Does everyone in your family turn to you to help them fix some tech issue or another? Your uncle ever come to your house in the middle of the day to help him set up his iCloud account on his new iPhone? If the Wi-Fi goes down in the house, are you the first person your family calls before they call their internet provider? If you answered yes to any of these questions, congratulations! You are the family IT department.
Being the family IT admin is a job that you never formally applied for. It just happened over time as you continued to fix all the tech issues that accumulated around the house. If you’re looking for ways to best help your family manage their data and backups, this post will share some tips and advice so you can avoid those panicked requests from your parents or grandparents when they can’t find that favorite family photo or have trouble getting online.
Getting Started as the Head of the Family IT Department
Although it might feel like you’re always on-call to help your family with tech issues, there are a few ways you can set up your family with simple tech solutions even your grandfather will be able to figure out.
How to Back Up Your Digital Life
To start, check out our series of guides to help you protect content across many different platforms—including social media, sync services, and more. This list is always a work in progress—please comment below if you’d like to see another platform covered.
As the family IT admin, I’ve been asked to fix many issues, like devices that won’t start up or work properly, slow or interrupted internet connections, and even data loss. There are a few best practices you can follow to help encourage your family members to handle these problems independently, or even set up automated solutions. These best practices include:
Using the 3-2-1 backup strategy.
Keeping systems updated.
Troubleshooting network connectivity issues.
Setting up automated backups and a Group to centralize your family’s data backups.
The 3-2-1 Backup Method
While I have fixed a lot of issues, there are some issues that I have not been able to resolve, like retrieving a file on a damaged computer without a backup. Data loss can happen at any moment, from accidentally spilling something on your computer to system upgrades or even just accidental deletion. It’s always best to practice backup etiquette with the 3-2-1 method. Using this method, you will have the document saved in three different places—two copies of your data on-site but on different devices, for example, on your computer and an external hard drive, and one copy off-site, for example, in the cloud. In case you lose one, you have two as backup. There is no such thing as a perfect backup system, but the 3-2-1 approach is a great start for the majority of people and businesses, so it’s definitely good enough for your great aunt.
Keeping Systems Up-to-date
As the family IT admin, one of the most common issues you’ll probably face is a malfunctioning device, or a device that needs to be updated. A straightforward way to get started is by resetting the system—yes, just turn it off and turn it back on again. But the best way to ensure your devices are working properly is to ensure that all system updates have been properly installed. By making sure that all of your family’s devices are running on the most recent versions of their software, you can avoid running into problems with apps not working or other issues.
For many devices, running a software update or checking for a new software version is a pretty straightforward process. Apple has made it easy for iOS users—you can set software updates to automatically run in the background while you charge your phone at night. For a PC, you select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & security > Windows Update. Select Advanced Options, and then under “Choose how updates are installed,” select Automatic. You can even think about walking your family members through a check for updates so they can handle any issues on their own in the future.
Nowadays, we all use many devices to store and access our data every day. We’ve created a few guides to help you make sure the data on your phone, computer, and hard drive is backed up or secured for whenever you plan to upgrade.
When you’re dealing with a network issue, it can be frustrating because they often feel like they happen at the most inconvenient times. You can be on a call for work and bam! Lost connection. You want to play your PS5 games with friends after a long day at work? Think again, your internet was disconnected. Well, let me walk you through some of my thought process when I want to fix the internet connection.
Check if other devices that are connected to your Wi-Fi are having the same issues.
If not, then you will need to go to your network settings for that device. You can disconnect and reconnect to the Wi-Fi there.
If you are using an Ethernet cable, make sure that it’s properly connected.
Most internet providers have a service where you can check if the servers are down in your area. Double check that your home was not hit with an internet outage.
Go directly to the router and hit the reset button. Sometimes restarting helps solve the problem.
Setting Up Automated Data Backups
Typically, our data is scattered across many platforms and many devices. Take that, and multiply it by each member of your family—that’s a lot of data that needs to be backed up and secured. I can’t just sit and back up my family’s files and photos on a daily or weekly basis. Personally, I needed something I could install onto my family’s computers and forget about it, all while still knowing that it would back up their data without me constantly monitoring it. And remember, syncing your data is not the same as backing it up.
Backup tools are great for keeping your family’s data protected and ensuring your work as the family IT admin is made easier. Look for a simple app that can automate data backups and make them accessible from anywhere via the web or mobile apps.
(Shameless plug) Backblaze Computer Backup does just that. I set it up in minutes on all of my family’s computers, and now it just runs in the background of all of our devices.
How to Set Up Groups to Manage Your Family’s Backups
One feature that’s particularly helpful with using backup tools for protecting your family’s device data is centralizing your backups into a group. Groups are the best way to manage your family’s backups in one place. With Computer Backup, it’s easy to create a Group and add members to your Group.
