This article was published on June 30, 2016

Backblaze’s B2 is the simplest and cheapest cloud storage service for large backups


Backblaze’s B2 is the simplest and cheapest cloud storage service for large backups Image by: Elegant Themes

Whether you’re running a small business with data scattered across several employees’ systems or simply have a few terabytes of RAW photos lying around like I do, you probably want to back up all those files someplace safe and on the cheap.

Over the past few months, Backblaze has been trialing its B2 storage service, which rivals Amazon Glacier with a simpler interface and lower price. It’s now out of beta and available to the public; plus, your first 10GB of storage is on the house and you don’t need a credit card to sign up for the free trial.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t meant to compete with cloud storage apps you use daily, like Dropbox or Google Drive. Backblaze is intended for stashing large caches of data for when you need them weeks, months or years later.

To that end, it costs only $0.005 per GB per month to store files, and $0.05 per GB you download. There’s no fee for uploading data. You also get support for uploading individual files or combinations of files in ‘snapshots’ of up to 10TB in size and Synlogy NAS storage backups.

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Plus, it offers a Web interface for managing and uploading your files into the cloud – no third-party apps or API necessary (though you can use those too). That makes it a great choice for even novice users who have a ton of files they want to keep safe.

I’ve got a 3TB hard drive bursting at the seams with my photography archive spanning four years, and I’m glad to have found an easy way to stash and retrieve them from the cloud without paying through the nose for the privilege.

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