Year: 2017

Preserving the Music of Austin City Limits

KLRU-TV, Austin PBS created Austin City Limits 42 years ago and has produced it ever since. Austin City Limits is the longest-running music series in television history. Over the years, KLRU accumulated over 550 episodes and thousands of hours of unaired footage stored on videotape. When KLRU decided to preserve their collection they turned to… Continue reading Preserving the Music of Austin City Limits

Data Backup: Minimizing the Impact of Ransomware

The old adage, “Backing up your data is important to plan for, as hard drives inevitably fail” is as true as ever, but equally true now is the need to back up your data to thwart the increasing frequency of ransomware attacks. What Is Ransomware? Ransomware is malicious software that blocks access to your data… Continue reading Data Backup: Minimizing the Impact of Ransomware

Managing a Remote Workforce

While Backblaze has customers all around the globe, the company itself is a pretty small enterprise with just over 50 employees. Many of those employees are actually remote. 75% of Backblaze employees work from the main Backblaze office (San Mateo), 15% are data center employees, and 10% are working remotely full-time. Many companies that were… Continue reading Managing a Remote Workforce

Building a Competitive Moat: Turning Challenges Into Advantages

In my previous post on how Backblaze got started, I mentioned that “just because we knew the right solution, didn’t mean that it was possible.” I’ll dig into that here. The right solution was to offer unlimited backup for $5 per month. The price of storage at the time, however, would have likely forced us to price our unlimited backup service at 2x – 5x that.

We were faced with a difficult challenge – compromise a fundamental feature of our product by removing the unlimited storage element, increase our price point in order to cover our costs but likely limit our potential customer base, seek funding in order to run at a loss while we built market share with a hope/prayer we could make a profit in the future, or find another way (huge unknown that might not have a solution). Below I’ll dig into the options that were available, the paths we tried, and how this challenge completely transformed our company and ended up being our greatest technological advantage.

Wanted: Content Director

Thank you for your interest, but this position has been filled. Please check out our jobs page for additional great opportunities at Backblaze. Backblaze is looking to hire a full time content director. This role is an essential piece of our team, reporting directly to our VP of marketing. As the hiring manager, I’d like… Continue reading Wanted: Content Director

Confessions of a Digital Pack Rat: Almost Half a Petabyte and Still Growing

What do you do when you have almost half a petabyte of data? That’s the situation in which Michael Oskierko finds himself. He’s a self-proclaimed digital pack rat who’s amassed more than 390TB total, and it’s continuing to grow. Based in Texas, Michael Oskierko is a financial analyst by day. But he’s set up one… Continue reading Confessions of a Digital Pack Rat: Almost Half a Petabyte and Still Growing

Deleted or Changed a File You Need Back? Backblaze Can Help!

Sometimes we like to spotlight some of our most-used functionality. This particular feature of Backblaze Personal Backup can get you out of a bind. Suddenly find yourself looking for a missing file? Or have you opened a file only to find out that it’s changed? Having a local backup can get you to recover quickly.… Continue reading Deleted or Changed a File You Need Back? Backblaze Can Help!

How Backblaze Got Started: The Problem, the Solution, and the Stuff in Between

Backblaze will be celebrating its ten year anniversary this month. As I was reflecting on our path to get here, I thought some of the issues we encountered along the way are universal to most startups. With that in mind, I’ll write a series of blog posts focused on the entrepreneurial journey. This post is the first and focuses on the birth of Backblaze. I hope you stick around and enjoy the Backblaze story along the way.

What’s New With Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage

Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage continues to grow in popularity as developers, IT personnel, and more realize the benefits of affordable cloud storage. Our Backblaze B2 engineering team continues to add features and capabilities to B2 Cloud Storage that our users identify as being helpful in getting their job done. Here’s a collection of recent updates… Continue reading What’s New With Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage

Backblaze Labs: The Future of DNA Storage

Backblaze Labs, the data storage innovation branch of Backblaze, is proud to present to you its newest innovation: Backblaze DNA Storage. Most recently, Backblaze Labs designed Storage Pod 6.0 and built out our Vault infrastructure that powers Backblaze Computer Backup and Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. DNA Storage has long been in our sights and we’re… Continue reading Backblaze Labs: The Future of DNA Storage