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.

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: 12/4/09
Version: 1.0.4
Auto-Update: All Users

All binaries are signed (Win)
The installers Windows and Mac installers has always been signed and all Mac binaries have been signed since the Snow Leopard release. Now all binaries on Windows are signed as well per request by Symantec to reduce old versions of Norton anti-virus from misidentifying Backblaze as a virus.

Renewal notification enhancements
* Added notifications to alert customers if their renewal did not succeed.

Added temporary file exclusions
* Excluded DropBox, MobileMe, and Safari cache files since they are temporary and automatically rebuilt.

UI enhancements
* Touched up German and French text to be more accurate and fit better.
* Updated “Vault” icon in Backblaze Preference Pane. (Mac)
* Clicking “Backblaze Preference…” from the icon in the top-bar shows the pane even if it was minimized to the dock. (Mac)
* Stopped printing unnecessary status messages to stdout log. (Mac)

Backup enhancements
* Added iPhone backups to be backed up (for iPhones that are synched with iTunes to the desktop or laptop.)
* Added Mozilla Firefox shortcuts to backup. (Mac)
* Avoid backing up bogus “.” and “..” files found in /Users/Shared/ folders.

Improved install & auto-update robustness (Mac)
* Unpack new installer into uniquely named folder to avoid conflicts.
* Pre-check for Backblaze system files running during auto-update.
* Pre-check for certain esoteric system items to enhance install success.

Ever since Backblaze launched, providing incredibly easy, unlimited online backup, for individual users…companies have said, “Hey, but we have laptops and desktops that need to be backed up too!”

To help these companies, this week we launched Backblaze for Business, making available the same $50 per year per computer unlimited backup.

What is Backblaze for Business?
It is an online backup service that automatically and continuously backs up all data from laptops and desktops over the Internet. The data is de-duplicated, compressed, encrypted, and broken up into small pieces before being uploaded so that it can sent incrementally. If the computer dies, individual employees can restore their data by downloading it or having Backblaze FedEx the data on DVDs or a USB hard drive.

How much does it cost?
Just $50 per computer per year for unlimited storage.

Wait, this sounds just like the consumer service?
Yes, why change a good thing?! What Backblaze for Business adds is:
* Central Billing - a company can pay for all of its accounts centrally and can choose to pay via credit card or be invoiced for the service.
* Central Reporting - the person in charge of the backup service can get automated reports about which computers are licensed, when their last backup was, how far into the backup they are, etc.

Who should use Backblaze for Business?
The service is available for companies with at least 5 employees. Have less than 5? Just have each user sign-up for the regular Backblaze service. Have 10, 100, 1000, or more? Get started on the Backblaze for Business page.

How does this compare to my other options?
There are various ways to backup employee laptops and desktops. You could:
* Buy each user an external hard drive - which will cost you about two years of Backblaze service; you still need a way for them to backup to the drive; there is no central management; and the chances that the hard drive is in the same place as the laptop? Well, you get the point.
* Use a central tape drive system - and sign up to rotate and manage tapes continuously? Deal with the stat that over half of the time tapes fail when you need to restore data? Oh, and how do you deal with users being remote with their laptops?
* Tell users to save important files to a shared drive - seriously, you know this does not actually happen, right?
* Don’t backup laptops and desktops - even though 60% of corporate data is on those employee computers and 70% of companies die after a significant data loss?

What about other online backup solutions?
There are other certainly other options available. We heard 3 requests from companies:
1. Make it easy to deploy. All other solutions required IT to figure out what to backup. Unfortunately, without going to every employee’s computer, that was impossible to figure out, so they would either just backup “My Documents” or pick common filetypes; knowing that other data was going to get lost.
=> Backblaze automatically backs up all data.

2. Make the pricing predictable. Companies need to budget, especially in the current economy. Having unpredictable expenses that grow with the amount of data backed up it challenging.
=> Backblaze charges one fixed price for unlimited storage.

