BackBlaze Review

I recommend this service for those looking to get a online backup system for their computer. Is 5$mth or 50$yr worth knowing that you can restore your computer if it gets a virus?

Quick Summary
Backblaze is an online backup tool which allows you to backup all data on your computer. It costs 5$/mth per computer for an unlimited amount of space (to test the service you can download a free trial that lasts for 15 days), you can also pay 50$ for a year and save a total of 10$. It backups ALL your data on your computer. You can restore your data from the web or order a USB or DVD to be sent to you via FedEx.

Things I Like

• 5$ a mth for UNLIMITED backup space. I mean you could have terabytes all backed up. That's awesome. 
• The various options for restoring your information.
• Installing the program and starting the backup took about 2 minutes, pretty quick. All I had to provide was an email and password and I had an account.
• You can plug in your external HD, and back that up to. 
• Reports: it's a breakdown of what type of files are backed up (i.e. music, movies, documents, etc...)

Things I Don't Like

• As with most backup systems, the first backup takes forever! You can adjust the speed at which it happens, but it still takes a while.
• How much they charge to order a 4gb DVD (99$).

Using the System

• Once you download and use the automatic install, it immediately asks you to create an account, and then backup commences. That's it. The program lives in the Systems Preferences area, so you never actually have an icon pop-up in your dock, it does have a configurable icon for the menu bar.
• You can adjust a bunch of settings that include: 
• Online name for the computer.
• Throttle - adjust the speed with which the backup is performed.
• Warnings for when you have not backed up within a certain time period
• Show backblaze icon in menu bar
• Select Hard-Drives to backup
• Schedule for backups: continuously, once a day, or when you click
• Exclusions: folders you don't want backed up
• Security: you can add an additional private encryption key
• Reports: a breakdown of the type of files backed up
• Logs
• You also have the option of "Restore Options", where you can go to their online repository or pay to have a USB or DVD sent to you. The DVD costs 99$ and the USB cost 189$. I prefer the download zip option for free. 
• You can pause the backup at any time, or resume at any time. 
• They use "military-grade" encryption to secure data. Essentially its some super complicated algorithms that I won't go into detail over. You can read more about that on their encryption blog post.

That's it. This program is super simple. My "first backup" is still in progress, because its a little slow I will update this post once it has finished. However the program is working great at the moment.