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        Backblaze Raises Prices, Makes Extended Version History Standard

   Adam Engst

   In an email to customers and accompanying [1]blog post, Backblaze CEO
   Gleb Budman announced price increases, standard extended version
   history, and a forthcoming local restore capability for the online
   [2]Backblaze Computer Backup service.

   Today, Backblaze costs $7 per month, $70 per year, or $130 for a 2-year
   subscription. As of 3 October 2023, prices for new purchases and
   renewals will increase to $9 per month, $99 per year, or $189 for 2
   years. Existing licenses will be honored for their duration. I've
   subscribed to Backblaze since 2018 and always opted for the longest and
   cheapest period because I've seen no reason to switch to another online
   backup service. The price increase could incentivize switching, though
   I have no sense of how prices and features compare across the industry
   at this point.

   Although the increases are non-trivial, Backblaze is cushioning the
   impact by changing the price structure surrounding its extended version
   history. Backblaze retains file versions and deleted files for 30 days,
   but you can pay an additional $2 per month to retain them for an entire
   year. If you want to maintain version history indefinitely, you pay an
   incremental storage fee of $0.005 per gigabyte per month for versions
   changed or deleted over a year ago.

   The new pricing model essentially builds 1 year of extended version
   history into the base price, though it doesn't quite work out at the
   1-year and 2-year levels. On 3 October 2023, you'll be able to log in
   to your account and select One Year of Extended Version History for
   free; if you don't take that action, your account will remain at 30
   days of version history. The new Forever Version History plan drops the
   $2-per-month fee but raises the incremental rate for when a file has
   been changed, modified, or deleted over a year ago to $0.006 per
   gigabyte per month.

   Backblaze also said version 9.0 of its software would launch sometime
   in September with a significant change: a local restore interface.
   Right now, restoring files from Backblaze requires using the Backblaze
   website, and while the interface is functional, it's not a joy to use,
   mainly because the directory listings load slowly'it took about 2
   minutes to load the listing for the backup for my iMac and two archive
   drives. With luck, the local restore interface will cache the directory
   so we can navigate it much as though we were using the Finder.

   Simultaneously, Backblaze said that its [3]B2 Cloud Storage service
   would increase its monthly pay-as-you-go rate from $5 per terabyte to
   $6 per terabyte. However, egress fees'the cost to download data'will be
   waived for up to three times the amount of data you have stored in B2;
   additional egress costs $0.01 per gigabyte. [4]B2 Reserve pricing
   doesn't change, and unlimited free egress between B2 and content
   delivery and compute companies partnered with Backblaze remains in
   place.

References

   1. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/2023-product-announcement/
   2. https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup/personal
   3. https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage
   4. https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/solutions/b2-reserve

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