2. Make the pricing affordable. Companies really want to backup their data, but paying $0.50 - $2.00 per GB per month adds up very quickly to hundreds or thousands of dollars per computer per year. A laptop with just 100 GB on it would cost $600 - $2400 per year to backup. Most companies just cannot afford this.
=> Backblaze charges just $50 per computer per year.

How do I get started?
Just visit Backblaze for Business and stop worrying.

Microsoft has been asking people to throw house parties for the launch of Windows 7. We threw our own…but rather than bags of Doritos we racked stacks of hard drives.

For those of you that did throw a Windows 7 house party, or just bought or upgraded to Windows 7, Backblaze fully supports the new OS. In fact, about 6% of Backblaze customers are already using Windows 7 and backing up their data.

Planning to upgrade an existing computer?
* Windows Vista to Windows 7: Use the “In-Place Upgrade” option if available. This keeps your data and Backblaze will continue to operate seamlessly. If the option is not available and you need to do do a “Custom Install”, please carefully follow the steps in FAQ #18 so as to not require re-backing up data. (Find out if you are able to do an In-Place Upgrade to Windows 7 on the Microsoft upgrade chart.)

* Windows XP to Windows 7: Microsoft does not provide a migration path and requires you to delete all data and applications prior to upgrading. Thus, in order to continue with your backup where you left off without needing to re-backup your data, carefully follow the steps in FAQ #18.

Buying a new computer?
Did you get a new computer for the house?
Have friends, family, or co-workers that picked up a new Windows 7 system?
Make sure those new laptops and desktops are also backed up for just $5/month.

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: 6/8/09
Windows Version: 1.0.3.209
Mac Version: 1.0.3.210
Auto-Update: All Users

Enhanced Bandwidth Utilization
Streamlined metadata uploads to reduce bandwidth usage and enhance backup speed.

Enhanced Update Checking
“Check for Updates” menu item now takes users to a dedicated update page if a new update is available. (Note: software autoupdates, so checking for updates is optional.)

UI Enhancements
* Updated new graphics elements including “Vault” and “Computer.”
* Updated certain dialogs with the Vista “white” look and feel. (Win)

Added Exclusions
* Excluded WER (Windows Error Reporting) folder. (Win)
* Excluded Mac mail “Envelope Index” since it constantly changes and is then recreated automatically. (Mac)

Minor Bug Fixes
* Increased height of several pull down menus that became too short after adding support for blind users.
* Updated installer to handle certain permission restrictions. (Mac)
* Updated installer to fix ’standard’ user install regression. (Mac)
* Updated installer to handle spaces in temporary folder names or the lack of an existing temporary folder altogether. (Mac)

Backblaze has made a new release available. Users will start being automatically upgraded later this week. Below are the enhancements in this release:

Release Date: 8/31/09
Windows Version: 1.0.1.191
Mac Version: 1.0.1.190
Auto-Update: All Users

Complete Snow Leopard Support (Mac)
* Re-written installer to support Snow Leopard security model.
* 64-bit support for higher performance.
* Backblaze Preference Pane properly morphs from System Preference Pane.
(Note: previous version supported, but this one has complete standards adherence.)

Additional Exclusions
* Excluded Retrospect “.rdp” files from backup since Backblaze is not designed to backup backups. Excluded additional temporary files reported by customers. (Windows)
* Excluded 2 GB “sleep image” (RAM snapshot from when laptop went to sleep.) (Mac)
* Excluded all “dot” folders in /Users/ which should not be backed up. (Mac)

Sped Up Indexing
New files are detected quicker by no longer indexing “/Network”, which is not backed up anyway. (Mac)

Improved Accessibility
Added keyboard navigation in Backblaze Control Panel to support blind users. (Windows; Mac coming soon.)