First, go to your Backblaze account. If you don’t have Groups enabled, simply go to your Settings tab and check the box to enable Groups.
Now you can start your first Group. Name it whatever you want—I’m a very simple person so I call mine “Family,” but be as creative as you want.
After creating your Group, you can start inviting your family members. You can choose to share a direct link to the group or email them an invitation. Once they get the link, your family members can create an account and install the client on their own computer to start backing up their data.
How to Back Up Your Family’s Data
Once your family has the Backblaze client installed on their computer, you are set! The scheduling is automatically set to back up continuously, so you don’t have to worry if your family’s computers are getting backed up. You can sleep in peace now!
You’re not alone in being the family IT admin—even though it might not be an official job, we all take the responsibilities seriously because we care about our families. What are some of the technical problems that you have had to solve as the family IT admin? Let us know in the comments.
Today is a big day for Backblaze—we became a public company listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BLZE!
Before I explain what this means for us and for you, I want to give my thanks. Going public is an important milestone and one we couldn’t have accomplished without your support. Thank you.
Whether you have believed in us from the beginning and have been a customer for over a decade, or joined us yesterday; whether you entrust us to back up a single computer or to run your entire company’s infrastructure on the Backblaze Storage Cloud; whether you’ve partnered with us to bring our services to one individual or thousands of companies, whether you’re a first-time visitor to our site or you’ve been a reader all along: Thank you. We really appreciate you working with us and supporting us.
What Does Becoming a Public Company Mean for Backblaze?
It means we have more resources with IPO proceeds to increase investment in the development of our Storage Cloud platform and the B2 Cloud Storage and Computer Backup services that run on it.
The future is being built on independent cloud platforms, and ours has been 14 years in the making. Today, we take the next big step in being the leading independent cloud for data storage.
Additionally, while we help about 500,000 customers already, we plan to expand our sales and marketing efforts to bring Backblaze to more businesses, developers, and individuals that would benefit from easy and affordable data storage that they can trust.
Finally, we have built Backblaze with not only a focus on the products we provide, but with a deep care for what it is like to work here. With these proceeds, we plan to continue to significantly grow our team, and are looking for many more kind, smart, talented people to join us. (Is that you? We’re hiring!)
And Most Importantly, What Does It Mean for You?
My short answer is: It means more of the good things you’ve come to expect from us at Backblaze.
I want to emphasize that while we’ll be doing “more” for you, today’s events don’t mean that we’re “different” on any fundamental level. We’re still guided by the same principles and the same team. As a reminder, here’s the core of the values that we’ve been committed to since our founding (as written by Brian Wilson, Co-founder and CTO):
“At Backblaze, we want to provide a quality product for a fair price. We want to be honest and up front with our customers as to what we can and cannot do, and we want to be paid only the money honestly owed to us, and never engage in sleazy or misleading business practices where customers are misled in any way or pay for a service they do not receive. We are the ‘good guys,’ and we act like it.”
The only thing that’s changing today is we now have a more robust structure and additional funding to deliver on these values for more customers and partners.
If you’d like to share your thoughts, we’d love to hear from you in the comments section below. In the coming weeks, I’ll share more about where we started, why we decided to go public, how we did it, and more. Stay tuned and for now…
While the first half of 2021 saw disruptive, high-profile attacks, Q3 saw attention and intervention at the highest levels. Last quarter, cybercriminals found themselves in the sights of government and law enforcement agencies as they responded to the vulnerabilities the earlier attacks revealed. Despite these increased efforts, the ransomware threat remains, simply because the rewards continue to outweigh the risks for bad actors.
If you’re responsible for protecting company data, ransomware news is certainly on your radar. In this series of posts, we aim to keep you updated on evolving trends as we see them to help inform your IT decision-making. Here are five key takeaways from our monitoring over Q3 2021.
This post is a part of our ongoing series on ransomware. Take a look at our other posts for more information on how businesses can defend themselves against a ransomware attack, and more.
No surprises here. Ransomware operators continued to carry out attacks—against Howard University, Accenture, and the fashion brand Guess, to name a few. In August, the FBI’s Cyber Division and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reported an increase in attacks on holidays and weekends and alerted businesses to be more vigilant as we approach major holidays. Then, in early September, the FBI also noticed an uptick in attacks on the food and agriculture sector. The warnings proved out, and in late September, we saw a number of attacks against farming cooperatives in Iowa and Minnesota. While the attacks were smaller in scale compared to those earlier in the year, the reporting speaks to the fact that ransomware is definitely not a fad that’s on a downswing.
