
Backblaze B2 Drops Download Pricing by 60% - ingve
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/b2-drops-download-pricing/
======
budmang
We have always tried to squeeze costs out of storage. That required a ton of
tech/ops work. Bandwidth it turns out isn't that expensive - seems to just
typically be overpriced. Hopefully lowering the price will enable people to do
more with their data.

I'd love to hear what you haven't done in the past due to bandwidth/download
pricing that you'd have wanted to...?

Gleb @ Backblaze

~~~
Veratyr
I'd be interested to know, have you looked into reducing/eliminating bandwidth
prices further for clients close to your network? It seems like you're with
Unwired, which has heavy inbound traffic and peers at a number of facilities
in the Bay Area. It'd be really interesting to know if you could, for example,
offer free traffic to Linode, DigitalOcean or Vultr, all of which have
offerings in the area and could help balance out Unwired's traffic flow (I
think that's a thing ISPs care about).

The big thing missing from B2 for me now, relative to the other big players,
is the ability to process my data once it's stored with you. If I store my
images in S3 for example, I can use EC2 to thumbnail them without paying
anything for retrieval. At the moment I can't do that with B2 and it seems
unlikely to make sense for you to build your own compute cloud but perhaps you
can integrate with others.

~~~
budmang
I would love to do this. Cross-connects aren't free, but they are certainly
less expensive than going out across the Internet. And enabling
compute/storage use cases by (possibly) partnering with other providers would
be excellent. I'll reach out to a few of those compute providers and explore.

Can you tell me more about how you use/would use cloud storage? (with or
without compute)

~~~
Veratyr
Currently I don't really use cloud storage, it's cheaper for me to colocate a
2U stuffed with disks and buy transit.

Primarily though I store media. I have (for a home user) large amounts of high
resolution (lossless audio, RAW images, high bitrate (even ProRes) video)
media that I like to keep for archival and transcoding but don't need for
playback. I want to store the original media somewhere safe and cheap but have
the ability to transcode it to a format suitable for playback/streaming on
demand.

Actually it just occurred to me that it might be worth you talking to the
folks at Plex ([https://plex.tv](https://plex.tv)) about this too, as they're
working on their Cloud product and need more places for their users to store
media.

~~~
jjeaff
If I was a storage company, I would consider Plex a hot potato and would stay
far, far away. There is a reason Plex isn't building out their own storage and
the reason isn't cost. It's because they know that 99% of all the media their
customers handle is pirated content. At some point, Plex will become large
enough to get on the radar of the MPAA and at that point, I assume they will
go after the cloud storage providers.

~~~
cookiecaper
Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Plex has nothing to do with _how_ users are
getting the content, it just offers playback and cataloging after they've
already retrieved it.

I'd agree if they allowed something like library sharing between users, but I
don't see them as a likely target just for allowing playback of consumer
media.

I use a (local) Plex installation for home videos, downloaded clips, and
various other non-infringing things. It's the most convenient way to share the
library out to a Chromecast/phone/Roku.

~~~
jjeaff
Ya, I don't think Plex would be necessarily at fault, although they could be
susceptible to DMCA takedown notices. But a storage provider could get into
deep trouble if they know tons of pirated content was being uploaded. Kim
Dotcom claims MEGA had no idea if the content being uploaded was infringing.

~~~
cookiecaper
Megaupload (which I assume you mean because afaik MEGA has not been in legal
trouble) was a distribution platform; the purpose was to upload something and
give the link to others. If it was a personal file locker that couldn't link
out or be shared, as Plex intends to be, it probably would not have had
issues.

------
saosebastiao
Backblaze is doing to S3 what I dream about doing to Amazon Retail after
several years working for them.

The amazon philosophy is quite a bit like the underpants gnomes: 1) grow, 2)
..., 3) profit. Where there are natural monopolies with obvious economies of
scale, this is an incredible strategy. But outside of that (retail, for
example), it just doesn't work. Economies of scale come coupled with
diseconomies of scale, and #2 needs to be an intentional and deliberate
approach to managing those diseconomies of scale. If you look at their
financials, it is obvious that Amazon retail has had a miserable time managing
this...over the last 15 years they have steadily lower inventory turns,
steadily increasing logistics costs, availability inconsistency, etc. Anybody
who works there now or worked there in the past can see how inefficiently they
run things and how efficiency improvements one day are ameliorated by
political and speculative decisions the next day.

Combine this with their typical acquisition strategy, as exemplified by the
Quidsi approach. Lowball, and when they don't accept, spend money subsidizing
your own product to undercut their market and make them more desperate to
sell.

The Backblaze approach is genius for taking on Amazon because it inverts the
priorities to 1) meticulously manage costs, and then 2) directly engage amazon
by competing on price. Backblaze can compete on price because their cost
structure is lower than Amazon. Amazon can always subsidize their product, but
by doing so _Amazon is in the weaker position in the endurance race_.
Backblaze can ride out the attempts at undercutting them because they have a
lower cost structure and prices need to drop a lot before they affect their
cash flow safety. It's also a resilient strategy; Amazon can know that's
exactly what they're doing and they can't do anything to stop it apart from
beating them at their own game of cost management. It's a slow and steady
road, but it can work.

Now, if only they would start running more than an S3 competitor :)

~~~
discodave
> Now, if only they would start running more than an S3 competitor

But then Backblaze don't have the cost advantage! Amazon uses their profits
from S3/EC2 to subsidise all the new AWS services (and feature development for
the existing services).

