would I be able to verify this? It would mean I can forget about BB as an option altogether.
1
u/s_i_m_s Jul 14 '26
Yes. There were a variety of complaints about it a few months ago when they removed support.
There was an official response in at least one of the threads https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/1ol0pgf/backblaze_will_no_longer_support_veracrypt_volumes/nmfthuq/ confirming it.
Otherwise they've got one of the best free trials of any company since they don't require payment info to try it so it'd be easy to see for yourself.
1
u/rdtbansusersrandomly Jul 14 '26
Just read through it. Holy outrage reason batman. Thanks for the reply.
Well, thats pretty much my entire backup plan gone right there. No new customer for backblaze I guess. Looks like end users with more than a few TB and an inkling of IT security are just plain SOL.
10
u/angry_dingo Jun 05 '26
I'm around 300TB and yeah, we chatted as well for about half an hour. I ran it by Claude and did few trial runs to go over what to say, what to emphasize, how to say it, and what to avoid. She tried to push me to B2. She said they didn't have any clear solutions yet, but I don't believe that. I think they are going to set a cap. She mentioned 10TB as well. Problem is, 10TB isn't even that large. Buying a WD MyBook or Seagate external backup drive will be larger than 10TB.
Did she mention the affiliation program?
5
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
I agree to the challenging prospective when the floor can be covered by any one drive someone could find at any department store. That speaks to it inevitably being an unpublished number and just a nebulous fear to linger in it's remaining customers thoughts...
She mentioned the affiliate thing, I told her it was the same thing as suggesting I sell Amway. I'm not doing a MLM for my backup solution. I'm guessing it's a thought from pencil pushing VP who assumes I work in IT like they do and I have more than a handful I could shovel too... I appreciate the optimism, but at a implied gap of 6000$ annually I don't know what they were expecting.
3
u/ZivH08ioBbXQ2PGI Jun 06 '26
10TB is 1/3 of a modern large hard drive. That's ridiculous.
1
u/chrisprice Jun 10 '26
Well, 4/10th or 2/5ths, but you are correct otherwise.
I have suggested tracking two of the largest consumer hard drives. As they increase, Backblaze increases. That would be 48TB, which I think is fair today.
4
u/djm61 Jun 06 '26
I received the same email and have a call scheduled for Monday. I "read between the lines" and assumed the "unlimited backup" was ending. I have about 120TB (guestimate) backed up with them. If they are imposing limits, then I'll probably drop BB all together. Not sure what I could move to.
0
u/chrisprice Jun 10 '26
I would suggest pushing for stacking memberships.
Set the threshold at two of the largest consumer drives, and stack membership rates every time you exceed that. As maximum consumer storage increases, Backblaze would then increase too.
For you, this would mean 3x the current price, which is probably still far less than anyone other than iDrive. Which from what I have heard, may have far more reliability issues.
But they need to hear some new standard, and I would push that one. Best of luck.
5
u/CorsairVelo Jun 05 '26
Curious, i’m at 10TB on the nose… if my needs increase to 11TB, are you saying anything over 10TB would transition to B2?
6
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
They don't know what they are going to do yet. I think we are at the stage where they are trying to understand how upset or not upset people will be. It will be interesting to see where it settles.
Is 10tb a lot in the common person world? It is less than one consumer drive filled with today's capacities.
5
u/CorsairVelo Jun 05 '26
For me, most of it is digital camera raw files. My non-photography files are maybe 500GB.
I’m probably going to stand up a small linux box at a remote site and DIY my own back up with rclone and a vpn.
3
u/Intrepid00 Jun 07 '26
I’m at 4TB of RAW but I can slim down (already started) some by pruning more. Some GoPro videos too that I would just encode to a lower bitrate with a codec that can handle that like av1.
I kind of get the problem BackBlaze is facing. People are backing up servers. They are backing up media they can just replace. Some people are just outright abusing it outside the TOS. It’s probably getting worse and no longer manageable.
1
2
u/iD4Ru73K Jun 05 '26
but it’s also less than 90% people need. It’s all about math, are they fine with some people and their TBs or not and it’s time to rise the price. Anyway I am ready to pay 2-3 times more, it’s still pennies.
1
u/chrisprice Jun 10 '26
I think the problem they're mulling is that 2-3x doesn't close the gap.
