
Backblaze's B2 Cloud Storage is now in open beta - dgellow
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage.html
======
pwenzel
If Backblaze is reading this, one feature missing from the b2 CLI is an rsync
option.

Google Cloud Storage provides _gsutil rsync_ , which is helpful for uploading
large folders. Bonus points for checksumming.

Edit: I hear that HashBackup provides rsync capabilities with b2.

~~~
budmang
We're definitely reading this ;-)

Appreciate the feedback and we'll take a look at that rsync utility. We're
also working on a simple client app that will do rsync with B2.

We're also starting to work with partners to offer a variety of other
integrations. Duplicity and HashBackup have integrated B2, and Duplicati has
an early alpha version. Someone is working on a FUSE integration. So hopefully
soon there will be many ways to use B2. We'll list them here:
[https://www.backblaze.net/b2/docs/integrations.html](https://www.backblaze.net/b2/docs/integrations.html)

Please keep sharing feedback of what you need and how you'd use it!

Gleb from Backblaze

~~~
wcchandler
Woah. I opened the bug request
([https://bugs.launchpad.net/duplicity/+bug/1498877](https://bugs.launchpad.net/duplicity/+bug/1498877))
for Duplicity. It's so cool to see that y'all must've noticed. I'm definitely
hoping to do what I can to help drive your presence on Linux!

------
timdorr
How is durability compared to S3 and Google? Any guarantees on availability?

How about speed, both on upload and download? It looks like this is geared for
less frequent access than other services.

~~~
atYevP
Yev from Backblaze here -> We're designing to have 8 "9's" of durability. Our
speed tests have been pretty good thus far, but like with our online backup
product it's best to just try it and see how quickly you can get to and from
it.

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onethumb
Disingenuous of them to not compare their pricing to Google Nearline[1] or AWS
S3 Infrequent Access[2] or AWS Glacier[3] given their price points
($0.01/GB/mo, $0.0125/GB/mo, $0.007/GB/mo) are much more competitive with B2
price-wise. Talk about stacking the deck in your favor.

Makes me leery of even trying it (what other things are they covering up?) or
moving my tens of petabytes over there, despite my intense interest.

[1]
[https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/nearline](https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/nearline)

[2] [https://aws.amazon.com/s3/](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/)

[3] [https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/](https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/)

~~~
budmang
Those are great services and we actually mention them just a bit lower on the
page. In the chart, we're comparing apples-to-apples: real-time cloud storage
services.

Nearline, S3-IA, and Glacier are all made for 'infrequent access'. All charge
you for deleting files and retrieving files (on top of bandwidth.) Near line
has a 3 second latency to first file and Glacier has a 4 hour wait. S3-IA has
a minimum file size they charge for.

All of those restrictions might be fine...just depends on the use case. But B2
is designed to be used not only for 'infrequently accessed' files...but also
for frequently accessed ones.

And all of other services are still 40% - 250% more expensive for their base
storage costs.

Hope that helps. Not trying to hide anything and we'd love to have you give
Backblaze B2 a try. (And to provide us feedback or ask us questions about
anything else!)

Gleb from Backblaze

~~~
onethumb
B2 has plenty of limitations, too. Like being single datacenter. I wouldn't
disqualify it from a list like this just because it's "different".

Each of the services on the list have their upsides and downsides, and none of
them are anywhere near apples-to-apples.

What they all are are cloud-based key-value storage, each with their own
tradeoffs, including price. So include all the major ones so your clients can
make an informed decision and you don't look like you're completely unaware of
your own competitive landscape.

~~~
budmang
Good feedback.

------
marktangotango
It's great to see some price pressure on the big players in this area,
fantastic going backblaze team!

~~~
atYevP
Yev from Backblaze here -> Thanks! We hope to compete on not just price in the
future, but it's not a bad foot to start off on :D

------
blantonl
0.005 GB is a competitive price until you bake in the total cost of ownership.
In this case, it still makes better sense for us to use Google's Cloud Storage
offerings for our 100TB of mp3 file storage since sending all those files
results in outgoing bandwidth charges from our infrastructure.

Staying in the same cloud "ecosystem" (Google or AWS) allows for free incoming
bandwidth and free bandwidth when transitioning between services (EC2 to S3 /
Google Cloud Server / Cloud Storage). An important consideration.

