backblaze.com

Backblaze or Blackdaze? Very good - until you need it!

Until you need to restore files, everything seems fine - which could be why magazine reviews are generally positive. (Or are there other, more commercial reasons?)GOOD POINTS: Works without glitches as far as saving files automatically to the cloud, using the parameters you give it. But that's it!BAD POINTS: When I needed it, after a hard drive crash, files became difficult-to-impossible to retrieve. Okay, individual files can be restored but I have half-a-TB of data there. Here's what happens:1. Downloads of large folders (childishly named 'buckets') worked at one (that's ONE) Mbit/sec. That's 50 DAYS! I have very fast fibre, BTW and my downloads are normally fast. I may not live that long ;).2. I ordered and paid for a memory stick to be sent with my data on it - an extra $99, supposedly refundable. 24 hours on, no response has been received. I hope it's coming.3. I sent three 'Help' questions. Only one was answered. Two links were provided - which didn't work.4. Backblaze's online instructions are generally opaque, jargon-heavy and impenetrable - unless, I assume, you work there and know what all the in-house jargon means.5. Almost forgot - you can save your data and download it from something called 'B2' instead of from the main website. Why this is, or what the advantage would be isn't explained. But it does cost you extra. In any case, I tried. I failed. No idea why. 6. There's more - but I'm too bored to write it all down so it would be worse to read. Suffice to say that, as soon as I've extracted my stuff, I'm off!7. For European's the Help desk's hours are very limited. They are based on West Coast USA, about eight hours behind most of us - and the help desk even shuts for lunch, for a whole hour! BTW, I'm a motoring technical writer. Not a complete noggin (though some no doubt disagree!) so I'm convinced it's not me; it's Backblaze who don't know how to make their product work for non-insiders.

Date of experience: Apr 27, 2019