2. More Top-down Government Intervention
Heads of state and government agencies took action in response to the ransomware threat last quarter. In September, the U.S. Treasury Department updated an Advisory that discourages private companies from making ransomware payments, and outlines mitigating factors it would consider when determining a response to sanctions violations. The Advisory makes clear that the Treasury will expect companies to do more to proactively protect themselves, and may be less forgiving to those who pay ransoms without doing so.
Earlier in July, the TSA also issued a Security Directive that requires pipeline owners and operators to implement specific security measures against ransomware, develop recovery plans, and conduct a cybersecurity architecture review. The moves demonstrate all the more that the government doesn’t take the ransomware threat lightly, and may continue to escalate actions.
3. Increased Scrutiny on Key Players Within the Ransomware Economy
Two major ransomware syndicates, REvil and Darkside, went dark days after President Joe Biden’s July warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin to rein in ransomware operations. We now see this was but a pause. However, the rapid shuttering does suggest executive branch action can make a difference, in one country or another.
Keep in mind, though, that the ransomware operators themselves are just one part of the larger ransomware economy (detailed in the infographic at the bottom of the post). Two other players within the ransomware economy faced increased pressure this past quarter—currency exchanges and cyber insurance carriers.
Currency Exchanges: In addition to guidance for private businesses, the Treasury Department’s September Advisory specifically added the virtual currency exchange, SUEX, to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, after it found that more than 40% of the exchange’s transactions were likely related to ransomware payments. The Advisory imposed sanctions that prohibit any U.S. individual or entity from engaging in transactions with SUEX.
Cyber Insurance Carriers: It makes sense the cyber insurance industry is booming—the economics of risk make it lucrative for certain providers. Interestingly, though, we’re starting to see more discussion of how cyber insurance providers and the victim-side vendors they engage with—brokers, negotiators, and currency platforms like SUEX—are complicit in perpetuating the ransomware cycle. Further, the Treasury Department’s September Advisory also included a recommendation to these victim-side vendors to implement sanctions compliance programs that account for the risk that payments may be made to sanctioned entities.
4. An Emerging Moral Compass?
In messages with Bloomberg News, the BlackMatter syndicate pointed out its rules of engagement, saying hospitals, defense, and governments are off limits. But, sectors that are off limits to some are targets for others. While some syndicates work to define a code of conduct for criminality, victims continue to suffer. According to a Ponemon survey of 597 health care organizations, ransomware attacks have a significant impact on patient care. Respondents reported longer length of stay (71%), delays in procedures and tests (70%), increase in patient transfers or facility diversions (65%), and an increase in complications from medical procedures (36%) and mortality rates (22%).
5. Karma Is a Boomerang
It’s not surprising that ransomware operators would steal from their own, but that doesn’t make it any less comical to hear low-level ransomware affiliates complaining of “lousy partner programs” hawked by ransomware gangs “you cannot trust.” ZDNet reports that the REvil group has been accused of coding a “backdoor” into their affiliate product that allows the group to barge into negotiations and take the keep all for themselves. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.
The Good News
This quarter, the good news is that ransomware has caught the attention of the people who can take steps to curb it. Government recommendations to strengthen ransomware protection make investing the time and effort easier to justify, especially when it comes to your cloud strategy. If there’s anything this quarter taught us, it’s that ransomware protection should be priority number one.
If you want to share this infographic on your site, copy the code below and paste into a Custom HTML block.
<div><div><strong>The Ransomware Economy</strong></div><a href="https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ransomware-takeaways-q3-2021/"><img src="https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-Ransomware-Economy-Q3-2021-scaled.jpg" border="0" alt="diagram of the players and elements involved in spreading ransomware" title="diagram of the players and elements involved in spreading ransomware" /></a></div>
Growing up, a common conversation I overheard between my mom and grandma went like this: “Do you have that recipe from our great aunt?”
“Sure, I do. Let me email it to you. Also, I have some funny jokes to forward along.”
My mom, and I’m guessing many others too, have kept every email they’ve ever received from their parents, family, and friends because they don’t want to lose the funny jokes, family recipes, announcements, and more that they’ve sent back and forth over the years. In the moment, our email accounts can feel like a day-to-day concern, or worse, a repository of spam. But for most of us, every email account holds some amount of treasured memories.
Nowadays, my mom has many different email accounts. But, she wanted to find a way to keep all of those emails she loved without having to keep the accounts themselves. She also found that she had so many emails in her inbox that she was running out of storage space.
Buying more storage can become expensive and doesn’t guarantee that those emails are safely backed up and remain accessible. One option is to download the emails, delete them in the client, and back them up somewhere reliable and accessible for the long term.
If you’re looking for a way to keep old emails or just want to clean up your inbox storage because you’re running out of space, this post walks you through the steps of how to download your data from various email platforms.
We’ve gathered a handful of guides to help you protect content across many different platforms—including social media, sync services, and more. We’re working on developing this list—please comment below if you’d like to see another platform covered.