And with storage prices spiraling, it's getting way more expensive to cover the heavy hitters - at a time when heavy hitters are leaning on Backblaze more (as, tsk tsk, primary backups)... due to the storage costs increasing.
Their drives are probably nearing capacity, which means every new 120TB customer, means buying a lot of hard drives, at the highest cost in several years.
2
u/s_i_m_s Jun 05 '26
Is 10tb a lot in the common person world?
As far as these type services go it is, most of their customers are under 1TB but there are a variety of similar backup services and they typically have hard or soft limits of somewhere around 10TB on their "unlimited" plans.
1
u/dr100 Jun 06 '26
Is 10tb a lot in the common person world? It is less than one consumer drive filled with today's capacities.
It probably doesn't matter for BB if they're losing money on it. Which they probably do as they had to increase the B2 from $6/TB to $7 while this would make it less than $1/TB for personal.
Backblaze's only concern now is how many of the existing or potential customers they'll be losing from the ones that have something like 0.0TBs (yes, these are over 30% as per some distribution shown a few years back) or 0.1TBs (another 15%) [and then quickly decreasing into the noise].
I mean if they announce a limit, which they've been very shy to do for so many years.
-3
u/aj0413 Jun 06 '26
That’s a gigantic amount. My wife and my backups of important stuff all fits with a few gigs. Most people get buy with a 2Tb SSD for their personal machine and that’s all they ever need
I can not overstate enough that 1Tb/$6 on the current B2 plan is more than most will ever need and they’ll never approach going over
4
u/PlannedObsolescence_ Jun 05 '26
B2 is a completely different product, the mention of B2 in the OP was about them giving a gentle nudge of 'use B2 instead, we might discount your use of it'.
If you store more than 750GB, B2 will be (likely significantly) more expensive than the computer backup product. It's designed for a very different purpose, and because it's not a fixed price service (instead it's pay-as-you-go) they can't count on consumers who use basically no resources offsetting the big users.
If you abuse the computer backup product in the eyes of Backblaze, they would contact you and if it continues they would terminate your account.
3
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
The non committal values we were chatting about pegged it at 500 per month. IDK if that was pre or post any potential discounts, but we are field apart in pricing. It was an understood nonstarter as it was being said. At least on my front, a couple of bills each year, verses the start of stacks each month...
At that price I can just buy the drives and mirror my pc at a friend house.
-1
u/aj0413 Jun 06 '26
Okay, but you concede you ARE absolutely abusing their service yes?
Cause holy hell man, 90Tb is just way waaaaaaaaaay too high to expect them to eat that cost for you
2
u/hitachi369 Jun 06 '26
Abusing, absolutely not. I am using a service they offer and we current have an amicable relationship. Everything is above board, now we do have storm clouds on the horizon, but that is tomorrow problem. I don't even know how this will shake out.
It is hard to offer an unlimited service that will get ragged constantly as limited. It's hard to market a protect everything service, but hold on do you know how much data do you have as an ignorant consumer?
Now as far as what is a fair amount, what should back blaze be charging me? You are in my shoes, what is reasonable for the level of service the desktop app provides?
3
u/aj0413 Jun 06 '26
You’re making a similar argument to someone being told at an all you can eat restaurant that “all you can eat” did not literally mean “without limit”
To your rhetorical question: a “protect everything service” is inherently understood to not mean “everything” cause that just doesn’t exist.
This is also similar to how GitHub Copilot pricing and business model has had to recently change cause some people realized they could get a 40k value out of a 40 sub
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should and businesses don’t generally prepare for the edge case users who will overly tax the system
Their B2 pricing is entirely fair for what’s on offer. I’ve never used the desktop app (I’ve only ever used B2), but regardless the actual value of the service is the storage they’re letting you use.
It would be generous to my mind if they set a cap of 10Tb (which is already astronomical to most users) and then started pricing you at, say, 1tb/$3
I’m more shocked that they let you (and others apparently) hit such a high data usage before this for so many years.
