TL;DR – I love Backblaze for cloud-based backups. This isn’t a paid post, I’m just a fan. But we do both get a month free if you use this referral link.

It’s not an if, but a when, that you’ll eventually need backups of your data. Whether it’s for a file you accidentally deleted, or a drive that fails at 4pm on a Friday, you’re going to regret not having one.

I learned this the hard way many years ago when a drive failed, and I didn’t have backups. It resulted in me having to pay a few thousand dollars to a specialized company to restore the drive.

While I’m starting to set up my home lab, which will eventually include off-site backup of data in my house to another location in the city, for now my best bet has been cloud-based backups with Backblaze.

It’s the best option, I think, for doing cloud backup. For $99 US a year, you get Unlimited storage. Yes, you read that right. (As long as the drives are connected to your computer. Network drives don’t count)

Restoring Your Data

Unfortunately, I’ve had to make use of Backblaze backups on more than one occasion. If you’re your family’s tech support person,may I recommend installing this on your family’s computers.

Last year my dad lost two hard disk drives in a year. In both cases, we went into Backblaze, and requested a copy of the drives. They mailed a portable USB drive with an encrypted copy of the data. It’s free as long as you send them back the drive when you’re done.

For smaller restores, you can ZIP files and download directly from the Backblaze site.

Give it a try

Check them out. We do both get a month free if you use this referral link.