------
tarikozket
I asked if you guys can offer a similar price to OVH's prices and got
rejected. After 3 weeks I moved literally 48 million objects to OVH, you guys
decide to announce this. Cool. I hope all goes well.

~~~
brianwski
Brian from Backblaze here.

I've been begging the pricing team at Backblaze to drop this price for about a
year. I'm just glad it finally percolated through.

As far as we can tell, all the cloud storage providers are gouging their
customers on outbound bandwidth prices. I'm sorry we couldn't get this pushed
through sooner.

~~~
tarikozket
Thanks for the detailed reply. I still like what you guys do and appreciate
the effort of the team.

------
ciaranconnor
Have they added any non-credit/debit card payment options (e.g. PayPal) yet?
I'm from the UK, and my bank charges me a flat 'non-sterling transaction fee',
which overshadows the actual usage costs. This means, for smaller projects, B2
is actually much more expensive than the competition that allows me to pay in
my native currency either directly, or through a service like PayPal.

~~~
Symbiote
If it's for personal use, investigate the cards listed at
[http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/travel-credit-
cards#...](http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/travel-credit-
cards#bestbuys) \-- I have the Halifax Clarity card, which I use for similar
services.

I don't know if any of those banks also offer a similar deal for business
accounts.

~~~
arthurfm
Another option worth considering is a pre-paid debit card like Monzo's [1].
This doesn't have any fees when used outside of the UK.

I think in the not too distant future you'll be able to get a regular (non-
prepaid) debit card from them now that they have a unrestricted UK banking
license [2].

[1] [https://monzo.com/](https://monzo.com/)

[2] [https://monzo.com/blog/2017/04/05/banking-
licence/](https://monzo.com/blog/2017/04/05/banking-licence/)

~~~
ciaranconnor
What's the online purchasing experience like? I previously tried Revolut, but
too many payments were declined when I used it online.

~~~
kennydude
As expected. You just get a notification if it works (and if it doesn't and
why)

------
byefruit
Speaking of cheap object storage, has anyone had any experiences with OVH's
Object Storage?

[https://www.ovh.com/us/public-cloud/storage/object-
storage/](https://www.ovh.com/us/public-cloud/storage/object-storage/)

It seems to be more expensive for storage but nearly half the cost for
transfer.

~~~
RX14
I tried it a while back, maybe it was just me being stupid but I found no CLI,
or decent tool for the API. Ended up giving up because the barrier to entry
was too high. I'd suggest they work on tooling.

~~~
zzzcpan
Don't they use Swift API for which lots of tooling is available?

EDIT: And Backblaze B2 invented their own API, so no tooling at all.

~~~
brianwski
> Backblaze B2 invented their own API, so no tooling at all.

At first that was true, but now we have a list of 3rd party tools you can use.
Check the list out here:
[https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html)

Here is a sample from that web page: CloudBerry, Rclone (mount B2 as a hard
drive on your desktop), Synology (this is a NAS drive), Retrospect, Cantemo,
Cubix, Cyberduck, Duplicacy, Duplicity Linux, HashBackup, NyNAS, NeoFinder,
Odrive, Qbackup, SmartFTP

------
netcraft
Now if they just had an api compatable with s3:
[https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/218513487-Is-
th...](https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/218513487-Is-the-B2-Cloud-
Storage-API-Compatible-with-Amazon-S3-)

Or full support for hosting a static website:
[https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-
us/articles/230383208-Hosti...](https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-
us/articles/230383208-Hosting-Website-Content-via-B2)

Great prices though!

~~~
budmang
Tell me more please... is support for the S3 api because you use a product
that you want to use with B2? Or you've written your own code to S3 apis?

~~~
mgabe
For me, it would be because I use a product that I would happily use with B2
if possible.

[https://github.com/wal-e/wal-e](https://github.com/wal-e/wal-e)

------
xchaotic
Is this the cheapest place for storing another copy of your photos? I have
150GB worth atm with 3 copies and I don't mind another copy if it's cheap
enough.

~~~
res0nat0r
Glacier currently is .004c / GB

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

GCE Coldline is .007c / GB

[https://cloud.google.com/storage/archival/](https://cloud.google.com/storage/archival/)

~~~
RX14
You mean $0.004 / GB? So only 20% cheaper than B2, but not realtime?

