Backblaze Business Backup is a cloud backup solution for small to medium-sized businesses. Compatible with Mac and Windows, Backblaze makes it easy to automate continuous backups and restore your data anytime, from any location. Backblaze is also highly affordable, letting you back up unlimited data without additional fees. However, Business Backup isn’t compliant with GDPR and HIPAA data regulations, making it unsuitable for businesses dealing with highly sensitive data. If your business needs those security options, we recommend you check out Acronis Cyber Protect, our Editors’ Choice winner.
How Much Does Backblaze Business Backup Cost?
Backblaze Business Backup costs $99 per year or $189 for two years (it lacks a monthly payment option). A plan includes unlimited data backup with versioning that goes back one year. The unlimited data makes Backblaze for Business a highly affordable option for freelancers and other solopreneurs, especially compared with rival software. For example, Carbonite Backup costs a relatively pricey $287.99 per year for just 250GB of backup data.
(Credit: Backblaze/PCMag)
The app only lets you connect one computer per license. Each new computer and/or employee account costs an additional $99 per year or $189 for two years. You’ll save money with Acronis Cyber Protect Standard ($85 per year for a single workstation) if your employees only need to back up small amounts of data.
Backblaze offers a cloud storage solution for enterprise businesses starting at $6 per TB per month. Larger businesses should contact Backblaze to receive a quote for the Enterprise plan, which includes additional security features like Okta device verification. Backblaze has a 15-day free trial.
Getting Started With Backblaze Business Backup
Backblaze can be installed and running in under two minutes. By default, the software continuously backs up all major folders. A pop-up asks you to enable location services, a great laptop feature that helps you find your PC if it gets lost or stolen.
The Settings area lets you select hard drives for Backblaze to back up, modify the backup schedule, and exclude folders. You can also create a private encryption key here to improve the overall security.
(Credit: Backblaze/PCMag)
To add team members, you must create a Group. You can customize the name and the version history (30 days or one year). There are two group types: Managed (where administrators perform backup restores on users’ behalf) and Unmanaged (where administrators cannot manage individual users’ accounts).
Once the group is created, you receive an invite link to send your employees. Alternatively, you can copy and paste their email addresses into the contact box so Backblaze can blast out invitations.
Each group can contain up to 5,000 accounts, and each account can manage up to 1,000 Backblaze Computer Backups. This makes setting up Backblaze for your company’s teams and employees incredibly easy.
Backups and Restores
You access backups by opening Backblaze and selecting Restore Options. There are four restoration options: downloading the files directly to your computer, creating a ZIP folder bundling all the files that need to be restored, having Backblaze compile a USB key and mail it to you, and accessing backups through the Backblaze mobile app.
Finding the files you want to restore is easy with Backblaze’s search function, which works like a less visual version of the Windows File Explorer. You can restore a hard drive, a single folder, or an individual file.
You can alter the timestamp at the top of the file search and click Go to view previous versions of your files or deleted files. I appreciated how intuitive this is compared with Carbonite’s system, which requires right-clicking an individual folder or file to see previous versions. However, you can’t view the full version history data like you can with OneDrive for Business.
Backblaze’s website lets you view and restore files, too. The interface is more advanced, with options to filter the files that appear based on their activity. If you manage a group with admin powers, you can view files, including your employees’ devices.
Backblaze’s Mobile Apps
The Backblaze mobile app (available for Android and iOS) lets you view your backed-up files on your phone and restore any files to your phone. This is a great way to quickly and securely move files from your computer to your handset.
Unfortunately, the Backblaze mobile app doesn’t offer advanced tools for organizing or viewing backups. This means you must navigate the full file tree whenever you want to access a specific document, which can be unpleasant on a smartphone’s smaller screen.
You can’t back up files from your mobile device to Backblaze. This is common for business backup systems—Carbonite doesn’t offer mobile backups, either—but some cloud storage tools, like Google Drive, do offer this feature.
Is Backblaze Business Backup Secure?
Backblaze encrypts files on your machine and sends them to the cloud over a network secured with secure socket layer (SSL) certification, the system used to encrypt most data sent to and from the web. It also uses proprietary symmetric encryption, a single shared key for encryption and decryption.
(Credit: Backblaze/PCMag)
All backups are stored in fully encrypted Storage Pods. Your login credentials are connected to a decryption key, which makes your files accessible when you log into Backblaze. You can set up two-factor authentication or enable a private encryption key to make it more difficult for malicious users to steal your data.
Backblaze Business Backup isn’t compliant with GDPR and HIPAA. That said, the company offers BackBlaze Cloud Storage, which meets those regulations. However, this service is designed for enterprise businesses. Consider Acronis Cyber Protect for a more secure backup service built for small businesses.
Verdict: Simple Solo and Team Backups
Backblaze Business Backup lets you create continuous, automated cloud backups in a few clicks. The Groups feature makes it easy to manage team backups, and the mobile app lets you grab files from any location. However, Backblaze can’t back up files from mobile devices—you need Google Drive or OneDrive for Business to do that. You also shouldn’t back up highly sensitive data with Backblaze Business Backup, as it isn’t compliant with GDPR and HIPAA laws. For those features and more, check out our Editors’ Choice winner, Acronis Cyber Protect.
Backblaze Business Backup
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The Bottom Line
Backblaze Business Backup is an affordable, automated cloud backup solution for small and medium-sized businesses that don’t require GDPR or HIPAA compliance.
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