Backblaze has made a new release available. All users are scheduled to automatically upgrade over the next two weeks. Below are the enhancements in this release:

Release Date: 7/20/10
Version: 1.5.0
Auto-Update: All Users

In addition to various minor fixes and enhancements, there are two key new features:

1. Backup Of Individual Files Up To 9 GB
Despite most photos, songs, and documents being just a few megabytes each, Backblaze has always supported backing up individual files up to 4 GB (1000 times bigger) to ensure we captured even your full-length HD movies. However, once in a while we had users tell us they have even larger files: extra-long HD movies, raw footage from photographers and videographers, Outlook files in certain businesses, and more. So, in this latest release, we added support for backing up uber-large files up to 9 GB.

A question we sometimes get asked is: “My iPhoto, Aperture, or Lightroom file that contains all my pictures is bigger than that. Will it get backed up?” Yes. All of those store the files individually inside what is called a “Package” on the Mac. Backblaze sees that it is a package and backs up all the individual files inside of it - which are typically a mere few megabytes.

The default remains 4 GB for existing and new installs since this will not be necessary for most people. However, all it takes is a flick of a menu item to change it if you do.

How do you take advantage of this new maximum file size?
* Update to the new release (or wait to be auto-updated within 2 weeks.)
* Open the Backblaze Preference Panel > Settings > Exclusions.
* Change the “Do not backup files larger than:” setting to “9000 MB”.

2. Transfer Backup State

“Do I need to upload all my data again?”

We have heard this question many times in the past. Users upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 or buying new computers to replace old ones want their backup magically tied to their new setup. Transfer Backup State enables this to happen easily.

When would you use Transfer Backup State?
* You are upgrading the operating system on your computer.
* You are buying a new computer to replace an old computer.
* When your old computer died AND you already restored data to your new computer.

When would you NOT use Transfer Backup State?
* When your old computer died. (Instead, you should restore your data ASAP.)

How do you Transfer Backup State?
Windows: http://www.backblaze.com/help-transfer-backup-win.html
Mac: http://www.backblaze.com/help-transfer-backup-mac.html

I spent a little time creating something we can hang on the wall that isn’t a post-it-note or print outs. The white doggy Tiffany was one the early fans of Backblaze.

Wow. Seagate just announced the world’s first 3 TB drive. Called the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk, it’s big enough to hold about 1,000 full-length HD movies or 1 million digital photos or songs.

It is also twice the size of the Seagate drives we used in the Backblaze Storage Pod when we published the design in September. Switching to the 3 TB hard drives in our storage pods would mean one Backblaze Storage Pod would hold 135 TB of data: 45,000 full-length HD movies or 45 million digital photos or songs. That is one monster collection of media.

The Seagate 3 TB hard drives are only available for external use only at this point, so we can’t actually put them into our storage pods - but we’re keeping an eye out. If you want one one of these drives for yourself, they’re $250 at Seagate. (Note that you need to be using a 64-bit OS to take advantage of all the space.)

For my estimates, I’m assuming an HD movie is 3 GB (as Hot Tub Time Machine on iTunes is when I just looked at it a second ago) and a photo or song is 3 MB (as they are with a 5 megapixel camera and downloaded from iTunes respectively.)

For the third year in a row, Om Malik and team put on a fantastic event about cloud computing last week. The GigaOm Structure 2010 event was bursting at the seams as people filled the main room to capacity (with a recurring plea by MC Joe Weiman asking people to try and find seats before the fire marshall drags them away for blocking the doors and aisles.)

The schedule included a main room with two days of panels and three breakout sessions during each of the breaks and lunches. Far too much information was shared to be conveyed in a blog post, and you can watch the full videos online, but I will summarize some of the takeaways I gleaned. Also, here is a link to people’s Tweets using the hashtag #structureconf using Searchtastic since search.twitter.com only goes back about a week.

Cloud is Here
For those of us in the space, this seems like a comment from yesteryear. But this year, the cloud has leapt from the believers to the masses. Discussions about “What is the cloud?” or “Isn’t the cloud just a return to the mainframe?” were nearly non-existent. Instead, the discussions were “How do we move our applications into the cloud?”, “How do we manage a blend of using the cloud and internal systems?”, “How do we scale our cloud?”, etc.

Even the federal government has become a huge proponent of cloud computing with Federal CIO Vivek Kundra making it one of his primary initiatives. Vivek started Apps.gov (a cloud computing resource for federal government agencies) and even Treasury.gov and Recovery.gov are built on cloud services.

Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon Web Services said, “Talk becomes action - because people have understood that it will be a competitive disadvantage not to take advantage of the cloud.”
Continue reading…

Did you get your new iPhone 4 (or upgrade to iOS 4)?

I created some iPhone 4 Wallpapers (640×960) you may enjoy. They’re free to use.

How to Switch the Wallpaper:
* Open this blog post on your iPhone.
* Click on the one image you like (including the one with the flame) to open it.
* Click and hold on the image > Save Image
* Open Photos > Camera Roll
* Click the icon in the lower left corner > Use as Wallpaper.

Enjoy.

Backblaze has made a new release available and all users are scheduled to be automatically upgraded over the next two weeks. Below are the enhancements in this release:

Release Date: 6/21/10
Version: 1.0.7
Auto-Update: All Users

* Protocol changes to add efficiency and reliability.
* Minor security enhancements.
* Rolls up changes from previous versions which were not set to automatically update.

Are you one of the several million people to have bought an iPad already?

If so, you can now access your files backed up with Backblaze directly from your iPad. Since the iPad only handles a few filetypes by default (and can’t unzip packages or compressed files), get the excellent Good Reader application ($0.99) to view file types including: Microsoft Office, Apple iWork, PDF, photos, audio, and video.

See the video below for a quick demo:

Enjoy the service and send us any interesting stories of how you ended up using this.

And don’t forget that if you don’t have one yet, you can win an iPad by installing Backblaze or referring a friend this month!

In 2008 we started deploying our storage pods and in September 2009 we gave away the design on our blog in a post titled, “Petabytes on a budget - How to build cheap cloud storage.” This weekend we deployed our 100th Backblaze Storage Pod.

For those of you counting, that’s:
* 100 pods
* 4,500 spinning hard drives
* 6,668 terabytes (6.5 petabytes) of storage

Below is a picture (taken on a first generation iPhone this morning) of one set of racks in the data center. You can see the 100th pod at the very end of this row.

Onward to the next 100 storage pods

Losing all of your photos forever.
Paying iTunes a second time to buy all your music again.
Pulling your hair out when your computer won’t boot.
…if these reasons aren’t enough to backup your computer, we’re giving you one more:
A free Apple iPad.

Every computer that starts backing up in June will be entered to win an iPad.
* Already backed up your desktop? What about your laptop?
* Already backed up your PC? What about your Mac?
* Already backed up your home computer? What about your work computer?
Start backing up any of them and you will be entered to win!

But you say, I care about my data and already backup all my computers with Backblaze!
No problem.

Refer a friend, family member, or co-worker to start backing up -
BOTH of you will be entered to win an iPad.
* They will be entered to win an iPad as the one who started backing up.
* You will win an iPad if they win an iPad.

Want to increase your chances?
Recommend users backup with Backblaze on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Some more details:
* Backblaze must be installed initially on the computer between June 1-30, 2010.
* Installing multiple times on one computer does not increase your chances of winning.
* Apple iPads being awarded are 16 GB versions ($499 value each.)
…oh, and aside from an iPad, you’re really going to be happy that you’re backed up!

Has it been a year already? It feels like just yesterday I was writing about our last survey with Harris Interactive where we ask how often people backup their computers. Well, it’s June again and we re-ran the survey.
* Good news: Fewer people are not doing regular backups (92% now vs. 94% last year).
* Bad news: 92% of people are still not regularly backing up.

The trend to backup is in the right direction, but has a long way to go.

To help, we’re going to give away two Apple iPads this month to people who backup.

Do you have a new computer you’ve been meaning to get backed up?
Are your parents backing up their computers with all their kid photos on them?
Are you friends backing up their computer?
What about your co-workers?

You know how easy it is to start backing up:
* Visit www.backblaze.com and click Start Backing Up
* Enter an email and password
* You’re done!
Starting to get backed up takes less time than checking your email.

Backblaze has made a new release available. Release is very minor, thus users will not be automatically upgraded. A future release will include these items and automatically upgrade all users.

Release Date: 6/10/10
Windows Version: 1.0.6.263
Mac Version: 1.0.6.264
Auto-Update: None

Usability
* Slightly updated icons in Backblaze Preference Pane/Control Panel

Exclusions
* Added exclusions for temporary filetypes created in iPod Photo Cache (created by iPhone, iPad, etc.)

Ok, maybe not quite the marriage…but at least the sanity leading up to it.

