Backblaze Business Backup vs. OneDrive

Backblaze's "set it and forget it' interface is ideal for home users. In addition, the $50/year pricing is very competitive. Most business should find Backblaze as a very good backup solution, but in cases where a backup archive needs to be kept indefinitely, alternative solutions should be looked at (specifically CrashPlan - though it is significantly more expensive at $10/month).

Incentivized

• For collaborative work both in education and professional areas.
• For personal work in multiple devices, and "on the go" work.
• It's great for work that takes a lot of memory space, because it is saved in the cloud, not the device itself.
• It's a great tool for anyone working with a lot of creative files that can't be stored in small devices like USBs.

Incentivized

• Backblaze offers unlimited backups for a low-low cost per computer. Essentially, it's $5 for an all you can eat back-up buffet.
• The interface is simple - both on the computer side when you're configuring it. But more importantly, the online interface to search through your stored data is simple and efficient. Once you find what you're missing you can restore via downloading a zipped archive, requesting a USB drive, or you can have large data loaded onto a hard drive.
• It has never let me down - which in the world of remote back-up is amazing.

• OneDrive does a great job of keeping file version history. I have had to use this feature many times and it is very simple to use. This one feature has saved my butt many times.
• OneDrive synchronizes across devices very quickly. There have been many instances when I have added files online and, within seconds, saw the file show up on my local computer. This happens the other direction also. I am very impressed and satisfied with the speed of syncing in all directions.
• The OneDrive app on my phone has been particularly helpful since it automatically syncs my photos (usually within seconds) and allows me access to all my files.

Incentivized

• Backblaze, once installed, resides in the app tray on the lower right of windows. It's just a small menu that takes you to your website to perform recovery operations. You also have to install their little download and unzipping app after you select files to restore. I would like to see a single backup and restore interface that runs locally and handles all those details in the background.
• If you have to reinstall your computer, they additionally setup and charge you for a new license, even though you have an account, you can't simply log in and reconnect to it. I didn't find this out until I saw the charge on my credit card. Now that I have the data I need downloaded, I have to call them and have the original license canceled for a pro-rated (partial) credit. I was told this is how system administrators preferred to minimize downtime. As a small business owner, I found it irritating.

Incentivized

• Sending Links - Though you can easily share links to files from the web experience, it isn't the same on the native experience. It would be nice if you could right click on a file to share its location with someone vs. opening the office application to share with others.
• File Character Restrictions - This isn't just with OneDrive, but sometimes files will not upload due to an unsupported character in the file name.

Incentivized

I like Box better. If you sign into Microsoft using a personal account, be EXTREMELY careful. All of your downloads could suddenly be available to your entire company, and that is incredibly embarrassing. Did that happen to me? Not going to say, but just always check which MS account you sign into.

Incentivized

The only bad thing about Backblaze B2 is that to use it to its full ability, you need a third party to truly get any use out of it and its cheap price because they don't have their own software. Now, on the desktop endpoint back-up for non-B2 storage, they have a fantastic client with unlimited back-ups that is only $6 per month.

Incentivized

I have given it this rating because it accomplishes the basic task that we use it for, storing and protecting our sensitive data. That being said, I hesitate to give it a completely positive rating, because I feel that the software performs at a bare minimum level, skimping out on some of the bells and whistles that would be nice.

Incentivized

It has a good performance, the pages load normally, access to the files, management, reports, everything is working well. With regard to integration with other systems, we have not done so yet.

I've never had to reach out to customer support, but their periodic emails letting me know if a device is missing are very nice for informing me when something is wrong. Based on how helpful their system is, I would imagine their customer support is top-notch.

Incentivized

It's a Microsoft product so there is a wealth of information online both from Microsoft directly and from millions of users but as a corporate user we also have access to direct Microsoft support through a variety of avenues (phone, email, etc.). This makes finding answers to issues more accessible, however, it does also mean that any new feature requests will get buried.

Incentivized

I previously used CrashPlan before they pivoted their business model. CrashPlan was fine, and has feature parity with Backblaze. I was motivated to move from CrashPlan to Backblaze for 2 reasons - 1, as they pivoted, they increased their cost, which was frustrating, and 2, because they had always had a java-based client that wasn't as performant as a native client. Backblaze is so unobtrusive because of its highly performant client, and I couldn't be happier.

Incentivized

OneDrive feels native is you are a Microsoft 365 user. The integration aspect of being a Microsoft customer and using all platform tools together helps with driving adoption, ease of learning, and overall efficiency. While Google Drive is widely used as well, there is a ramp up to learning those controls over OneDrive is you are not used to those platforms.

• The Backblaze service has provided a huge return on investment. We had a system fail, and it was very easy to have a drive with the backup data shipped to us for recovery.
• The service has been very cost effective, allowing us to keep costs down while maintaining a good system integrity.

Incentivized

• OneDrive allows us to save much time on creating and archiving backup copies of our data. Microsoft gives a guarantee on the possibility of recovery of files or folders even from 30 days ago. It provides a great comfort of work.

Incentivized