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!

You may not be familiar with the name Crispin Porter + Bogusky, but you’re probably familiar with their work. The firm, which was named U.S. Agency of the Year by Adweek last year, created “The King” and “Whopper Freakout” campaigns for Burger King; the Windows Mojave, Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates and I’m a PC campaigns for Microsoft; as well as ads for Guitar Hero, Old Navy, Best Buy, Coke Zero, and others.

For the previous four years they have also been the official U.S. agency for Volkswagen and have created a lot of media during that time. So, when it came time to archive all of that media somewhere…they decided to build their own Backblaze Storage Pod.

Ryan Banham, Windows Evangelist at Crispin Porter + Bogusky took on the task:

Just as everyone is settling down for a big turkey dinner our first
Backblaze storage pod will be preparing to feast on terabytes of data.

He customized the Backblaze storage pod reference design with a different motherboard, more memory, Samsung instead of Seagate drives, a single power supply, and used Windows Server 2008 as the operating system. It’s great to see people making the design suit their particular purpose. Once he hones in on the final design for their purpose, he plans to deploy several racks of mirrored archive servers to support their storage needs.

Some of the feedback Ryan provided to us on his customized version included:
* The pod is uber-cool: Even under full load the drives stay under 72 F, so he also swapped our fans for quieter and lower power intake fans.
* No trampolines for the pod: Moving the pod around requires the RAID cards to be reseated (possibly because the bottoms of the RAID cards stick out of the case.)
* $20 gets you far. A pod running 50% - 75% of the month costs just $20 in electricity.

Ryan says:

Thanks for sharing the build and giving me something fun and
interesting to do over the last few weeks! I learned a lot.

Glad it was interesting and useful and thank you for sharing your learnings!

Photos Ryan sent us of his pod:

Are you in San Francisco for Salesforce’s Dreamforce event?

3 days, 15,000 people, booming sounds booths, light shows, and lots of clouds - both the real and virtual type. Salesforce provides you plenty of guidance about what to do at Dreamforce.

But what should you do when you are outside of Dreamforce?

You could go to the standard nearby corporate locations: Chevy’s, the W Hotel bar, Thirsty Bear, or Starbucks. But…the Backblaze team lives here and we like a little variety. So, shhhh…we’ll share with you a few of our favorite spots that are walking distance from Dreamforce, but provide a little local color.

Samovar - Directly above Moscone center, in the upper terrace on Yerba Buena Gardens but ironically REALLY hard to find. Quite possibly the best tea in San Francisco. Their Chai is mindblowing.

Metreon Farmers Market - Yes, it is an indoor farmer’s market. Great spot for a quick eat during the busy conference. Our favorites include the gyros, indian wraps …and of course, red velvet mini cupcakes. Also, as an appetizer, definitely try some of the afghani bread; if you stand at their booth long enough, you might not need lunch. (Metreon building - entrance at the corner of Mission St and 4th St.)

Pazzia - Great local Italian place. Italian style pizzas served by Italians. Go ahead, practice your Italian on the waiters and waitresses… They love it! (337 3rd St between Folsom and Harrison)

Epicenter - Good coffee, good sandwiches, free wifi. A Backblaze favorite. (764 Harrison St between 3rd and 4th)

Blue Bottle Coffee - These guys are serious about a cup of coffee. Everything they do, from selecting the beans, to assembling the blends, to roasting is painstakingly detailed. Then, each cup is brewed at the time you order it, one at a time. Once you have Blue Bottle, you won’t want anything else. (66 Mint Street at Mission St.)

Butler & Chef - This lovely French bistro has the best croque monsieur and crepes in the city. Great spot for a breakfast meeting. (155A South Park St near 3rd St and Bryant St in South Park.)

farmerbrown’s little skillet - The closest you will get to southern cooking in San Francisco. Needless to say, whenever you are presented a menu with waffles and fried chicken, what could go wrong? (360 Ritch, between Brannan St and Townsend St.)

BrainWash - Get your laundry done while sipping a nice coffee. Or if you have brought enough clothes for the week, just enjoy the soothing sounds and smells of laundry machines and clean clothes. (A bit of a walk. 1122 Folsom between 7th St and 8th St.)

What about for a drink in the evening?

B Bar - The $1 oysters during happy hour are fantastic… and as long as the weather is sunny and warm, the outdoor patio rocks. (Directly above Moscone center, near Samovar, in the upper terrace on Yerba Buena Gardens but ironically REALLY hard to find.)

Mr. Smiths - A hipster bar in a dive bar area. Happy hour goes till 8pm. (34 7th St between Market St and Mission St.)

