We asked you to provide us ideas for a billboard and, wow, did you come through!
You submitted about 200 ideas!

It was incredibly difficult to narrow them down. But, after much deliberation, rigorous analysis, careful evaluation…and just some plain “I like that one!”…we came down to the six ideas below.

Now it’s to pick the final billboard that will go up on Highway 101:
Vote on Facebook for your favorite Backblaze online backup billboard!
Voting by Dec 5, 2011 at 10am PST enters you to win 1 year of Backblaze.

Peace of Mind. $5/month.

Yesterday, you said you would backup today.

Because there are some videos you don’t want to lose.

Easy backup. Quick restore. You can hug us later.

Kiss your lost files hello.

1 in 2 people will lose data. Which one are you?

So, which one is your favorite?

We will also be touching up the final picked one, so give us feedback in the comments.

Peace of mind means different things to different people. It might be knowing you can get the song your baby falls asleep to when you’re traveling or being able to find your lost or stolen computer.

At Backblaze, we believe that peace of mind comes from never having to worry about losing the video of your newborn’s first smile, the photo of your uncle passed out at Thanksgiving last year, or oops, that presentation you just deleted.

This holiday season, give the gift of peace of mind from Backblaze.

… And get rewarded for your generosity in return.

Every gift license purchased between now and midnight this Cyber Monday, automatically enters you into a drawing for your choice of hotel or flight ($250 gift card) for a little extra peace of mind of your own.

Can’t decide who to bestow with your generosity? Follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook to be entered into a drawing for a free year of Backblaze.

So kick up your feet and relax, we’ve got you and your friends covered.

* Anyone is eligible.
* Licenses can be used for new accounts only
* License is valid for one year of unlimited backup
* Contests end at 11.59 PM PST on November 28th, 2011

Drama tends to be reserved for reality TV. Or sometimes for Valleywag.

But the last couple of days there has been some drama in the backup space.

About a month ago, “Backify” launched an online backup service claiming to offer 512 GB for free. That surprised me and others and I was curious as to how they could offer that. Well in the last two days the answer came back as “they couldn’t”.

As it turns out, Backify was reselling another service called LiveDrive. That company sent an email to all Backify customers claiming Backify was being fraudulent. Backify sent an email to their customers saying LiveDrive’s service was broken. Unclear what actually happened, but bad for customers backing up their data regardless.

Lifehacker includes both emails here: “You Should Probably Stop Using Backify”

This morning, the Backify homepage changed to say: “Backify is no longer in service”. The company suggests users try Backblaze for unlimited storage for data backups.

We very much appreciate the recommendation and are happy to welcome all Backify customers who wish to protect their data with online backup. While Backify pitched a free service, Backblaze online backup does have a fee. We are $5/month, $50/year, or $95/two years (i.e. $3.96/month). For this, Backblaze provides automatic, unlimited backup with unlimited storage and unthrottled bandwidth.

Backify customers can try Backblaze free and get 10% off when buying:
* Download the free two-week trial at www.backblaze.com
* Use code “backify” by Nov 28, 2011 to get 10% off your initial purchase.

We hope that we can pick up your online backup needs where Backify left off, and as we are unlimited and unthrottled, we can get you backed up and protected quickly!

Meet the Backblaze Peloton.
From Wikipedia:

The peloton travels as an integrated unit, like birds flying in formation, each rider making slight adjustments in response to the riders around him or her…

I would say we started a Backblaze biking group because of the inherent efficiency, teamwork, and performance of a well-executing peloton; that this is both a way to develop our team and to demonstrate it’s excellence; that this was perfectly timed to coincide with Backblaze 2.0: The Performance Release

But, realistically, it’s just fun.

Want one of these fancy Backblaze bike jerseys?
In the comments below, on our Facebook page, or on Twitter simply finish the sentence:

“Backblaze is faster than…”

For example,
* Backblaze is faster than a cheetah jumping off a rocket ship.
* Backblaze is faster than a spinning hard drive.
* Backblaze is faster than a DeLorean hitting 88 mph.

We’ll pick our favorite and send you a jersey!

Does it pain you when people lose data? Want to help promote an online backup service that has helped save a marriage, save Christmas, save a photographer’s portfolio, and even bring down an Argentinian counterfeiting crime ring?