~~~
rob-olmos
Can you share some info on how backups are handled for 100TB of Google Cloud
Storage? (I'm thinking more like malicious actor intentional deleting kind of
threat, not the lack of durability)

------
boynamedsue
Question for BackBlaze folks: curious as to why you didn't use the Amazon S3
API for the B2 service.

~~~
atYevP
Yev from Backblaze -> B2 can be a bit cheaper because our service works a bit
differently from S3. For example, uploading files doesn't require expensive
load balancers in our data center. Instead, we require the dev to make 2 API
calls to upload a file, instead of 1 in S3. The downside - our API isn't S3
compatible. However, the upside is pretty compelling - we pass the savings on
and give you considerably cheaper storage.

Folks from the Beta have said that using our APIs they were able to integrate
their apps to B2 from S3 relatively quickly. That said we're still early, so
it may be that we develop some more compatible APIs in the future.

~~~
boynamedsue
How does it work for GET requests then?

~~~
atYevP
If I understand what GET does, I believe you can use our download_file_by_id
or _by_name to do that ->
[https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/b2_download_file_by_id.htm...](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/b2_download_file_by_id.html)

------
pierrec
Definitely cheap!

I'm guessing it shouldn't be used for serving content without a CDN in front
of it, though, as you just get a connection without great focus on download
speeds or distribution. This makes their use case example "Cloud Applications"
slightly misleading (or at least, incomplete), and also their comparisons...
I'm not sure which plans they're using in that table, but I think some of
these have a rather good CDN included (Rackspace for for example).

Still a great option for backup, blows Glacier out of the water. And certainly
usable without a CDN for the "storage" portion of an application that doesn't
require top speeds.

------
pi-rat
Cheaper than glacier (0.007), with none/few of the downsides, that's
impressive!

------
Happpy
"lowest cost"

Ovh.com public cloud storage is $0.01/gb/month and $0.01/gb out traffic.
99.999 sla and 3x replicated, openstack

~~~
km3k
OVH's download is cheaper but Backblaze is $0.005/gb/month so unless you're
doing a lot of downloading, it's lower cost than OVH.

~~~
Happpy
Idd, I'm building a social media service with it. So traffic is more important
than storage. For long therm storage with almost no access/traffic this would
be better.

------
km3k
Unlike Backblaze's other products, this one supports Linux through their
command line tool.

[https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/quick_command_line.html](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/quick_command_line.html)

~~~
vhbit
CLI isn't mature right now, I'm failing to upload a file, kind of basic
functionality.

~~~
e12e
I had to patch the client to get the authorize_account-command to work
(interactively): (ed: lets put that in the righ order, shall we - the dict-key
needs two dashes):

    
    
        diff -u b2.orig b2
        --- b2.orig     2015-12-17 02:01:55.500314405 +0100
        +++ b2  2015-12-17 02:00:31.032066222 +0100
        @@ -349,7 +349,7 @@
    
         def authorize_account(args):
    
        -    auth_urls = {'-production':'https://api.backblaze.com'}
        +    auth_urls = {'--production':'https://api.backblaze.com'}
    
             option = '--production'
             url = auth_urls[option]
    

[ed2: quest #182330 "Bug/typo in CLI tool" created -- that's a nasty
bugtracker you've got there. Is it possible to just email support somewhere? I
get grumpy when I need to run javascript and fill in CAPTCHAs just to file a
simple bug ;-) ]

~~~
atYevP
We have chat available :D

~~~
e12e
IRC?

------
aclatuts
Looks great. Is there possibility to host static web files with this?

~~~
atYevP
Yes ->

[https://f000.backblaze.com/file/yevyev/pics/Fallout_Small.jp...](https://f000.backblaze.com/file/yevyev/pics/Fallout_Small.jpg)

~~~
tedmiston
Does B2 include a CDN?

~~~
atYevP
Not at the moment, but we're considering many build outs including our own, or
partnerships!

------
tedmiston
B2 is cool for business customers, but as a personal customer I'm a little
salty about the context in which they present it.

If you have an external drive that you don't plug in every 30 days, Backblaze
deletes your backup. I pointed out how common it is to have a drive of old
photos, media, etc. and was told I should subscribe to B2 if I wanted "an
archival solution instead of a backup solution" for those files.

It made me feel like Backblaze was really penny pinching... I'm not a business
after all.

~~~
zyxley
> If you have an external drive that you don't plug in every 30 days,
> Backblaze deletes your backup.

If you have _any file_ that doesn't exist for 30 days, Backblaze deletes all
backups of it.

~~~
tedmiston
Good point. But specifically I mean files that exist and have _not_ been
deleted.

------
johnm1019
Great to see competition in the space, especially from a "not super mega
corp". Goodluck to you!

~~~
atYevP
Yev from Backblaze here -> Thanks! We had a lot of interest during the closed
beta, and so far things are looking pretty good! Just gotta keep it rolling
;-)

------
res0nat0r
The the upload rate throttled?

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Mail them the data; its surprisingly efficient.

~~~
toomuchtodo
+1. Anytime someone complains about upload speed, I don't get why they don't
just post a drive.

