There are many causes of data loss, but a lost or stolen computer has been a guaranteed reason to need Backblaze to recover data. Unfortunately, with some exceptions, the computer itself was gone.
Since launching the company, we have had a steady stream of people contacting our support team saying, “my computer was stolen – is there anything you can do to help? With the exception of rare cases, unfortunately, there was little that we could.
Today, all that changes.
With our new Locate My Computer feature, Backblaze enables customers to: * Accurately locate their computer on a map
* Get the ISP their computer is accessing
* See the IP address it is using
* And easily view new files being backed up
Locate My Computer is available immediately and is free to all Backblaze customers. Mapping is enabled for new users; users with existing accounts can “Turn On” mapping. To turn mapping on or off, sign-in and visit the Locate My Computer page. (Please click “Check for Updates” from your menu icon to ensure you are using the latest version.)
When Mark Bao posted the video of the thief he recovered from Backblaze, he posted it to YouTube with the title: “Don’t steal computers belonging to people who know how to use computers” With today’s launch we hope to change that to:
“Don’t steal computers from people who use Backblaze.”
Backblaze has always kept a four week history of all the files we back up – typically referred to as “versioning”. This enabled you to realize that you liked your Powerpoint presentation from a couple days ago, before you added all that amazing clipart, and simply restore that previously backed up version.
Today we are launching the ability to restore files within a specific date range!
How would you use this? Let’s say you use Ghost, Time Machine, or another disk imaging product to periodically take a full local snapshot of your hard drive. If your hard drive dies and you have one of these backups, you could re-image a new hard drive directly from that image.
However, that image might be days or weeks old. You can use Backblaze to recover your most current files. By using the date range feature you can select only the files that are newer than your image backup.
Restoring a three megabyte file takes seconds. Restoring 400 GB might be best done by ordering a USB drive FedEx’ed to you. However, a restore between 1 GB and 100 GB you may choose to download, but that can be painful with most web browsers: some simply cannot support downloads over 4 GB, and most neither check to make sure the file downloaded correctly nor auto-restart where they left off if interrupted.
Thus, Backblaze has developed Restore Downloader apps for Windows and Mac. (The Mac one has been available for a little while; the Windows one becomes available now.)
You still select your restore the way you always did through the website. However, if a restore is over 1 GB, you will automatically be offered a tiny application with which you can download that restore.
Using it is simple: sign-in and click start download.
The Backblaze Restore Downloader will automatically start downloading the most recent restore you have selected. If you stop the restore or there is ever a hiccup in your network, the app will restart from where it left off.
When we started Backblaze, our earliest customers said, “I love backing up my computer with Backblaze. It let’s me sleep peacefully. Now, how can I give this as a gift to my friends to help them as well?” Several holiday seasons went by during which we wished we had the ability to gift Backblaze.
For $50 you can get a gift code to a year of automatic backup with unlimited storage. The year will start ticking down once your friend starts using it.
When you buy the gift of Backblaze, you can automatically send an email to, or print out a gift certificate for your friend.
A brand new Mac computer has approximately 1 million files. When you’re trying to recover that one document you need after mistakenly clicking delete, it may be a bit daunting to find. With Backblaze, you could always browse through your online backup directories to find your file.
However, we’ve just introduced something to make it a little bit easier: Search.
How To Search Backed Up Files
* Visit www.backblaze.com and sign-in
* Select the computer you wish to restore from
* Enter the text you want to search
* Pick the result(s) you want to restore
An Example
A couple years ago I put together a list of swimming pools that were close to my house and what hours they were open. I was not at my computer and couldn’t remember where I saved that file. So I signed into Backblaze.com, typed in “swimmin” (didn’t even finish the whole word) and clicked the search icon. I got a list of the three files, clicked the first one, and got my file in a few seconds!
A Few Notes
This search will look at the name of the file only. Since your files are encrypted, we cannot search the contents of the files themselves. All files that match the name will show up. The directory that the file is in is shown just below the filename.
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.
Backblaze online backup is the easiest way to protect all the data on your computer. $5/month for unlimited storage: Get started. Backup, before you wish you had.