If you know the exact email you want to make sure you have a copy of, it’s very easy to download it from any client.
For this example, we are going to use Gmail, but this should work for most email clients. If you run into an email client that it does not work with, feel free to note it in the comments below and we’ll update the guidance.
Log in to the email address you would like to download a copy of the email from. (I’m using Gmail.)
Find the email you would like to download. For this example, I will be downloading a family recipe sent by my mom.
Select “Print” in the top right corner.
When the print screen appears, save the email as a PDF on to your computer.
And presto, you have a copy of that email you would like to save forever.
This process can be a bit tedious as you would have to download each email one at a time. It also can be tough if you don’t remember how to find the email you would like to save. If this is true, there are also ways that you can download all of your email data.
While there are other file formats you can download individual emails in, we strongly recommend that—if you want to be able to manage or search your old emails—you download all of your emails (which we explain how to do below). This provides the data in easily manageable formats and is far more time efficient.
Getting Serious: How to Download All of Your Emails
Below, I explain how to download your email data from two top free email websites. Don’t see the email platform you use? Leave a comment below and we’ll work to add material to help you!
How to Download Outlook Emails
A lot of people use Outlook for various reasons, often for work or school. If you downloaded Microsoft 365, then you also have access to Outlook email. To export your email from Outlook and save it as a PST file (don’t worry about what a PST file is quite yet, we’ll explain below), do the following:
Sign in to your Outlook account.
Click the gear button in the upper right corner.
Scroll down on the settings panel to “View all Outlook settings.”
Click on the button with a gear symbol labeled “General.”
Select “Privacy and data” on the second panel that appears.
On the right side, there will be a button labeled “Export mailbox.” Select this button.
The button will grey out and a status update will appear to let you know the download is in progress.
When the export is complete, we’ve found that Outlook may not notify your inbox. If this is the case, you will need to repeat steps one through five and navigate to the “Download here” button. This button will only appear once your emails are ready to download.
Click “Download here” to download your PST file with all of your email data. (Scroll past the section on downloading Gmail data to learn what to do with this file type.)
How to Download Gmail Emails
In a previous post, we explained how to download all of your data from Google Drive. But, if you are just looking to download your Gmail data, here is a more detailed way to just do that.
Log in to the Google Account you’d like to download your emails from.
Once signed in, you will want to go to: myaccount.google.com.
Go to the “Privacy & personalization” section and select “Manage your data & privacy.”
On the next screen it takes you to, you’ll want to scroll down to a section labeled “Data from apps and services you use.” Here, you’ll select “Download your data” in the “Download or delete your data” section.
From here, it’ll take you to the Google Takeout page. On this page, you’ll be given the option to select to download all of your Gmail emails and also your Google Chrome bookmarks, transactions from various Google services, locations stored in Google Maps, Google Drive contents, and other Google-related products you may use.
If you want to download all your Google data, keep everything selected. If you just want a copy of your emails, deselect all and only select Google Mail to be downloaded.
Click the next step on the bottom of the page.
On the next page, you’ll decide what file type you would like it sent as, the frequency you would like this action to happen (Example: If you would like your data to be downloaded every six months, this is where you can set that to happen.), and the destination you would like your data to be sent to. For this example, I picked a one time download.
Select “Create export” and you’ll see an export in progress page.
An email will appear in a few minutes, hours, or a couple of days (depending on the size of data you are downloading), informing you that your Google data is ready to download. Once you have this email in your inbox, you have a week to download the data. Click the “Download your files” button in the email and you will have a ZIP file or a TGZ file (depending on what type of file you picked) on your computer with your Google data.
When you open the ZIP, you will have all of your emails (including spam and trash) in an MBOX file.
What Is a PST File? What Is a MBOX File? How Do I Open Them?
A PST file is used by Microsoft programs to store data and items such as email messages, calendar events, and contacts. By moving items to an Outlook Data File (also known as a PST file) saved to your computer, you can free up storage space in the mailbox on your mail server. If you would like to make this file usable by other email clients, here’s a guide on how to convert your newly downloaded PST file to a MBOX file type.
An MBOX file is an email mailbox saved in a mail storage format used for organizing email messages in a single text file. It saves messages in a connected order where each message is stored after another, starting with the “From” header.
To open a MBOX file, you will need a third-party email program, such as Apple Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird. We recommend Mozilla Thunderbird, as it’s a free email client and it’s supported by both Macs and PCs.
This step is helpful if you would like to view the emails you downloaded. It also helps if you were looking to take the emails you downloaded and move them to a new inbox. For example, if you are afraid the email account you’ve used to sign up for everything over the past 10 years is vulnerable, you can download the emails from that inbox and move them to a new inbox using Apple Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird.
Great, now you’ve downloaded your emails. You’re not done yet! Read on to learn how to safely back up your emails so that you can hold on to them forever.
