BackBlaze - Business Options Available

dafyre

@aaron said:

@BRRABill No it will not install on a server OS.

I am curious as to why not... ? Some of us prefer to use Server OSes as our daily drivers. Why treat the server OS any differently than the client OS?

Dashrender

@dafyre said:

@aaron said:

@BRRABill No it will not install on a server OS.

I am curious as to why not... ? Some of us prefer to use Server OSes as our daily drivers. Why treat the server OS any differently than the client OS?

To prevent abuse. Though it's a poor man's way of doing so.

scottalanmiller

@dafyre said:

@aaron said:

@BRRABill No it will not install on a server OS.

I am curious as to why not... ? Some of us prefer to use Server OSes as our daily drivers. Why treat the server OS any differently than the client OS?

Same reason that Microsoft does

scottalanmiller

@Dashrender said:

@dafyre said:

@aaron said:

@BRRABill No it will not install on a server OS.

I am curious as to why not... ? Some of us prefer to use Server OSes as our daily drivers. Why treat the server OS any differently than the client OS?

To prevent abuse. Though it's a poor man's way of doing so.

Yup, no effective way to use a desktop for huge storage or many systems.

BRRABill

In some environments, the server might have less data than a desktop. Especially if you factor in pictures/videos/music.

Now, granted this would bolster the argumetn of "why do they have a serer, just use the cloud", but it's out there.

It's a money thing, I am sure. Businesses have deeper pockets and can afford it.

Looks like CrashPlan is still the way to go on the server side. But I will definitely look into BackBlaze for my desktop users.

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said:

In some environments, the server might have less data than a desktop. Especially if you factor in pictures/videos/music.

"In some" and "can" aren't the issues. It's what is the realistic sizes that is the issues. Servers can hold data for hundreds or thousands of users. Desktops cannot. Yes, one user can store a lot of stuff. And one server can store very little. But the concern is only the use case where many, many users have shared storage on a single server.

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dafyre

@aaron said:

@dafyre said:

@aaron said:

@BRRABill No it will not install on a server OS.
I am curious as to why not... ?

The other guys are correct in why server OS isn't supported by the backup client. It's a business decision. Since the original Backblaze backup product offers unlimited product at only $50/year, we need to make sure that there is enough revenue coming in from license sales to make up for larger-volume customers. Supporting servers would allows folks to buy 1 license for the server and back up multiple machines to that server, then back it up to Backblaze. That's simply not a viable strategy for us with the online backup product. However, Backblaze B2, will allow you to do exactly that from Windows Server, Linux or any favorite system that can make SSL requests over 443.

I think it's similar to a local pizza shop buffet where I like going for lunch. Sometimes I eat a couple slices, sometimes more. They just won't give me a whole pizza or a specific slice on demand, to them it evens out in the long run at that price point.

Ok, yeah, that makes sense.

JaredBusch

@dafyre said:

@aaron said:

@dafyre said:

@aaron said:

@BRRABill No it will not install on a server OS.
I am curious as to why not... ?

The other guys are correct in why server OS isn't supported by the backup client. It's a business decision. Since the original Backblaze backup product offers unlimited product at only $50/year, we need to make sure that there is enough revenue coming in from license sales to make up for larger-volume customers. Supporting servers would allows folks to buy 1 license for the server and back up multiple machines to that server, then back it up to Backblaze. That's simply not a viable strategy for us with the online backup product. However, Backblaze B2, will allow you to do exactly that from Windows Server, Linux or any favorite system that can make SSL requests over 443.

I think it's similar to a local pizza shop buffet where I like going for lunch. Sometimes I eat a couple slices, sometimes more. They just won't give me a whole pizza or a specific slice on demand, to them it evens out in the long run at that price point.

Ok, yeah, that makes sense.

It makes a bit of sense when phrased that way, but it is also trivial to exploit if so desired.

I can always just share a single folder out with a Windows desktop client and use that like a NAS as my shared drive target for the backup solution.

I've already stated in this thread how I abuse CrashPlan with a symlinked folder in Windows. CrashPlan at least expects this to happen as they have basic "use at your own risk" directions for it on their website.

