> Here's the thing: I'm paying about $14/month for that S3 storage, which makes $99/year a total steal. I don't use Dropbox/Box/OneDrive/iCloud so the grievances mentioned by the author are not major hurdles for me. I do find the idea that it is silently ignoring .git folders troubling, primarily because they are indeed not listed in the exclusion list.
A big difference here is that Backblaze only keeps deleted/changed files for 30 days. Deleted files can go unnoticed for some time, especially if done by a malicious app or ignorant AI.
I do notice in their GUI that they offer a >30 memory for extra $:
30-Day Version History (Current)
Included
1-Year Version History
Forever Version History
$.006/GB/Month for versions changed or deleted more than 1 year ago
They are not giving much information here at all. The above is not a pasting artifact; their page literally doesn't give any indication of how they price the 1-year history. Presumably it's not just as simple as click to 12x your retention for free.
Meanwhile, it's even more unclear whether that $.006/GB is assessed for change deltas or for the total file size. Indeed, it's not clear if it's assessed against your entire fileset or just files that changed.
(Ironic that their ex-employee wrote: "In this case, it is always kind of scary for Backblaze to just quietly change a setting from one setting to a different setting in the product for the customer without the customer taking that action themselves." — when that's what happened in this case.)
I don't use Backblaze, but I found the Version History doc for you:
About 2 years ago now, we started including the 1-Year Extended Version History for all accounts.
We did not automatically turn it on for everyone, as it is not something everyone wants.
But there is no longer an extra charge for the 1-Year Extended Version History option when enabled.
You can also enable the Forever Extended Version History option, which will keep any deleted/changed/updated file for a year as part of the base plan, and then after that year that file will begin accruing a storage cost at our current B2 per GB storage cost.
So if you have 1TB of files in the Forever Extended Version History plan, it would cost you an extra $6 per month on top of your current plan.
The storage charge is only charged on files that have not been seen on the customer's computer in over 365 days.
I hope this helps, but please don't hesitate to email us still if you have questions. We are here to help.
This happened to me, a drive I rarely use silently died, and backblaze gave no indication that suddenly the whole drive was missing. Customer support explained to me how "backup" doesn't actually mean "backup"
A big difference here is that Backblaze only keeps deleted/changed files for 30 days. Deleted files can go unnoticed for some time, especially if done by a malicious app or ignorant AI.
I'd pay that extra few dollars for peace of mind.