Online Backups with Backblaze: Does it work?

Just because disk space is getting cheap, don't think that storage is cheap. A referral from Slashdot to Backblaze's blog charted the situation out accurately. The cost of a petabyte of storage on raw SATA hard drives is $81,000. On Amazon and EMC, it's $2.8 million. If Backblaze really could create their own enterprise storage devices, then it would be possible to offer backups at $5/month for unlimited storage. Backblaze even offers a 15-day free trial, so I tried it, although I was skeptical.

Catches:
1) You need to use their client.
2) Their client doesn't run on Windows Server or Linux -- just WinXP, Vista, and Macintosh. (Even if you run the installer in XP compatible mode on Windows server, it still doesn't install.)
3) The $5/month is for one computer, not all the computers in my house.
4) rsync doens't work with Windows/samba shares. (You may, however, be able to get rsync to work to a Macintosh. I haven't tested yet.) (Update below: you can install an NFS server onto WindowsXP/Vista to get rsync to work, or you could do it from Windows via an SSH rsync script.)

Solution: I installed it on a Vista workstation, created a share, and copied the few things I really need backed up to it. I also wrote scripts to transfer my PBX backups to my backup and log host and then copy the files from the backup server to the windows share via smbclient. I'll skip the part about configuring password-less logins for SSH via ssh-keygen keys, as well as the kinit for logging into windows via smbclient. (I also never was able to mount.cifs via kinit, just smbclient.)

So what happened when I tried to back up 15 GB on my Vista box to Backblaze? Not much -- the files just transferred. iPod library -- check. Photos -- check. My mrtg indicated that bandwidth increased to about 310 kbps for four days. I was still able to make phone calls via my SIP trunk to vitelity with no problems. (g729 to my SIP provider and alaw to my friends' PBX servers via IPSec VPN.)

Bandwidth used:
`Weekly' Graph (30 Minute Average)


Max Average Current
In 501.9 kb/s (0.5%) 56.4 kb/s (0.1%) 47.9 kb/s (0.0%)
Out 1360.2 kb/s (1.4%) 168.6 kb/s (0.2%) 29.3 kb/s (0.0%)

Security comments: Backblaze says it encrypts files, but doesn't offer details on the algorithm or implementation. (e.g AES-CBC, etc.) Backblaze does offer you the option of using a private key, so that only you (assuming you don't forget the key) can access your files.

My advice: If it needs to stay secure, encrypt the files yourself before they hit the local hard disk. You can even do a loopback mount (Super-awesome tutorial there) to an AES-encrypted file on a samba share, and rsync will work, but the whole file will change, requiring it all to be sent to Backblaze.

Update: You can use rsync to get your Linux/BSD/Unix files over to your windows box, but you'll need to install an NFS Server on your windows box. You could also use Microsoft's Services for Unix, but it's easier just using the Allegro server.