Enhanced Localization
More accurate internationalized numbers and dates for each locale. (Mac)

Other (Mac)
* Fixed bug where Backblaze icon & popups sometimes would not appear.
* Fixed code signing to generate appropriate log warnings.
* Added new file types to reports.
* Fixed sorting bug when a folder is added to the Exclusions list.

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: 6/8/09
Windows Version: 1.0.1.161
Mac Version: 1.0.1.162
Auto-Update: All Users

This release is primarily a maintenance release to add system checks and make the service continually more robust in addressing corner cases.

“Offline” Message Fix
Some users have seen a blue notification icon and message saying the computer was offline though they were connected to the Internet and backups were continuing. This could occur when users switched between multiple networks (wired, wireless, etc.) While this did not affect backups, Backblaze will show the right message now.

Computer Clock Offset Notification
Backblaze relies on the customer’s computer clock to be fairly accurate in order to properly tag the date files are created, modified, and backed up and keep this in sync with files in the datacenter. This release added a notification if the computer’s clock is incorrect by more than 2 days.

Cloned Hard Drive Fixes
Several small improvements were made to make it easier for users who cloned their hard drive to select and unselect drives.

Uninstall Message Touchup
A few users uninstalled and thought this cancels billing. (It actually frees up a license for use on another computer.) Added a message to explain this in the uninstaller.

Self-Checks for Modifications
Some Backblaze installations have seen issues where the user or other software has deleted, modified, or moved files that are internal to the Backblaze service. Added numerous internal self-checks that will automatically fix issues or notify the user.

Signed Binaries (Mac)
Windows binaries have always been signed. Mac binaries are now signed in preparation for Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) release.

Improved Restore Downloader (Mac)
Sped up application to download files selected for restore.

Enforce Password Compliance
Added checks to enforce all new passwords entered do not contain characters that could be misinterpreted by different browsers.

Changed Log File Names
Log files were renamed with unique names (such as “bztransmit01.log” instead of “01.log”) to enable customer to search easier if needed for support.

Backblaze has made a new release available and some users are being automatically upgraded. Below are the enhancements in this release:

Release Date: 6/5/09
Windows Version: 1.0.0.149
Mac Version: 1.0.0.150
Auto-Update: Some Users

Minor release to address a few small issues including:

Cloned Drive Primary Drive Selection
A small percentage of (mostly Mac) users that clone their drives were unable to select their primary drive for backup. This is fixed.

Backups Halt Temporarily
A small percentage of users have backups stop for an hour once per day. This is fixed.

Only users that seemed to be potentially affected by these items were auto-updated. All users will get these fixes during their next auto-update.

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

Release Date: 6/2/09
Windows Version: 1.0.0.143
Mac Version: 1.0.0.144
Auto-Update: All Users

Cloned Drive Support
In April, Backblaze released a dramatically improved system for supporting external drives. Previously when an external drive was unplugged it would be treated as a drive that vanished and then reappeared when plugged in again. The new system remembers external drives and treats them uniquely from built-in drives. The new system also provided an interface to manage these external drives.

One thing we discovered after releasing this new system was that a significant number of people (primarily Mac users) cloned their drives. When a drive was cloned, it made it seem as if the same drive existed in two places at the same and confused the new external drive system.

This release enhances external drive support to better support customers who clone drives. The system detects the cloned drive, informs the user, and allows them to de-select that drive from backup. A few enhancements were also added to handle situations that appeared as cloned drives.

Email Support Issue Dialog
Backblaze provides a web page form and an email address to enable users to contact support. Once in a while, our support team is unable to respond to a user’s question because either the user mistyped their email address or our reply email is getting caught in their spam folder. To rectify this issue, this version has a notification system added that will pop-up a dialog via the Backblaze software to notify the user that our support team was unable to contact them and request they contact us via an alternate email address.

Better Exclusions Sort (Mac)
The Backblaze Mac exclusions list shows the folder being excluded. However, since some folder names (such as “Library”) exist in multiple paths, this version includes an option to “Show Path.” The exclusion list shows the directory path by default. This was done to support each platforms standard approach.