111 Minna - An art gallery with a drinking problem. (Surprisingly located at 111 Minna St, just off 2nd St between Mission St and Howard St.)

Chieftain - Relax with a Guinness at this Irish pub that’s just a block away from Dreamforce. (198 5th St at Howard St.)

Bourbon and Branch - San Francisco’s very own speakeasy. You don’t need a reservation at the library, but you might need the password. (Locals know it’s, “Books” … Ssshhh, don’t tell anyone.)

And just for fun, you can stop by Central Computer - the place we started out buying hard drives by the pallet to fill our Backblaze Storage Pods so we could help backup all those sales laptops (837 Howard Street between 4th St and 5th St.)

CrunchGear published that the National Security Agency (NSA) is forecasting it may need yottabytes of storage to keep all of its surveillance data by 2015.

What is a yottabyte?
1000 GB = 1 Terabyte (TB)
1000 TB = 1 Petabyte (PB)
1000 PB = 1 Exabyte (EB)
1000 EB = 1 Zettabyte (ZB)
1000 ZB = 1 Yottabyte (YB)
In other words, a Yottabyte = 1,000,000,000,000,000 GB.

How much will this cost by 2015
On the one hand, what makes this even tougher is that typical storage systems cost 10x the price of the raw hard drives. Thus, the likely actual cost of storage for the NSA:
* $1,000 trillion for a complete storage system

The NSA may need to partner with NASA to see if it can spin off about 15 more planet Earth’s so their combined GDP could pay for its storage requirements.

On the other hand, this is based on prices and storage technology in 2009. But the cost per GB has dropped consistently 4% per month for the last 30 years. Assume the trend continues for the next 5 years, by when the NSA needs their yottabyte of storage. The costs in 2015 then would be:
* $8 trillion for the raw drives
*$80 trillion for a storage system

Well, that’s getting closer - a bit less than today’s global GDP.

How much space will this take by 2015?
Per historical metrics, a drive should hold 10 TB by 2015. The NSA would require:
* 100 billion hard drives
* 2 billion Backblaze storage pods

And of course, they would probably want this data backed up.
That might really test our offer of $5 for unlimited storage.

To be fair, the original analysis states that the need for yottabytes of information may not be accurate because it assumes that data is collected in a way similar to today. Instead, it purports they may only need hundreds of petabytes of data storage by 2015; significant, but completely manageable. Hard drives are also the assumed technology - which has been a good assumption for 30 years and may continue to be a good one for the next 5 years. SSD and other technologies may provide some interesting options, but in the near term, the price and density winner will likely continue to be spinning platters.

Regardless of how much data the NSA ends up needing to store, could we perhaps recommend a storage design?

Don Honabach has the honor of being the first person to successfully build his own Backblaze storage pod. (At least the first we know about.)

With four servers running at home for media storage, Don, was using a fair bit of power (and probably generating a lot of heat and noise and taking up space.) For five years he was working to come up with an “Extreme Media Server” and after reading about the Backblaze storage pod, he decided this may be the way to go.

Having expertise in the space, Don customized a variety of items in the pod including:
* The operating system (switching to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2)
* Power supplies
* Motherboard
* and more…

In just a couple weeks Don had completed his “Extreme Media Server”. Combining all four servers into one, Don is saving 500 watts of power, and can run 16 independent movie streams across two monitors from a single storage pod.

Don created a blog that describes his experiences building his Extreme Media Server.

Congratulations Don and good luck watching all those movies at the same time!

Cara is a good friend of ours and a we had a great time trying to shoot something for the Backblaze home page. As a bonus, Cara does all of her own stunts so we were able to use real fire with real gasoline instead of CGI fire.

Since the company started, Backblaze has offered unlimited storage for its online backup customers. However, as users have taken more photos, downloaded more music, smashed VHS tapes into their DVD readers, and generally created more data, their needs have grown.

As Nat Tumatch of Morespace, Wyoming says,

Unlimited is too limiting. Do I look like an unlimited type of guy? I need more!

Well, we heard you. We gave our engineers Red Bull-infused, coffee-flavored, energy bars and said we need more space. And they delivered. After deeply analyzing the complex theorem of infinity:

…They, well, then just multiplied it by 2.

Today, Backblaze announces “2x Unlimited Storage”:
The Most Unlimited Storage Available Anywhere:
* More than on your computer.
* More than on your external drive.
* More than Google Gmail offers.
* More than Backblaze offered before, um, we doubled it.

Be among the first to experience the revolutionary “2x Unlimited Storage.” Try it now >

Backblaze released our first radio commercial on Energy 92.7 last month.
Listen to it here.

