

Backblaze on a LAN can backup the whole company? - poofyleek

Unlimited backup storage you say?  So if I put one Windows PC client connected to backblaze, all other machines can use some software to use that machine over LAN and use it as a backup server.  What's to prevent that?<p>The single PC can cache the backup data, only download backups from backblaze when absolutely no other backup copies exist locally.<p>If backblaze allows this, I think this can be an interesting low cost device for backing up potentially huge amount of data cheaply.
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nilayp
Yeah, a company C-A-N abuse our service doing this. It does violate the spirit
of our terms of agreement, but honestly... We probably wouldn't notice and
wouldn't terminate your account. In fact, we do not throttle our network
connections either... If you have a TB of data, bring it on.

We have disrupted this market by creating our own storage and cloud management
system. Our costs are far below our competitors. We are profitable and cash
flow positive. The occasional abuse won't change that. If you don't know about
this, check out our blog articles about our storage pod...
<http://blog.backblaze.com. >

In general, companies don't do abuse us. They know it is in their best
interest that we are profitable and thriving. Otherwise, how could be continue
to provide the least expensive business online backup available? Every other
competitor charges companies on a per GB basis. Our service ... at
$50/computer for unlimited storage is both inexpensive and predictable.

Finally, when someone uploads a 1TB of data on our service, they tend to tell
everyone they know! This attracts a lot of customers to start using our
service with far less than 1TB of data. You can't buy publicity like that.

Hope that helps you understand what we are up to. Email me if you have
questions... If you are a true hacker, figuring out my email address will be a
piece of cake.

\-- Nilay Patel VP Sales, Backblaze

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wmf
There's no such thing as unlimited; they'd probably terminate the account.

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poofyleek
Probably. But they do say $5 unlimited, which is tempting.

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sfall
problem your upload speed

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poofyleek
yeah. but it seems upload speed is limited anyway. if a company has 100 PCs,
would it not make sense to just pay for one or two clients and have them do
all the uploading? Why would one pay 100 clients' monthly?