Extra Exclusions
We are always listening to users and looking for directories that contain temporary and other unnecessary files. This release added the TechTool cache directory to the exclusion list along with several other minor items.

Backblaze is constantly listening to customer feedback and innovating internally. The new features, bug fixes, and underlying enhancements that result from these become available in various releases of the Backblaze service. One of the pieces of feedback we heard was that some of you wanted to know more about these releases. We listened and I wanted to share our philosophy and approach:

Rollout Timeframe
Large releases with significant architectural changes are qualified internally and put through a rigorous beta testing period before being made available publicly. Small bug-fix or feature-enhancement releases are thoroughly qualified internally and tested with a smaller group of customers. While all customers are eventually automatically upgraded to the new release, larger releases are often rolled out gradually over a couple weeks or more.

Mac and Windows Simultaneous Release
By writing the system cross-platform from day one, we are typically able to do simultaneous releases - ensuring that Mac and Windows users have an identical experience and feature set. At times, there is a feature that is specific to one platform (for example, supporting Resource Forks is important on the Mac and does not exist on the Windows) which requires a slightly different release - but we tend to keep them nearly in sync.

Auto-Update Options
Most people just want their computer - and their backup - to work behind the scenes. As such, Backblaze automatically upgrades its software to the latest version. However, some users requested the ability to see if there was a new version available and they had not yet been auto-updated. We listened and added a “Check for Updates” option in the menu bar. You never need to click this - but if we are doing a rolling update, this will let you know that there is a new version available.

New Release Communications
Historically we quietly made improvements to the service and users would silently benefit. For large releases, such as the launch of the Windows version or the Mac version, we would publicly communicate the availability via the press and our blog. However, in order to minimize the amount of email we send to our customers, we did not send any communication regarding incremental releases. Going forward, we will publish what is new in each release here on our blog and send a notification via our Twitter account. We believe this is a good balance of letting users who are interested know without over-emailing our customers.

When we set out to build a backup service anyone could use, we assumed this was something people wanted to just install and forget - and for most people this was the case. However, we also found there is an entire base of people passionate about backup who want to stay involved and educated. For those of you in this latter category, I hope you enjoy the enhanced insight.

Two weeks ago Backblaze launched the Mac version of its unlimited online backup service. As part of the launch, we randomly selected 25 people who installed on the day of launch to receive a free 1-year license to the Backblaze service.

I wanted to share a few of the responses we received when notifying the winners:

“I am thrilled! I look forward to continuing to use your wonderful product!”
“Wow, what great news!”
“Love the product so far (although I hope I never need to use it!)”
“I have this installed on my shiny new MacBook Pro Unibody, and just finished my first backblaze backup. Sweet, eh?”

All of the winners can backup their computer and any USB or Firewire-attached drives - ensuring their photos, music, and other documents are safe for the year to come.

The winners who claimed their prize, including one who said “Awesome, I never win anything ” are:

Alex Vermulst
Brandon White
Jeremiah Mankin
Kevin Katz
Ramon Silva
Mark Allen
Simon O’Brien
James Kachel
Peter Kazanjy
Mike Chasman
Jason Clarke
Tymothy Bryce
Paul Hibbitts
Phillip Riggs
Neil Berkman
Dan Crane II
Cris Mitchell
Adam Simon
Ray Smuckles
Louis Plante

Congratulations to all of you and enjoy the Backblaze service!

Backblaze loves the Mac, and even tried to bring back Steve Jobs, so we’re very excited today to make our unlimited online backup service available to all Mac users.