Use Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage Buckets to Keep an Organized Archive of Your Emails
Once you have your email data downloaded to your computer, it’s best practice to make sure that you have at least one copy of your data stored off-site in the cloud. Storing it in the cloud alongside two local copies ensures you never lose all those important emails.
A simple way to do this is with Backblaze B2, where you can upload and organize your files in buckets. To upload your files to a bucket, follow the steps below.
Sign in to your Backblaze account.
In the left hand column, select “Buckets” under the section “B2 Cloud Storage.”
Click on the button “Create a bucket.”
In the next step, you will need to create a unique name for your bucket and select some settings for it, like if it will be public or private or if you would like to enable encryption.
Once the bucket is created, it will take you to a page where you can upload your files. You will want to drag and drop the email files you want to upload to it. If the MBOX file is too large to drag and drop into the bucket, you can use a third-party integration like Cyberduck to facilitate the upload. You can read the guide to using Cyberduck for Backblaze B2 bucket uploads here.
Alternatively, if you’re not worried about organizing or working with your email archives and just want to know they’re stored away safely, you can keep your downloaded files on your computer. If you follow this route, remember to sign up for a backup service that makes a copy of all of your computer’s files in the cloud. In the case of any data loss, a service like Backblaze Computer Backup would have a copy of all of your data ready for you to restore. If your email applications are locally stored on your computer, Backblaze will automatically back up your emails. You can learn more about how this works here. This approach will take up more room on your computer, but it’s a simple path to peace of mind.
From here, your MBOX file with all your emails from your family, friends, and reminders to yourself (We all have those!) will be safe in the cloud. If you ever want to pull out the archive and read the emails you saved, remember to use the third-party tools mentioned above. What’s important is that you have all your memories stored, safely with a provider who will ensure their redundancy and reliability.
Have questions or want to see a guide for an email client we didn’t mention above? Feel free to let us know in the comments!
Students are starting to head back to the classroom all over the world and, while the timing might be the same, the way we’re thinking about school has changed a lot recently. Schoolwork and projects that previously would have been printed out and handed in have moved online along with classrooms and collaboration. The amount of flexibility this has allowed teachers, parents, students, and childcare professionals is great, but it also means that more schoolwork than ever is at risk of data loss.
As young folks are heading back to classrooms, especially those heading off to college farther afield, now is a great time to help teach the value of backing up their data.
Whether they are in person, online, or on a hybrid system, students will still be creating, collaborating, and consuming files on their computers. Setting them up with a backup service, or helping them install one can prevent them from calling you late at night in a panic after spilling Redbull or coffee on the machine they’re diligently (we’re sure) doing schoolwork on.
Backup Basics: The 3-2-1 Approach
Spilling something and frying the electronics inside of a computer is not the only way to lose data, so having an all-encompassing view to data care is important. At Backblaze, we recommend the 3-2-1 backup approach. That means keeping:
Three copies of your data.
Two copies of your data on-site but on different devices. (For example, on your computer and an external hard drive.)
One copy of your data off-site. (For example, in the cloud.)
Best Practices for Students
In addition to your basic 3-2-1 approach, there are a few best practices students can follow (and parents can encourage) to help them avoid scrambling to find their term paper the night before the final, including:
Instituting naming conventions.
Keeping data in a central repository.
Automating backups.
Creating archives.
Institute Naming Conventions
One common way of losing data is simply forgetting where it was created or saved, similar to misplacing a pair of keys. The easiest way to combat that is to have clear naming conventions for your folders and files and to use them consistently. Having a folder for every year of study, then semester, or quarter inside of it, then class inside of that, helps categorize data and is a great way to start building up good data hygiene.
Keep Data in a Central Repository
A typical student’s data is scattered across a variety of devices, apps, clouds, and computers—we call this “data scatter.” Even if they are using good data hygiene when naming and organizing these various locations, having a central repository—even if just for final documents—is important.
When they have their data in one centralized location, students can back it up frequently, so that even if work is lost from a collaborative place (like someone deleting a file or presentation from a shared folder), they’ll still have a copy locally and in an accessible location.
Automate Backups
Once the data is saved to the new location, the next best thing to do is make sure that there are automated backups running, so that—should anything happen to that machine or device—the data will still be accessible somewhere else (all part of the 3-2-1 strategy).
When selecting a backup tool, you want to look for something simple, affordable, and most importantly, accessible. That’s where apps like Backblaze really shine when it comes to computer backup, since they are designed to be unobtrusive, and the backed up data can be accessed anywhere in the world via web or mobile apps.