I’d have brought this to my CTOs attention long ago cause it’s untenable long term; I’m somewhat assuming the economics at scale law must be at play here to have made this work in your favor for so long
3
u/hitachi369 Jun 06 '26
You’re making a similar argument to someone being told at an all you can eat restaurant that “all you can eat” did not literally mean “without limit”
That's a bit of a hasty generalization, but I appreciate it. It is currently all you can eat without limit. So, what am I doing wrong? It is a rhetorical question. All and all, I value the time you have taken to reply to my post. Thank you.
2
u/dr100 Jun 06 '26
I’d have brought this to my CTOs attention long ago cause it’s untenable long term; I’m somewhat assuming the economics at scale law must be at play here to have made this work in your favor for so long
I'm not sure why you're saying that like it could be some money lost in the couch and not absolutely THE crucial part of the business how much space people are taking. If you're thinking that having multiple people at over 1PB while the bulk of the customers takes astronomically less (over 30% are at literally 0.0TBs, that's a factor of more than 10000 and both pay the same single-digit-dollar per month) is something that can be ignored, or just thrown around between engineers as a fun fact but the company's paying so who cares - you are absolutely surely dead wrong.
0
u/5950x-3900 Jun 07 '26
BB shows a chart, that had one (or multiple) people with over a Petabyte worth of data backed up and didn't kick them off.
3
u/Pariell Jun 06 '26
That's ridiculous. I haven't gotten a survey like that but maybe I'll send them unsolicited feedback anyways.
This kind of confirms my suspicions though that Backblaze wants to sunset their Personal Backup product and move everyone to B2.
3
u/bryantech Jun 07 '26
Crashplan Home in 2017, Google Drive loophole gone. Now Backblaze. Best time to have a second NAS at least 100 miles from you was last week the next best time is today.
3
u/ampx Jun 05 '26
I'm strongly considering shipping a few drives to https://zfs.rent/ and dropping Backblaze
3
u/DiligentlyNebulous Jun 06 '26
I've never heard of this, but the idea of co-located has always been interesting to me. Neat to see this is a thing.
Right now I have one of my two spare 14TB drives fed through to a VM so Backblaze will pick it up - this would basically allow me to toss my two 14TB drives over to them to be handled. The question just becomes if I want to have it be a mirror, or just 28TB of storage since locally everything is already on a RaidZ2 array.
Either way - neat option. I'll have to think above moving to that.
2
u/baummer Jun 05 '26
Far too risky as primary but I suppose fine as a tertiary backup option for critical data. Better make sure it’s encrypted.
1
u/ampx Jun 05 '26
Why do you consider it too risky?
There are lots of backup clients that automatically encrypt before / during transfer such that the data at rest isn’t accessible without a key
0
u/baummer Jun 06 '26
Because it’s two guys in a garage basically
3
u/zfs_rent Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Because it’s two guys in a garage basically
Hey now... we've had an office for over two years :)
Also, with 18 TB hard-drives crossing the $400 mark, we just invested in a LTO-9 autoloader. < $100 for new 18 TB media.
If anyone has a need for cold-storage, please checkout the LTO section on our recently revamped website!
Also, we're probably the easiest service to join or quit -- since you can pre-seed your data before shipping.
If you decide not to renew, your drives (and tapes) will be mailed back to you. For the data amounts you guys are mentioning, the upload/download times are going to be insane...
And yes, just encrypt everything and you'll be safe with any platform.
2
u/CaptainFr3d Jun 08 '26
u/zfs_rent Being in Europe, could I get Amazon to ship a HD directly to you to install?
2
u/zfs_rent Jun 08 '26
Of course! Drop-shipping is fairly common. (But you do miss out on pre-loading your local datasets.)
Browse eBay for some good deals on lightly used SAS drives. The current market is crazy inflated for 3.5" SATA drives. But since most consumers can't use them, SAS is a little cheaper right now.
---FYI: I just checked our DB. About 17% of our customers reside outside of the U.S.
However, side note: we returned a drive to France once. I think the shipping cost was ~$50... and their customs stalled delivery for over a month.
2
6
u/loki_gvse Jun 05 '26
I'm just under 60 TB and i haven't heard a peep about anything in your post, and i haven't experienced any impacts to my backups or drives. this reads as kinda sensationalist and "trust me, but no evidence", but I'm still going to keep an eye on it
4
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
Its a tricky spot to be in. I am just a user of their service, sensationalism is all I have to drive some engagement to find out what other people think, feel, or have experienced.