My friend Vlad was planning his wedding recently and posted this on Facebook a couple days before the actual event:

Vlad is grateful for Backblaze.. phew

I asked him what happened and wanted to share his reply:

we’ve been going *nuts* over the last few weeks finishing last minute details, running errands, etc etc. it’s been exhausting and tonight i’m practically delirious. while putting the last minute touches on our wedding playlist… a playlist we’ve spent hours on btw, i accidentally deleted it. gone! holy crap. seriously, i was ready to kill someone, maybe myself… i was totally exasperated. but luckily, i was able to download the old itunes file from backblaze…. oh man.

if it wasn’t for that, my sanity would be gone now. i dont know how long it would take to re-make the playlist, not to mention, i’m sure
we would have forgotten a bunch of songs. phew!

actually, backblaze has saved us multiple times now. both jamie and i have had our computers totally die on us and were able to recover everything using backblaze, and now this playlist issue too. it’s a lifesaver!

Glad that we could help and congratulations again!

As some of you noticed, Backblaze experienced an outage. I want to provide some detail on what happened and the current status.

The Cause
Backblaze stores your backed up data in a top-tier data center facility. Last night at 7:35 p.m., a security guard entered the facility. The door slammed, causing the protective covering to open on an “Emergency Power Off” switch and setting off alarms. While this had no impact, in a moment of confusion, the guard hoping to turn the alarms off, pressed the Big Red Button, and shut off all power to that zone. At 7:36 p.m., the duty engineer escalated the situation and a resolution plan was designed. By 8:03 the power was fully restored.

Backblaze Response
As soon as the power went out, Backblaze’s monitoring systems alerted us to the issue and we mobilized the company. Most of us went immediately to the data center, while others double-teamed in support to help instantly address any questions. We then started the phased procedure of bringing the service up again: Static web content (home page, help pages), dynamic web content (account pages, restore selection, billing), and finally all of the actual cloud storage.

We could have brought everything up very quickly, but we believe it’s critical to carefully check every system first. With over 5,000 spinning hard drives, this process takes a little while. Much of the team worked diligently through the night to bring the service back as quickly as possible.

Status
The static web pages were live within minutes of the power coming back online. We ran thorough tests throughout the system and fully brought the dynamic pages up this morning. This means you can browse the entire site, sign-in to your account, browse the files you have backed up, and even request (but not yet receive) a restore.

We expect to finish checking enough of the cloud storage systems later this afternoon to turn on the ability for backups to resume. At that point, most requests to restore data will also be fulfilled. However, some restores will be delayed a bit longer if they contain data on systems that we have not finished testing. As soon as we’re done, all restores will complete.

At this point, everything is progressing smoothly and we expect to have every piece of the service restored to complete operating procedure sometime this evening. While it is tempting to lock the Emergency Power Off switches, that would obviously defeat their purpose. However, we are looking at ways to speed the process in the future of performing all necessary tests in order to recover more quickly from any type of unplanned shutdown. Thank you for being patient with us as we work through this.

Backblaze has made a new release available and all users are scheduled to be automatically upgraded over the next two weeks. Below are the enhancements in this release:

Release Date: 3/1/10
Version: 1.0.6
Auto-Update: All Users

Performance Improvements
* Reduces network traffic between client and Backblaze data center.

Improved install & error checking robustness (Mac)
* Clearer messaging during installation if Backblaze data center cannot be reached.
* Clear notification when two Backblaze computers are running with the same ID.
* Many miscellaneous small fixes.

Happy New Year! One year ago we said goodbye to 2008 - we couldn’t have even imagined what 2009 would bring. So, again, we’ll take a look back at 2009 and pull out our crystal ball to take the slightest look ahead to 2010.

Mac Love
We entered 2009 with a private beta of our online backup for the Mac, an attempt to Bring Back Steve Jobs, and a few months later launched the Mac online backup service to an incredible welcome.

While the launch of Apple Time Machine initially made us think Mac users would skip using Backblaze - it turned out to be exactly the opposite as Apple educated everyone that backup was important. In just a few months Backblaze had more Mac customers than Windows ones - and it continues to be the case today. This especially warms the hearts of some our founders who started their careers at Apple and warranted us creating a blog category: Mac Love.

Features & Releases
Feedback flowed in and we attempted to add features while maintaining simplicity. This resulted in 15 individual software releases for both the Windows and Mac versions. Major items included adding robust support for external drives, moving the Mac to 64-bit, fully supporting Mac Snow Leopard and Windows 7 operating systems, and a ton of smaller enhancements to improve the performance and usability of the service.