Create Archives
Creating archives is another tool in the fight to combat data loss and maintain good data hygiene. Archives differ from backups in that they tend to be permanent. Backups tend to be on a rolling basis (similar to an alarm system keeping a certain amount of video before it gets recycled—the thought being, if something happens you can recover the video for a certain period of time, but if nothing occurs it’s better to get that space back).
Archives, on the other hand, are more immutable in nature. Once you have an archive, it’s rare to remove it, unless you want to get rid of everything associated with it. There are many methods that people employ to archive their data, including having hard drives for every month or year that they create an archive for, but there are online tools as well. Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage has an Object Lock feature which allows users to upload data and have it stay there until expressly deleted by the user.
Backing Up Your Student’s Social Life
It’s probably not your top priority, but your student is likely just as concerned with backing up their social profiles and photos as they are with backing up their Econ 101 homework. Fortunately, we’ve got both covered. To help your student back up their digital social life, we put together a few handy guides:
The best time to start backing up is now. If Backblaze is a good choice for your family and school-aged kiddos, there’s a few ways to get started:
Here’s how to set up Backblaze on your kid’s computer before they head off to college:
Sign up for an account, and install Backblaze on your student’s computer. You can find our guides to installing on Mac here, and on Windows here.
Once you have installed the software, you can select what hard drives should be backed up, set your backup schedule, or change your performance settings. For more on how to do that, you can check out our Mac Settings Overview and Windows Settings Overview.
You can set up payment in the Billing section under My Account when you sign in to Backblaze.
If your student needs to restore a file, they can follow the steps here.
If your kid is more of a self-starter, send them a gift code—that way you’ll cover their first year, and after that it’s on them to handle the payment and maintenance (good for those who value their independence but maybe just need a jump-start): https://backblaze.com/gift.htm.
Consider using a Backblaze Group! A few years ago we wrote about how our Groups feature can help families maintain their digital lives, and you can read it here. This option is great if you have many family members, or if you just want one central place to manage billing for multiple accounts.
If you are a Backblaze customer, simply log in to Backblaze.com, go to the Settings page, and enable Business Groups. Once done, you can navigate to the Groups Management page and get started. More information on creating a Group can be found here.
If you are not yet a Backblaze customer and like the Groups approach, you can create a new Backblaze account with Groups enabled here.
Just like developing good habits for anything else, a strong understanding of data, where it lives, how it can be lost, and how to save it can be an incredibly important skill to develop. As the amount of data in the world increases and it increasingly becomes the digital world’s most precious resource, maintaining it will become one of the more important habits we can instill in our younger generations!
A lot has happened since we published our last Ransomware Takeaways, and it’s only been three months. High-profile attacks dominated headlines last quarter, but the attacks few of us ever hear about made up the majority, often with more serious consequences than higher gas prices. In a recent survey of 130 hospitals and healthcare organizations, nearly half of them reported they had to disconnect their networks in the first half of 2021 due to ransomware.
You surely follow ransomware news if you have any responsibility for your organization’s IT infrastructure and/or data. Still, since the dynamics are ever changing, you might find it useful to see the bigger picture developments as we’re seeing them, to help inform your decision making. Here are five quick, timely, shareable takeaways from our monitoring over Q2 2021.
This post is a part of our ongoing series on ransomware. Take a look at our other posts for more information on how businesses can defend themselves against a ransomware attack, and more.
The REvil ransomware syndicate started negotiations at $70 million in an attack on Kaseya that affected 1,500 businesses that use the company’s software products. The $70 million demand follows on the heels of two $50 million demands by REvil against computer manufacturer, Acer, in March and Apple supplier, Quanta, in April.
While the highest demands reach astronomical heights, average demands are also increasing according to cybersecurity and cyber insurance firm, Coalition. In their H1 2021 Cyber Insurance Claims Report, they noted the average ransom demand made against their policyholders increased to $1.2 million per claim in the first half of 2021, up from $450,000 in the first half of 2020.
2. Ransom Payments Appeared to Fluctuate
In their 2021 Ransomware Threat Report, Cybersecurity firm, Palo Alto Networks, noted an 82% increase in average ransom payments in the first half of 2021 to a record $570,000. While cybersecurity firm, Coveware, which tracks payments quarterly, reported a lower figure—in Q2 of 2021, they put average payments at $136,576 after hitting a high of $233,817 in Q4 of 2020. The different sources show different trends because tracking payments is a tricky science—companies are not required to report incidents, let alone ransoms demanded or payments made. As such, firms that track individual payments are limited by the constituencies they serve and the data they’re able to gather.
Taking a different approach, Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform that tracks payments to blockchain addresses linked to ransomware attacks, showed that the total amount paid by ransomware victims increased by 311% in 2020 to reach nearly $350 million worth of cryptocurrency. In May 2021, they published an update after identifying new addresses that put the number over $406 million. They expect the number will only continue to grow.