And Ron Brinkmann on the MacBreak podcast selected Backblaze as a ‘pick of the week‘ last week and LightSource Photography Podcast recommended Backblaze to their listeners and a few months ago

Back from the holidays and need some audio for your iPod? Grab any of these as podcasts.

At the beginning of 2007, we set off on a mission to make sure no one ever lost data again. 2008 saw numerous milestones along this path, so I wanted to take a quick look back and a glance forward into 2009.

Realizing that the #1 reason users did not backup was the difficulty in getting through the setup process, we arrived at the “backup everything” approach, and we focused hard on making Backblaze a service anyone could use.

We launched the Windows version into private beta and several months later made it publicly available. We received fantastic feedback and addressed as much of it as we could (including adding support for files up to 4 GB, unlimited download restore sizes, a private encryption key option, and Outlook backup.)

The service was covered by TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Webware/Cnet/Download.com, US News, Simple Help, and many others who said “Backblaze Is Simplest Way Yet to Back Up PC Files.” A few weeks later, due to its “innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and media buzz”, Backblaze was chosen as one of the AlwaysOn Global Top 250 Private Companies, and soon thereafter chosen as one of the 14 “Best of the Best”.

Backblaze doubled in employee count as we scaled up to meet demand for the service, including bringing on a vp of engineering and a lead Mac developer. We launched our first online ads, radio ads, and affiliate program; and presented at SF New Tech, SF Beta, and the AlwaysOn Venture Summit. And the team learned more than ever expected about web video as Cara made her debut with flames and ninjas while destroying a few laptops. Of course, not everything went smoothly.

With 6.6 billion people on the planet, Backblaze was localized in 11 languages to help a few more of them ensure their data is protected…resulting in users arriving from 124 countries. Including at least one user that was blocked for being from Syria. (Sorry, government requirement.)

Passionate about the Mac, the team worked tirelessly to bring a Mac beta to market. And the attention it drew after being covered by TUAW, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Venture Beat, TheAppleBlog, and others flooded the service with requests, which we are still trying to fulfill.

Of course, we’re just getting started. What happens in 2009?

A Mac version that comes out of beta and becomes fully available and significant functionality for partners. We love spreading the message of backup, but we know many companies and organizations have strong relationships with their customers and members. With approximately one billion computers on the planet, it’ll take us working together to ensure everyone is backed up.

Thank you for all your help trying the service, providing us feedback, signing up as customers, telling friends and family, and generally helping ensure no one loses data.

So, goodbye 2008. Hello 2009. And now, back to work.

No doubt about it, the name Backblaze is hard. I’ve had people come up to me at parties and say, “I love your Blackblaze site. Or was it Backbaze“. We noticed people coming to our site searching for “back blaze” or “blaze back”.

Brian Wilson’s previous company was called Codeblaze, so when he started working on a backup client, he called it Backblaze. It was supposed to be temporary, but the name grew on us.

It isn’t just our name that often gets confused or typed wrong. We see other people searching for an online backup solution type “bakcup” or “bakup”. Google’s result bring up typos from users on forums to sites with a mix of German and English right next words like Geschäftsbeständigkeitsplanung.
Maybe they are on to something. Perhaps we should change our name to Superbackupblazingfastandhappy.

Originally I wanted to do a graphic showing the life and times of a user going about his day, backing up his computer online, suffering from data loss and then using Backblaze to restore. I liked some of the information designs done by Megan Jaegerman for the New York Times and wanted to do something similar. However, it seemed to raise more questions then it answered.
Are these three guys different people or the same person at different times? Why would Data Loss even occur? I see a guy with a dog, where is the woman with the cat?

For over five years I have been tied into ancient cell phones because I had originally signed up for a no-longer-offered $99 unlimited minutes plan and converting to any current plan would double my monthly bill. When the iPhone debuted, I looked longingly at it as I continued to use my 1950’s-era RAZR. But someone at AT&T heard my cry and friends and family who knew of my woes emailed me from as far as London and Prague saying, “Did you hear AT&T/Cingular is coming out with a new $99 unlimited plan?” Hallelujah, I could finally get a new phone.

I considered the Blackberry Pearl and a few others, but decided on the iPhone. I’d like to say it was all through a logical process (big screen; best web surfing; Wi-Fi enabled; cheaper data plan) and certainly those were a consideration. And it certainly helped that my master-texter brother said the keyboard worked ok and Apple announced both the SDK and ActiveSync integration with Exchange. Of course, in the end, it was just sexy.

The 16 GB iPhone arrived last week and I immediately synchronized all my contacts, calendar appointments, photos and a chunk of my music. Then I went rock climbing. And I brought my iPhone. But then I hesitated.