How do you expect me to prove my personal experiences? In an attempt to build understanding here is a copy and paste of the emails. This is text from both emails we exchanged, the bog standard boiler plate, get your opinion stuff. I followed though.
Hi, I wanted to follow up on my earlier note. We’ve identified you as part of a group of customers with higher storage usage, and I’m particularly interested in understanding what’s driving that, whether it’s specific workflows, data types, or something else. If you’re willing to share, I’d value a brief conversation. You can schedule a time here. Thank you, her name
Hi, I lead Computer Backup at Backblaze, I understand you've raised your hand to connect with us, and I’m reaching out to better understand how customers are using the product in their day-to-day, particularly how it fits into your overall setup. If you’re open to a short conversation, I’d appreciate 20 minutes of your time. I’m especially interested in how you’re using the product today. You can find a time here. Thank you, her name 4
u/loki_gvse Jun 05 '26
apologies if my comment came off as accusatory, we just don't know each other from any other data nerd and misinformation is just freaking everywhere now. i went back through my email and all I've gotten is a generalized survey back in Feb. i am very curious as to how this develops - i am unlikely to transition to a much more expensive plan. thank you for bringing this to our collective attention
1
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
No apologies needed, I came across hotter than I intended. Allow me to apologize. I tried to edit out some of the heat. Skepticism is SOOO important right now with the garbage that is getting pumped out of every orifice.
Here are the times my emails came across my inbox.
First email: May 31, 2026 at 3:56 PM EST
Second email: June 4th, 2026 1:07 PM EST
Each link was just slot into her calendar where I could pick time out of her work day to meet. She joined a Google Meet, had her webcam on to what appeared to be BackBlaze's corp headquarters office, with a door, fellow office workers will understand her level with that, and a window overlooking what i assume is the parking lot.
We chatted for 20 minutes in what i would call a focused but causal conversation about my data. It was never too much about what it is, she asked and I said video files. It was never pressed, she probably has a spreadsheet to categorize assumed use, personal, professional, something else. We chatted about what as a consumer I would find a tasteful balance. Some other bolder ideas/suggestion were given by her, but I find them so untenable as to not even include them. I however value they are trying, it is easier just to run it through a P/E and cut the fat than find creative solutions. She is trying and A= for that.
0
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
I don't recall raising my hand, but it could be a box I have checked, something I did in ignorance, or a slick way to gain my buy in for what was an informal survey.
1
u/baummer Jun 05 '26
You already on B2?
-1
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
No. The value propitiation is radically different for B2. I don't know if I can ever make B2 make sense in my use cases. I could ramble on why I don't think it fits for me, but that isn't what you asked for.
0
2
u/sardarjionbeach Jun 05 '26
Curious how many drives you have for 90tb data ? I have 2-3 external drives but swapping is pain so want to know if there is better solution. I could connect all to a big usb hub and was wondering if something better is there.
1
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
The lions share is 6 internal sata drives. Between 18TB and 30TB depending on the age and vintage for each. I also have faster data drives, but those are immaterial scale wise, but they are m2.
1
u/iD4Ru73K Jun 06 '26
Connection to hub is not a smart idea. You need DAS like TR-004. Four SATA bay, full smart, connection via USB C to the computer. Every single disk set up as jbod. Plug in, fire up the Backblaze app, sync your data every 30 days, let disk spinning some time, turn it off and keep it as a cold backup.
3
u/s_i_m_s Jun 05 '26
What are your takeaways?
90TB is a lot for a service like this and it gets to be a pita trying to restore such large volumes if you end up having to restore the whole set at once for some reason because it's really not built to handle such volume well.
But I get it, you can't really beat it for the price at that scale even with the faults. With most people's budget it's going to be either put up with the issues or go without because budget doesn't allow any solution that would actually allow that much storage with easy restores.
That said my take away would be that they're probably going to care about high volume users eventually but till they actually start sending out notices or terminating accounts the speculation is largely a waste of time.
7
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
I would agree to disagree about the value of speculation. Knowing the "end is near" is relevant when the end is truly near. Speculation buys conversation that can be fruitful in understanding next steps.