We’ll continue to track reporting from around the industry and account for variances in future reporting, but the data does tell us one thing—ransomware continues to proliferate because it continues to be profitable.
3. Double Extortion Tactics Are Increasing
In addition to encrypting files, cybercriminals are stealing data with threats to leak it if companies don’t pay the ransom. This trend is particularly concerning for public sector organizations and companies that maintain sensitive data like the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department—the victim of a May 2021 attack by the Babuk group that leaked sensitive documents including staff disciplinary records and security reports from the FBI and CIA.
Double extortion is not new—the Maze ransomware group carried out the first extortion attack in 2019, but the tactic is becoming more prevalent. In their Threat Report, Palo Alto Networks found that at least 16 ransomware variants currently employ this approach, and they expect more ransomware brands to adopt the tactic.
4. Ransomware Syndicates Are in Flux
The limelight is not a place most ransomware syndicates want to be. We’ve seen reports that the DarkSide group, responsible for the Colonial Pipeline attack, seems to have dissolved under the increased attention. But, the ransomware economy is porous, and different sources report that the muscle behind the gang may simply have changed horses to a new brand—BlackMatter—or a simply a different one—LockBit, the group allegedly responsible for the reported attack on Accenture. Like a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole, ransomware brands and groups are continuing to morph and change as authorities get wise to their tactics.
5. SMBs Continue to Be Main Targets, and Healthcare Suffered Doubly
Cybercriminals target organizations of this size because they know they’re vulnerable. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with strapped IT budgets are less likely to have the resources to protect themselves and more likely to pay the ransom rather than suffer extended downtime trying to recover from an attack.
While hospitals struggled to respond to the global COVID-19 pandemic, they also suffered cybersecurity breaches at an alarming rate. As noted above, almost half of 130 hospitals surveyed in a new study reported that they disconnected their networks in the first half of 2021 due to ransomware. Some did so as a precautionary measure while others were forced to do so by the severity of the ransomware infection. Medium-sized hospitals with less than 1,000 beds experienced longer downtime and higher losses than larger institutions, averaging almost 10 hours of downtime at a cost $45,700 per hour. As we reported in our last quarterly update, relying on the goodwill of cybercriminals to forgo attacks on organizations that serve the public good is a mistake.
The Good News
This quarter, the good news is that the increased attention means ransomware groups are under more scrutiny and more businesses are waking up to the reality that the threat is very, very real. Fortunately, the headlines and numbers make it even easier to justify the investment in ransomware protections, and there are plenty of ways to incorporate them into your cloud infrastructure. If your IT team does one thing in 2021, making ransomware resilience a priority should be it.
What You Can Do to Defend Against Ransomware
For more information on the threat SMBs are facing from ransomware and steps you can take to protect your business, read our Complete Guide to Ransomware.
Are you hanging on to an old PC because you don’t know how to scrub the hard drive clean of all your personal information? Worried there’s data lurking around in there even after you empty the recycle bin? (Yes, there is.)
You always have the option of taking a baseball bat to the thing. Truly, physical destruction is one way to go (more on that later). But, there are much easier and more reliable, if less satisfying, ways to make sure your Windows PC is as clean as the day it left the factory.
First Things First: Back Up
Before you break out the Louisville Slugger (or follow our simple steps below), make sure your data is backed up as part of a 3-2-1 backup strategy where you keep three copies of your data on two types of media with one off-site. Your first copy is the one on your computer. Your second copy can be kept on an external hard drive or other external media. And the third copy should be kept in an off-site location like the cloud. If you’re not backing up an off-site copy, now is a great time to get started.
Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, and 11 all have basic utilities you can use to create a local backup on an external hard drive that you can use to move your files to a new computer or just to have a local backup for safekeeping. Once you’re backed up, you’re ready to wipe your PC’s internal hard drive.
How to Completely Wipe a PC
First, you’ll need to figure out if your Windows PC has a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD). Most desktops and laptops sold in the last few years will have an SSD, but you can easily find out to be sure:
Open Settings.
Type “Defragment” in the search bar.
Click on “Defragment and Optimize Your Drives.”
Check the media type of your drive.
How to Erase Your Windows Drive
Now that you know what kind of drive you have, there are two options for wiping your PC:
Reset: In most cases, wiping a PC is as simple as reformatting the disk and reinstalling Windows using the Reset function. If you’re just recycling, donating, or selling your PC, the Reset function makes it acceptably difficult for someone to recover your data, especially if it’s also encrypted. This can be done easily in Windows versions 8, 8.1, 10, and 11 for either an HDD or an SSD.
Secure Erase Using Third-party Tools: If Reset doesn’t make you feel completely comfortable that your data can’t be recovered, or if you have a PC running Windows 7 or older, you have another option. There are a number of good third-party tools you can use to securely erase your disk, which we’ll get into below. These are different depending on whether you have an HDD or an SSD.