Published the Backblaze Storage Pod Design
This was our single biggest surprise of the year. Out of necessity, we designed our own cloud storage pod hardware when we started because the options in the market were too costly. Since we consider ourselves to be a software company - and believe that is where the magic resides - we gave away the design for the storage pod to the community.

What happened next was amazing: about a hundred articles were published about it; 500,000 people read the blog post; DIGG, Reddit, Slashdot, Hacker News, StumbleUpon users pushed the post to the top; hundreds of companies contacted us to learn how to build the bods or to buy them (despite them not being for sale.)

Cloud Storage Scaling
Photos, music, videos, documents…it turns out if you store all of people’s data, you need a lot of storage. A year ago we were adding less than 50 terabytes per month. Now we add 500 terabytes every month just to keep up with demand and have over 4 petabytes (that’s 4,000 terabytes!) Looking at this wild growth, we moved to a datacenter space with room to add about another 40 petabytes!

Backblaze for Business Launched
Companies had been signing up since the first day the Backblaze service was available…but this required putting a credit card on each individual account and provided no central billing or management. Launching Backblaze for Business enabled companies to backup all their employees’ laptops and desktops with central billing and reporting - for the same $50/year/computer price with unlimited storage. Since then a host of companies, schools, and organizations have signed up to protect their data.

Affiliate Program Grows
While our affiliate program became available at the end of 2008, it really hit it strides in 2009, with over 400 affiliates signing up - and some earning thousands of dollars for simply helping other people not lose their data.

Awards, Reviews, Recommendations, and Kudos
We were thrilled with the response to the Mac launch and the publishing of the storage pod design. However, along the way we were also touched all the photographer love: Photojojo telling its readers “Backblaze is the best online backup tool we’ve ever used,” Ron Brinkmann writing up a detailed explanation called “my offsite backup strategy“, Stuck in Customs’ Trey Ratcliff recommending us a “great backup system,” all the guys at TWIP who numerous times mentioned us in their podcast, and so many others. In the process, of course, we saved many photographers’ pictures.

Most recently we were chosen as a finalist for the Crunchies “Best Technology Achievement of 2009” award. Previously, MacUser chose Backblaze the winner in a labs review, Nerd Stalker selected the company as one of the Best of 2009, Steve Sande at TUAW called Backblaze his “personal favorite,” Ted Landau at MacObserver said “Backblaze does exactly what it promised to do and what I was hoping it could do. I couldn’t ask for more,” and many others told us how much they enjoyed the service. We work hard to make the service great - and are thrilled when people love it.

Profitable and Cash Flow Positive
When we set out to build Backblaze, one of our goals was to grow it responsibly - focusing on efficiency rather than throwing money at problems. It required a fair amount of blood, sweat, and tears (you know, bloody fingertips from all the computer typing)…but this year the company turned both profitable and cash flow positive - a fantastic feeling!

So…where do we go in 2010?
Well, as we learned in 2009…it’s little more than a guess at this point. We have numerous plans for the online backup service itself - intending to add features such as the ability to migrate backups from one computer to another, a number of performance enhancements, the ability to grant gifts, and more. Fleshing out enhancements to Backblaze for Business and launching a reseller portal are also on the list. It isn’t a guess that we’ll continue to add loads of cloud storage capacity - and almost certainly upgrade to using 2 TB drives making each of our storage pods capable of holding 90 TB…perhaps even 2.5 TB drives that would put nearly 113 TB in one pod. Beyond that…we’ll need to wait as 2010 unfolds.

Thank you for entrusting us with your data and Happy New Year!

GigaOm, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch have gotten together again to put on the Academy Awards of the tech industry - the Crunchies. Backblaze is honored to have been named a finalist in the category: Best Technology Achievement of 2009.

Not sure if you have heard of the other finalists…one is a little startup called Google and the other some company named Microsoft.

Voting for the Crunchies ends this Wednesday Jan 6, 2010 at midnight and we would love to have your vote. (It takes just a click to vote - no personal info or sign-ups.)

How did we get selected to be a finalist?
Nominations from you and selection by the Crunchies Committee.

What is the technology achievement?
A combination of the unlimited, unthrottled, backup-all-data online backup service itself and the uber-inexpensive cloud storage hardware design we gave away.

So, what now?
Vote for us! We promise to still be your friend after we’re famous.