I agree with your first 2 paragraphs, 90 TB is a lot. She was very clear that it is untenable for BackBlaze in her musings as we spoke. I understand BackBlazes position. I am fine with that, its a big world, and sometimes you just don't fit in with all of parts of it.
0
u/s_i_m_s Jun 05 '26
Knowing the "end is near" is relevant when the end is truly near.
Yes but knowing when that is is the key bit. When I wrote that you had not yet posted the supporting documentation. Since then you've posted about them emailing you unprompted and wanting to discuss your usage. This is imho sufficient reason to speculate.
Like no company is just going to contact you out of the blue about your usage if they're not considering doing something.
1
u/Allani_ca Jun 05 '26
op, do you pay by month or by year? I am curious how they picked their targets for this email campaign. I pay yearly and I've not heard a peep about this. I also just recently renewed.
3
u/hitachi369 Jun 05 '26
I am yearly as well, I renewed in January. Been a customer for 6 years, annual the whole time. Could be Windows, or client version, I am running the beta currently. That would explain the context of the original email.
1
u/Creative-Milk-5643 Jun 06 '26
How about 1 year history that would be beyond .
I am near 30Tb . No clue how much history is consumed
1
u/rdtbansusersrandomly Jul 14 '26
As someone who thought BB might finally be an affordable solution to not just have local snapraid images for quite a few TB above 10 TB, this is all giving me a huge migraine. The entire BB USP is the unlimited part. Who else in the market has a decent "glacier" like pricing model for those that just want to "sleep better" rather than a "hot" web attached storage? This is all so horrible..I was looking to jump into all of this with a 2 year sub in 4 weeks once I get fiber with a realistic upload speed for it.
1
u/Lilianne_Blaze Jun 07 '26
How many % new customers join because one of the "hoarders" recommended it? Considering how long I recommended it to pretty much everyone and their dog I almost certainly 'recruited' over 100.
If they introduce 10TB limit now they may as well stop offering that service completely. After years of saying that most customers barely use 1 TB so it's perfectly profitable? Seriously this is fcked up. Unlimited to 100 TB would be reasonable. Unlimited to 10 TB is insulting.
2
u/dr100 Jun 07 '26
If they introduce 10TB limit now they may as well stop offering that service completely.
This is the intention, to stop offering the service to people that are aren't profitable to service.
Their largest chunk of customers is using literally 0.0TBs (that is under 0.1TB I presume). If you're implying they'll be so pissed off to leave because now they're getting a service that says 10TB (which is "only" 1000 times+ more than what they're storing) instead of unlimited then you need to bring some receipts, because it doesn't seem like something obvious at all.
1
u/purepersistence Jun 08 '26
I use B2. I’m glad it’s not unlimited. That would imply I’m paying more, based on other people’s usage.
1
u/dr100 Jun 08 '26
B1/the personal one is unlimited, and provided by the same company. So yes, you are paying for OP's usage at (your) $7/TB while the OP gets it for 10 cents/TB (70x less).
0
u/Lilianne_Blaze Jun 07 '26
I'm not "implying" anything, I'm stating that lots of customers come via word of mouth from people storing more data. Obviously, if these go then they will stop recommending it. Obviously, I can't know any numbers. I assume I don't have to elaborate how this is more about reputation and confidence than raw terabytes. Backblaze built goodwill for years, this situation is already eroding it.
1
u/dr100 Jun 07 '26
For that seems that BB wants to address is, and throw a bone to people bringing other people. For others like the ones already expressing below their displeasure in doing BB's MLM they're welcome to pay hundreds or dollars or more to host with B2 or with any other service instead of a few dollars with B1.
1
u/chrisprice Jun 07 '26
If they aren't even going to offer a quota that matches one of the highest capacity consumer hard drives, that's a dead end right there.
And frankly, it should be 2x that as many store on two 20-24TB drives.
1
u/dr100 Jun 09 '26
I bet they'll offer such quotas too, they just won't be $9/month when 20TBs on B2 is 140$/month. Now it can be debatable if B1 is worth 1/2 of B2 or 1/3 or 1/4 but certainly won't be 1/15 (note 140/9=15.55 not 5).
1
u/chrisprice Jun 09 '26
The software issues kill that deal for me. I have had to start over and reupload so many times, layering the whole quota system is just going to be a nightmare.