Come be our Director of Product Marketing and lead customer acquisition programs! We need someone who is creative and willing to take risks (which will sometimes fail), but is analytical in structuring experiments and measuring success. Sound like you?

Title: Director of Product Marketing

Role: As the Director of Product Marketing, your role will include:
• Both developing product marketing strategies and executing them tactically.
• Focusing on profitable revenue growth, customer acquisition, and brand development.
• Developing PR opportunities and thought leadership content.
• Developing and executing social media campaigns.
• Determining and optimizing advertising placements.
• Pitching opportunities and presenting at conferences and other events.
• Crafting unique messaging and positioning for the online backup service.
• Building out case studies and other content for the Backblaze for Business offering.
• Empowering affiliate partners with enhanced content and tools
• …and generally coming up with creative, data driven ways to grow Backblaze.

Want to join our team?
• Email: with subject “Director of Product Marketing”
• Include your resume
• Include an answer to: “In the first month, what three things would you do to acquire customers; how would you measure success; and how many customers would you expect will result from this?”

Note: position is based in San Mateo, CA.

UPDATE: this position has been filled by Kirk!

Do you like Big Data? Big red boxes?

The Backblaze online backup service has nearly 20 petabytes of customer data stored and adds about a petabyte every month. We like people who have the creativity to come up with new ways of building bigger and cheaper cloud storage – yet are meticulous about the datacenter operations. Sound like you?

Title: Sr. Systems Administrator

Role: As the Sr. Systems Administrator, your role will be to:
• Help plan, organize, and manage all activities of the Backblaze data centers.
• Scale operations including deploying & configuring new systems & networks.
• Troubleshoot and resolves operational problems.
• Implements security measures required by corporate security policies.
• Help create, maintain and improve operational shell scripts and manual procedures.
• Install new software patches, releases and system upgrades.
• Perform system backups and recovery as needed.
• Maintain monitoring system to measure system availability and detect issues.
• Help hire and train IT staff as needed, including those in remote locations.
• Continuously increase operational efficiency.
• Continuously improve Backblaze Storage Pods.
• Participate in the pager rotation and respond to alerts as needed.
• Handle daily operational tasks including reading logs and replacing drives.

Want to join our team?
• Email: with subject “Sr. Systems Administrator”
• Include your resume
• Include an answer to the question: “How would you manage boot image and system configurations on 1,000+ storage servers (i.e. Backblaze Storage Pods)?”

Note: Position is in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Backblaze has always provided unlimited online backup:
Unlimited storage and Unthrottled bandwidth.

Today I am very excited to announce: Backblaze 2.0 – a performance release that makes the service more unlimited, faster, and even easier to get all your data safely backed up.

There are 16 updates that we think you’ll love. I want to highlight a few:

Unlimited File Size – while most of you have been able to backup all of your files with the previous 9 GB maximum, now there will never be a file too big to backup.

Unlimited File Types – now you can backup VMware, Parallels, and other virtual machines; as well as ISOs and every single other file type.

Maximum Performance – we have added an Automatic Throttle to most efficiently use your Internet connection, added file batching to speed small file transfer, added hardware acceleration, reduced RAM user further, and much more.

Taking advantage of Backblaze 2.0

New Installs
New customers, new trials, and new installs by existing customers will automatically get Backblaze 2.0. Some functions are on by default (e.g. Automatic Throttle) and others are an option to pick (e.g. Maximum file size backed up defaults to 4 GB.)

Existing Installs
Current customers and free trials will remain on the current version for the moment. We will automatically upgrade everyone over the next few weeks. If you wish to immediately upgrade to v2.0, simply click the “Check for Updates” menu item in the product.

Customers that update from an existing version will keep the settings they have on their current installation. Thus, for example, you will still be on Manual Throttle unless you turn on Automatic Throttle.

A small step
With approximately 2 billion Macs and PCs in use and 94% of them not backed up, data backup continues to be an enormous problem that needs to be solved. Hopefully, this new release is a small step toward making sure no one ever loses data again.

Researchers have discovered that a pinch of table salt can get more data onto spinning hard drive platters. A lot more: 6 TB in a single platter!

Considering the latest drives have up to 5 platters, that would be 30 TB in a single hard drive. Put 45 of those drives into a Backblaze Storage Pod and you would store 1.35 petabytes (!) in a single storage pod; more than 10 petabytes in a single rack.

Hello, Big Data. Meet your best friend, Salt.