With half the founding team originally from Apple, we couldn’t wait to support the Mac platform. We’re thrilled to do so and to see some of the reactions so far:

TUAW: Backblaze for Mac officially launches
MacWorld: BackBlaze online backup debuts for Mac
TechCrunch: Backblaze’s Online Backup Solution For Macs
TidBits: Backblaze Publicly Launches Online Backup Service for Macs
VentureBeat: Simple backup service Backblaze now available to all Mac users
MacNN: Backblaze debuts ‘effortless’ backup for Macs
TheAppleBlog: Backblaze for Mac Now Live
Download.com: Easy backups for Mac: BackBlaze
5ThirtyOne: Backblaze: Secure unlimited automatic backups for $5
MacsimumNews: Backblaze announces Mac Online Backup

At core, Backblaze for the Mac delivers on the same vision - making backup simple:
* Installing is simple - just download, enter an email and password; you’re done.
* Running it is simple - nothing to do; backs up continuously and automatically.
* Pricing is simple - $5/month or $50/year per computer for unlimited storage.
* Restoring is simple - select any files; download or we’ll FedEx a DVD or hard drive.

Here is a screenshot of the Mac Preference Pane:

While the underlying backup system was always developed cross-platform, during the beta we also learned a lot from feedback from thousand of users, resulting in us:
* Improving notifications
* Starting to backup resource forks
* Adding an uninstaller to the install package
* Excluding numerous extra application-specific temp file directories
* …and many other items that we built/fixed/changed.

We also learned Mac users love their external drives, with some users having as many as 6 USB or Firewire drives connected to one system.

While we always supported backing up external drives, we developed a new interface that showing which drives are connected/disconnected, selected for backup or not, or Boot Camp/Time Machine. Now, not only does Backblaze automatically backup external drives…but provides an at-a-glance view of the status.

We hope you enjoy the service.

That may have been the most understated title for a blog post about a day like today.

Less than 3 months after our Windows launch, today Backblaze announced a fully-featured Mac online backup service into private beta that followed the same “backup everything; no configuration setup; unlimited storage; $5 per month” approach.

This happened so quickly due to the team’s deep love for the Mac and continual commitment to cross-platform development. Every line of code for the backup engine always ran on the Mac and Windows ensuring the system’s robustness since all Backblaze customers worldwide already use it. The UI, on the other hand, was written natively to ensure that it was a true Mac product. Stay tuned for a post from our CTO about developing cross-platform code, but for now, more about today’s launch…

At 6am PST, the updated website appeared, Cara lit a laptop on fire, and the first reviews went public. Here are some that covered the launch:
* The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): Backblaze beta launches for Mac
* TechCrunch: Backblaze Brings Its Dead Simple Online Backup To The Mac
* Ars Technica: Backblaze: online Time Machine for Mac, and we have invites
* TidBITs: Backblaze Launches Mac Beta of Online Backup Service
* Mac News Network: BackBlaze reveals web-based system backup for Mac
* Macsimum News: BackBlaze announces private beta version of its Mac software

I want to say a big thank you to the bloggers and journalists who helped us spread the word about the Mac online backup beta! Throughout the day we watched the comments on these sites, the Twittering about Backblaze, and the feedback sent to us; it was great to see so many people passionate about backups.

As many of you found, we had such an overwhelming response that, unfortunately, we had to shut off access for new beta users pretty early in the day. I know several thousand of you did not get in and we are doing everything possible to enable everyone to access the beta. Please bear with us and if you submit an email request, we will contact you as soon as we have space available.

Again, a big thank you to everyone - we’re very excited to help you backup easily.

Backblaze online backup launched publicly on Tuesday, September 16^th, which US News called gutsy in today’s age of perpetual betas. I wanted to share a bit about what has transpired over the last few months that led us here.

Backblaze launch visitors

After four months in a stealth beta, we expanded the Backblaze private beta to a broader set of users on June 2^nd, which resulted in a very exciting week when TechCrunch, Ars Technica, and SimpleHelp wrote about the service. We received volumes of excellent feedback…upon which we immediately set to work.

