Tag: Backblaze

Backblaze B2 to Cloudflare Using Page Rules

Two companies I really like are Backblaze and Cloudflare. I have trusted Backblaze for years with my personal computer backup and I have been a long time customer of Cloudflare since 2011 at least. Both companies are part of the bandwidth alliance, meaning you don’t have to worry about bandwidth fees when you are transferring data between a Backblaze B2 bucket and Cloudflare if you set up the Backblaze B2 bucket to run through Cloudflare. Backblaze even gives you a tutorial on how to set it all up, except that is not the tutorial I followed years ago using page rules.

I understand that things change and people might want to host their cdn data on a private Backblaze B2 bucket but it is interesting to me that they replaced an easy to use tutorial on how to use Backblaze B2 with the Cloudflare CDN using page rules with a much more complicated tutorial involving Cloudflare Workers. This is the opposite of a user friendly option. If you are a developer sure, but the page rule tutorial was much more simple and was easy for the average user to setup. I would not even think of sending a client to try and follow the new tutorial.

If you are looking for the old Using Backblaze B2 with the Cloudflare CDN with Page Rules tutorial I have found the Wayback Machine copy here. It is much easier to setup and while it does require a public Backblaze B2 bucket if you are making this content available over the Internet do you really need to make it a private bucket?

Things don’t always have to be made more complicated to work. I have to admit I am a little disappointed in both Backblaze and Cloudflare for removing a good solid easy to use tutorial in favour of a more complicated one.

MozyHome Alternative

I am sure if you have stopped by here in the past and read a few posts you would know that I am a pretty hard core Mozy online backup fan. I have good reason to be, they have helped me keep my business data safe with MozyPro. I have survived a hard drive failure with no data loss and it has helped me to occasionally recover files that I deleted by accident.

I liked MozyPro so much I started to use MozyHome to backup our family data. Mostly photos and videos. There is some other files in there as well, but the large majority of the files I backup with MozyHome are photos and video. It adds up to several hundred gigabyte, not a small amount. It has been great knowing that those files are safe offsite in the event that my local backup fails or both the local backup and computer are stolen or destroyed somehow.

Recently though Mozy has announced new backup plans for MozyHome and as result my several hundred gigabyte backup will go up in price from $103.95 every two years to over $825.00 / two years and that is assuming I create no more photos and video in the next year and a half I have on my current subscription. That is a fairly large price increase. Thankfully I do not have to worry about it until my current subscription expires in about a year and a half.

I understand that Mozy has not had a price increase for MozyHome for a long time, I also understand that I am probably part of the 10% of users that backup a lot of data. I looked at what I backup to MozyHome after the price increase was announced and yes there are some files I can remove, but the majority of them are files I want to make sure are safe. Things like photos of my kids, videos of their first steps, their first school concerts, and so on. These files are precious to me and despite what someone else might say, I want them to be backed up and safe. That is why I keep local backups of them, and why I want an online backup of them as well.

I still like Mozy, and will continue to use MozyPro to keep my business files safe, but I have to admit when my MozyHome subscription is close to over I will likely be moving my family backup to another service. I do not say that lightly, but the new MozyHome plan quotas are to small and too costly to stay with them.

When it does come time to move my home backup I am leaning towards Backblaze. My wife’s laptop has Backblaze installed on it and it works well just automatically backing up everything. I like the fact that if I need to restore all of my files from them I can have a USB drive shipped to me with the files on it. You can read a Backblaze review if you want to know more about the service. Of course if you want to sign up you can go straight to the Backblaze website.

If you are like me and have a lot of personal data that you want to keep safe take a look at Backblaze. If I referred you to MozyHome for your home backup and you are not happy about your price increase take a look at Backblaze, they appear committed to staying an unlimited backup service.