BRRABill

@JaredBusch said:

I've already stated in this thread how I abuse CrashPlan with a symlinked folder in Windows. CrashPlan at least expects this to happen as they have basic "use at your own risk" directions for it on their website.

I think what they are saying is that BackBlaze has thought about it, and decided that doesn't make sense for them.

CrashPlan thinks it DOES make sense for them, hence they allow it.

I think it's similar to the OneDrive storage issue. Sure, there are people who use "unlimited" data storage to the max, but probably a vast majority do not.

Using the buffet example, sure there are people like Homer Simpson who had to take the buffet place to court because he didn't have enough food. But most other people eat below the break even line.

stacksofplates

I've got to say I'm impressed with the customer service so far. I signed up for the B2 beta and downloaded the cli tool from the site. I had an issue and opened a chat on the site. Nathan was helpful and ended up knowing what the issue was.

stacksofplates

So if you just want to use B2 to backup something like a home folder here's how you can do it. First you need to create and authorize a bucket (I won't go into that it's in the documentation). Here's a one liner to upload your home folder and exclude a couple hidden folders. Stderr is sent to /dev/null because you'll get a lot of errors telling you that the item is a folder (B2 doesn't support uploading folders).

find /home/jhooks * \( -path ./.cache -o -path ./.adobe -o -path ./.macromedia \) -prune -o -exec sh -c 'b2 upload_file JHB-Backup {} home/jhooks/{}' \; 2> /dev/null

JHB-Backup is the bucket name and the home/jhooks{} gives each file a name based on the directory it's in.

If you want only files changed in the last day add -mtime -1.

I'm sure this isn't the normal use case for this, but if you want a simple backup off site for cheap it would work.

If you want to run it as a script you could do

#!/bin/bash

cd /home/user    

now=$(date +"%m-%d-%Y")

/usr/bin/find /home/user * \( -path ./.cache -o -path ./.adobe -o -path ./.macromedia \) -prune -o -exec sh -c 'b2 upload_file <bucket_name> {} {}' \; >> /home/user/.log/$now.log 2> /dev/null

That will output a log to the /home/user/.log folder and name it the date that it was run.

stacksofplates

I had a couple issues with the script above. I'll keep doing some edits. It was adding an extra / some places and I'm not sure why.

Edit: I figured it out and updated the script. You need to cd to the directory first and then run the upload. You can then remove the /home/user in the second section.

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Mike Davis

What do you have to do to get the B2 script working on a Windows box? Install python?

scottalanmiller

@Mike-Davis said:

What do you have to do to get the B2 script working on a Windows box? Install python?

Do you mean the one that John provided? That's BASH, not Python. You'd need to install BASH.

Dashrender

@Nic said:

@BRRABill I've only used the home version for $5/month per computer. This page has info on the business version:
https://www.backblaze.com/business.html

I know I'm really late to this - but you pay $5/month ($60/yr) and their business plan for unlimited workstation backup is less, at $50/yr? are you going to switch?

BRRABill

@Dashrender said:

@Nic said:

@BRRABill I've only used the home version for $5/month per computer. This page has info on the business version:
https://www.backblaze.com/business.html

I know I'm really late to this - but you pay $5/month ($60/yr) and their business plan for unlimited workstation backup is less, at $50/yr? are you going to switch?

I haven't looked at BackBlaze yet, but CrashPlan has some features on the personal side that might make more sense for home users. MIGHT.

Dashrender

examples?

BRRABill

@Dashrender

One of the big things is that you can backup up to 10 machines for $12.50 a month, where with the business plan each one has to be $10 a month. Of course that may or or may not work in a business setting (I know businesses who do that, backup every machine to one main account) but at home it's generally fine.

You can also do peer-to-peer backup which is not available in the business setting.

They also didn't used to have restore-to-door on the business side, but they now do. (Seems odd not to.) If you want to pay $299.

CrashPlan charges $10 for business, and $5 for the "home" version. But I've set 1 person businesses up on the "home" plan, which CrashPlan is fine with.