Previously I would keep my phone in my pocket while climbing – they were small, solid, and cheap. Arriving at the climbing gym, though, I wondered whether the larger, pricey, and seemingly fragile iPhone would survive. Looked online a bit and it appears they are pretty solid: Mike Beauchamp claims his iPhone survived having his iPhone run over by a semi and Don’s iPhone works even after the screen cracked.

But as the crew at Will it Blend learned, they’re not indestructible. And neither is the data on them. As John C. Dvorak notes at PC Mag, they get dropped in toilets, left in taxis, and abused in numerous ways not typical for a PC. John argues the move to smaller devices is ridiculous as people use them as desktop alternatives. He says these devices are easier to steal, easier to break, and are never backed up.

But my iPhone is backed up. Every picture, every song, every contact and calendar appointment. Did I hack the iPhone with some special backup software?

No. But the iPhone is a copy of my real data – which lives on my laptop. And my laptop is backed up. Ironically, with my new iPhone, my data is more, not less, safe than it was in my older mini-bricks. Those phones may not have been as slippery and arguably may have been less likely to break…but ultimately they would…and since they did not synch, the data on them would be gone. Having my iPhone run over by a semi would be $500 of pain, but since my iPhone is backed up, at least I will never need to send the “oops, could everyone please send me your phone numbers again” email.

You have met the face of Backblaze.

You might have watched her explain that Backblaze provides online backup; or saw her dealing with the deadly plagues that could affect your computer (um, Ninjas?); or maybe you just watched the outtakes. Regardless, if you’ve visited the Backblaze website, she has talked to you before.

Many of you have asked, “Who is the face of Backblaze?” Some of you surmised we hired a professional actress? Or maybe we recruited her from a local film school? A few of you even proposed that she is related to one of the employees of Backblaze. None of those are the case.

The face of Backblaze is actually a lawyer-in-training, Cara Panebianco, and is completing her third year of law school in May 2008. We held auditions at Backblaze to determine who could represent the company, explain the concepts, enunciate clearly, and not mind having flame throwers aimed at her during filming. And Cara proved fire retardant enough.

Looking for a soon-to-be lawyer? Contact Cara.

Looking for an actress? Contact Cara. Just know that she charges lawyerly rates.

Edward Martin Sr. should be pretty lucky by now. He has worked hard to generate that luck for nearly all of his 76 years by finding and collecting four leaf clovers - 160,000 four leaf clovers to be exact - earning him a world record.

It seems that “luck” is what many count on for backup. Luck that their hard disk doesn’t crash. Luck that their computer isn’t stolen. Luck that they don’t delete a file by mistake. Not as lucky as Edward? Maybe it’s time to consider backing up your computer?

I attended a presentation a couple days ago by Udi Manber, vice president of engineering for Google core search. Manber demonstrated why search is difficult, giving interesting example queries such as “how many calories in a pound”, for which the answer is 9000 trillion, since calorie is a unit of energy and pound a unit of mass, enabling the use of E=MC^2 to calculate the answer. While it’s the “right” answer, it’s more likely the searcher wanted to find out how many miles he would need to run to burn off that last Whopper.

In this query and many others, it would be easy to fix it to provide the right answer - hard code it to assume the food/weight interpretation. But that bandaid does not address the millions of similar issues and it makes the code messy where piece-by-piece a mountain of bandaids grows. Manber said the team often wishes they could just hard code a search result, but that no engineer at Google can move a ranking - they have to actually fix the algorithm - and that this limitation enforces a certain discipline in the development.

In numerous industries ranging from aviation, to automobiles, to power plants, discipline is enforced upon the organizations by the nature of the lifecycles of development. There is no v1.0, v1.0.1, v1.0.2, v1.0.3 in rapid succession, no “just change it on the website” concept. The cycle time of software enables rapid innovation and adjustment but it also allows for a lack of discipline in the development. How does your organization find the right tradeoff before speed and discipline?

This weekend we moved into our new datacenter - 365 Main - a facility we share with companies including Sun Microsystems, Esurance, Ticketmaster, and Cnet. It has all the high-tech wizardry you can imagine to keep our customers’ online backup data safe:

• raised floor with seismic pedestals in case of earthquake
• 16 data carriers
• independent PG&E power feed
• induction coupling system to avoid backup batteries 
• three 20,000 gallon fuel tanks
• ten 2.1 megawatt generators (enough for 15,000 homes)   
• double-interlock pre-action system for fire suppression, and more.

However, the part I liked the best was the lowest-tech: 24×7 staffed security guards. In a world of zombie networks, phishing attacks, and cybercrime, it’s nice to know that it still requires having your driver’s license checked for authorization by a live person before you can come within 100 yards of any system.