~~~
discodave
More like 0.004/0.02= 20% so Glacier is 20% of the _cost_ of B2, i.e. 80%
cheaper (but yes, not realtime).

~~~
brianwski
Brian from Backblaze here -> I don't quite understand your math?

$0.004/GByte/month - Amazon Glacier

$0.005/GByte/month - Backblaze B2

Furthermore, I think if you price it out, Backblaze will be cheaper than
Glacier in most examples. For example, Glacier charges for uploads (5 cents
per 1,000 uploads). If you ever download the data, it costs 9 cents/GByte to
retrieve it from Glacier(!!!)

Use anything you like, but just make sure you consider all the charges and
give Backblaze a fair consideration.

~~~
res0nat0r
It is $.03 GB for expedited and $.0025 for bulk now it seems.

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

~~~
brianwski
I'm not entirely sure I'm reading this correctly (because Amazon pricing is so
ridiculously confusing) but I think you are reading the prices to get data out
of Glacier and into an EC2 instance (which is still inside Amazon). THEN you
get charged an additional 9 cents/GByte to get it out of EC2 and downloaded
onto your laptop.

At Backblaze, we cannot figure out the business case of why Amazon prices
things so that the small customers get really expensive prices (9 cents/GByte
for less than 10 TBytes), and as the volume increases the price drops to 5
cents/GByte (for 250 TBytes). It makes no business sense to drive away small
companies. A byte is a byte, the WHOLE POINT of a large cloud storage farm
like Backblaze B2 or Amazon S3 is that we bundle together 200,000 small
customers and together they get the economy of scale of a large customer!
That's the whole point, the whole strategy! And what Backblaze has seen over
and over again is that over time, some of our small customers became really
gigantic customers. So driving away the small customers by gouging them on
price means the small customers go to some other provider, then they get large
with the other provider. But hey, I'm just thankful Amazon thinks this is good
for them because it leaves the market wide open for Backblaze to gobble up all
the small customers (which we are really super happy to have as customers).

------
scarface74
I'm looking for the cheapest gigabit based NAS solution that supports B2. Any
suggestions?

I'm thinking about replacing my aging Core 2 Duo laptop running Plex with an
attached USB hard drive and BackBlaze with a combination NAS with Gig E and an
NVidia Shield. I would use B2 for backups.

I have gigabit internet up and down and a house wired for Gig e throughout.

~~~
budmang
If you're looking for a NAS, Synology boxes support Backblaze B2 directly via
Cloudsync. I know some of their models support Gig E; not sure if all do.

------
CharlesW
Gleb: Understanding that it's not a CDN per se, would using this primarily for
large file distribution (meaning, not images on web sites, etc.) instead of
backup be a bad idea?

~~~
budmang
Should be a fine use case. B2 is fine for backup, but designed to be used for
all sorts of storage use cases. Would be happy to have someone on our team
explore with you the specifics of your use case (performance, etc.); You can
shoot me an email at gleb.budman at backblaze.

------
aarpmcgee
I'd love to hear anyones opinions on how this compares to Arq, which I'm
currently digging quite a lot.

~~~
Veratyr
Backblaze B2 is a storage service, Arq is a storage client. They're different
but complementary tools so you can't really compare them.

At some point Arq could even support B2, though the most recent record I could
find of this suggests that it's not planned right noW:
[https://twitter.com/arqbackup/status/662037695879880704?lang...](https://twitter.com/arqbackup/status/662037695879880704?lang=en)

------
ryanmarsh
... the day after I signed up

~~~
budmang
After you signed up for B2? We're dropping prices for everyone - you too then
;-)

------
tschellenbach
They only have 50 employees, [https://www.linkedin.com/company-
beta/2749627/?pathWildcard=...](https://www.linkedin.com/company-
beta/2749627/?pathWildcard=2749627)

I really wonder if you'll get the same level of reliability as the leading
providers.

~~~
brianwski
Brian from Backblaze here.

> They only have 50 employees

We are larger than that now, but yes, still in that ballpark.

> same level of reliability as the leading providers

How is reliability related to number of salespeople? (That was a joke.)

But seriously, we published the EXACT reliability and the design in our blog
post here: [https://www.backblaze.com/blog/vault-cloud-storage-
architect...](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/vault-cloud-storage-
architecture/)

In a nutshell, any one byte of data is spread across 20 different computers in
20 different physical locations in our datacenter through Reed-Solomon
encoding. If we lose 3 full computers in 3 separate locations your data is
still fine.

We have been doing this for 10 years now, and we take it very seriously, and
we have 73,000 hard drives in our datacenter. We are the only company on earth
to publish our drive failure rates: [https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-
drive-benchmark-stats-20...](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-
benchmark-stats-2016/)

~~~
atYevP
Yev from Backblaze Here -> I updated the employee count on LinkedIn ;)