We stayed true to our core

• Backup all data – the fundamental Backblaze philosophy that you should not need to figure out what to backup because all data should be backed up
• Unlimited storage – give you the ability to store all of your data without worrying about running out of space
• $5 per month – no complicated per-GB charges or overage fee concerns
• Extreme ease-of-use – the one-click install that anyone can do

While adding new features you requested

• Support for files up to 4 GB – for those of you with very large individual files, Backblaze can now back them up
• Outlook backup – and Outlook Express, Thunderbird, and other email programs are automatically backed up
• Private encryption key – some of you wanted to ensure no one could ever access your files and this option enables only you to ever access your files
• Incremental backup – file changes are now broken up into small pieces, ensuring only the changed pieces ever need to be backed up
• Block-level deduplication – identical files or file pieces are only uploaded once, to increase how quickly you can backup
• Unlimited free restores – we switched to a new file format for restores to enable unlimited restore downloads and kept them available for free
• Speed test – since a common question you asked was “How long will my first backup take?” the Backblaze Control Panel will now tell you based on the amount of data you have and your Internet connection
• Backup speed improvements – a combination of bug fixes, code optimizations, and datacenter scaling, your backups should happen as fast as your Internet connection allows
• Monthly/yearly billing – both have been available, but now you can switch between them as you wish; switching to yearly billing gets you two months free

While working toward launch, Backblaze presented at the excellent SF New Tech and SF Beta events, was chosen as a winner of the AlwaysOn Top Global 250 Private Companies, selected for game-changing technology and market value, and was reviewed by Rafe Needleman of Cnet’s Webware, who called Backblaze, “Possibly world’s easiest online backup” and by US News’ David La Guesse who said it is the “Simplest Way Yet to Back Up PC Files.”

Exactly three weeks ago today, Backblaze made its online backup service fully available to the public. TechCrunch wrote about the one-click backup and VentureBeat said “Backblaze makes it dead simple to backup your files online.” It has been great to work with all of you that helped us refine the service on the way to launch and we’re thrilled to make it available to everyone now.

If you’re not backing up your computer yet, you really have no excuse. Take one minute and start backing up now!

Wow. This was not your typical Monday.

The Backblaze online backup service has been in a very private beta since early February. Monday we made our beta a bit more public.

We showed Backblaze to top 10 blogs TechCrunch and Ars Technica, and great tutorial site SimpleHelp and gave them about 1000 invites total to hand their users starting at 6am PST Monday morning. At 6:01am, it got very exciting.

TechCrunch penned Backblaze: Online Backup With Time Machine’s Finesse and The Washington Post reprinted it; Ars Technica published a detailed hands-on piece titled Making off-site backups brainless; SimpleHelp wrote a review the next day. Traffic on our site shot up, installs were blazing, requests for a Mac version were ticking in twice a minute, hundreds of requests for beta invitations arrived from people who didn’t visit Backblaze through one of the these sites, the corporate phone rang non-stop with vendors calling to sell us drives and bandwidth, companies emailed asking about affiliate and OEM opportunities, and we even had a job request.

By late afternoon, thousands of people visited the site, all invites were used up, and we had to shut off the custom links, sending people to request a beta invitation for the next time we open a sneak peak. When I looked on Google later that evening, we were the #3 result for the search “online backup.”

Users signed up from all corners of the world, providing us feedback from as far as Australia, Argentina, Europe and Japan. We received some adoring emails saying “I love this backup solution” and “I am testing out backblaze and so far it was super easy to install and start backing up.” We also received lots of interesting feedback on what we could do better and we’re reading every email and working to get that feedback reflected in the service. We are scaling up our operations to fulfill more beta requests (if you missed the sneak peak, get an invite at www.backblaze.com.)

I want to say a big thank you to TechCrunch, Ars Technica, and SimpleHelp for looking at Backblaze and helping us in our mission to make sure every user is backed up - and to all of you that installed our online backup service and have been providing us with invaluable feedback.

It was definitely not your typical Monday.