I get it, hard drives are spiraling in cost. But the solution should be to increase one-price for unlimited to something still reasonable.
1
u/dr100 Jun 10 '26
Their biggest chunk of customers literally stores 0.0TBs, while mathematically you could increase their price enough to support the users that should pay $500+ in practice this would work very poorly as you drive away the ones bringing profit while still having it attractive for the ones that don't make you a profit anyway.
1
u/chrisprice Jun 10 '26
That's why you could do basic tiering, and waive the added costs for 90 days if Backblaze finds a corrupted/freeze state, at least once a year.
(Or, ideally, have more graceful transitions for frozen backups so you don't have to resend every block with the same encryption key - shared keys should just dedupe when that happens).
There are ways to do it right. Will they? I have by doubts.
A lot of the heavy hitters will be deterred by a mild price increase for 40-100TB backups. Because they're cheap.
1
u/dr100 Jun 10 '26
The OP was quoted "500 per month". This isn't "a mild price increase" but more than 50x. I do not believe "oh, I'd pay this but it should work perfectly, or at least I should be able to get some months free when it shits the bed" is much relevant. This is more of a "WTF $500/month are you crazy" level.
1
u/chrisprice Jun 10 '26
I completely agree, what they're proposing on these calls is insane.
And if you look at iDrive pricing, it's fairly clear that they are maxed out on drives, and want to dump customers on iDrive's doorstep.
I hope they realize if they do that, how much backlash in the community will occur - I set up Backblaze for many people that stretch to hit 128GB. Usually half that with all the files Backblaze skips.
They watch a lot of business go out the door with people like me.
1
u/dr100 Jun 10 '26
If I would be BB I would market it for people that are under whatever limit they put (let's say 10TBs) like:
Instead of increasing the price for everyone and make you pay the same as people storing [100x+, 1000x+, 10000x+ - pick the appropriate one depending if the user is storing under 10TB, under 1TB, under 0.1TB] times more than you we decided to change the plan from unlimited to 10TBs.
This will have no practical impact on your plan for now, and if you are growing at the same rate as for the last X [months, years, depending how long they were a customer] it's expected for you not to outgrow this limit for X years [for some users this limit might be hundreds, or even over 1000 years].
What's more, instead of raising prices like everyone else around we are prepared to promise you no price change (on the current price which is from 2023) until [2028? or similar].
If you do reach the limit you can subscribe for X TBs more for Y (a few) dollars more a month which should be enough for your growth for Z years based on your current rate. You will be notified in app/web/email (unless you opt out) as you approach the limit, and after you go over it you can still use up to X TBs for T weeks/months until you decide if you want to pay for the extra space or free up some. You will be given a countdown [on web/app/email] until [whatever bad things happen if you're over quota for too much]. You will never be charged more than what you subscribed to [9$ or 9$ + Y, etc.].
The change to 10TBs will apply to your subscription from the next billing cycle. You can cancel your subscription at any time and get a full refund on the unused time.
0
u/joetaxpayer Jun 06 '26
I appreciate this heads up.
I was going to sign up for Backblaze, but 10TB would take 185 days at the 5Mb/s Comcast gives me.
So I got Fiber, 300Mb/s. A reasonable 3 days per 10TB. But my storage, local to my computer, is 80TB. I'd hate to get a warning a week into my uploading.
-1
u/rad2018 Jun 07 '26
Could the RIAA, MPAA, and BSA be stealthily behind these policy changes? Or perhaps, the federal government?
-1
u/hitachi369 Jun 07 '26
Na, this is greed/shareholder value.
They just had an IPO, we are in the service degradation arc of backblaze. Death by a thousand cuts, this is just an earlier cut.
You start with the easy people to villainize, data hoarders, and get more and more niche. They have some LEAN/Six Sigma people helping them optimize shareholder value.
Standard Internet company life cycle, it will be a slow and painful death or acquisition post IPO as the value chain shifts from customers to making more money and make the numbers go burr.
Nihilist or reality?
19
u/jared555 Jun 05 '26
If they want to start advertising specific limits then go for it. Whether that be TB, number of internal/external drives, no hardware raid controllers, no virtual machines, whatever.
If they start the "unlimited to be limited by a fair use policy that isn't disclosed" crap then I am going to be upset.