Follow these instructions for different versions of Windows to reset your PC:
How to Wipe a Windows 10 and 11 Hard Drive
Go to Settings → System (Update & Security in Windows 10) → Recovery.
Under “Reset this PC” click “Reset.” (Click “Get Started” in Windows 10.)
Choose “Remove everything.” (If you’re not getting rid of your PC, you can use “Keep my files” to give your computer a good cleaning to improve performance.)
You will be prompted to choose to reinstall Windows via “Cloud download” or “Local reinstall.” If you’re feeling generous and want to give your PC’s next owner a fresh version of Windows, choose “Cloud download.” This will use internet data. If you’re planning to recycle your PC, “Local reinstall” works just fine.
In “Additional settings,” click “Change settings” and toggle “Clean data” to on. This takes longer, but it’s the most secure option.
Click “Reset” to start the process.
How to Wipe a Windows 8 and 8.1 Hard Drive
Go to Settings → Change PC Settings → Update and Recovery → Recovery.
Under “Remove everything and reinstall Windows,” click “Get started,” then click “Next.”
Select “Fully clean the drive.” This takes longer, but it’s the most secure option.
Click “Reset” to start the process.
Secure Erase Using Third-party Tools
If your PC is running an older version of Windows or if you just want to have more control over the erasure process, there are a number of open-source third-party tools to wipe your PC hard drive, depending on whether you have an HDD or an SSD.
Secure Erase an HDD
The process for erasing an HDD involves overwriting the data, and there are many utilities out there to do it yourself:
DBAN: Short for Darik’s Boot and Nuke, DBAN has been around for years and is a well-known and trusted drive wipe utility for HDDs. It does multiple pass rewrites (binary ones and zeros) on the disk. You’ll need to download it to a USB drive and run it from there.
Disk Wipe: Disk Wipe is another free utility that does multiple rewrites of binary data. You can choose from a number of different methods for overwriting your disk. Disk Wipe is also portable, so you don’t need to install it to use it.
Eraser: Eraser is also free to use. It gives you the most control over how you erase your disk. Like Disk Wipe, you can choose from different methods that include varying numbers of rewrites, or you can define your own.
Keep in mind, any disk erase utility that does multiple rewrites is going to take quite a while to complete.
If you’re using Windows 7 or older and you’re just looking to recycle your PC, you can stop here. If you intend to sell or donate your PC, you’ll need the original installation discs (yes, that’s discs with a “c”…remember? Those round shiny things?) to reinstall a fresh version of Windows.
HDDs store data in a physical location on the drive platter. SSDs store data using electronic circuits and individual memory cells organized into pages and blocks. Writing and rewriting to the same blocks over and over wears out the drive over time. So, SSDs use “wear leveling” to write across the entire drive, meaning your data is not stored in one physical location —it’s spread out.
When you tell an SSD to erase your data, it doesn’t overwrite said data, but instead writes new data to a new block. This has implications for erasing your SSD—some of your data might be hanging around your SSD even after you told it to be erased until such time as wear leveling decides the cells in that block can be overwritten. As such, it’s good practice to encrypt your data on an SSD before erasing it. That way, if any data is left lurking, at least no one will be able to read it without an encryption key.
You don’t have to encrypt your data first, but if Windows Reset is not enough for you and you’ve come this far, we figure it’s a step you’d want to take. Even if you’re not getting rid of your computer or if you have an HDD, encrypting your data is a good idea. If your laptop falls into the wrong hands, encryption makes it that much harder for criminals to access your personal information.
Encrypting your data isn’t complicated, but not every Windows machine is the same. First, check to see if your device is encrypted by default:
Open the Start menu.
Scroll to the “Windows Administrative Tools” dropdown menu.
Select “System Information.” You can also search for “system information” in the taskbar.
If the “Device Encryption Support” value is “Meets prerequisites,” you’re good to go—encryption is enabled on your device.
If not, your next step is to check if your device has BitLocker built in:
Open Settings.
Type “BitLocker” in the search bar.
Click “Manage BitLocker.”
Click “Turn on BitLocker” and follow the prompts.
If neither of those options are available, you can use third-party software to encrypt your internal SSD. VeraCrypt and AxCrypt are both good options. Just remember to record the encryption passcode somewhere and also the OS, OS version, and encryption tool used so you can recover the files later on if desired.
Once you’ve encrypted your data, your next step is to erase, and you have a few options:
Parted Magic: Parted Magic is the most regularly recommended third-party erase tool for SSDs, but it does cost $11. It’s a bootable tool like some of the HDD erase tools—you have to download it to a USB drive and run it from there.
ATA Secure Erase: ATA Secure Erase is a command that basically shocks your SSD. It uses a voltage spike to flush stored electrons. While this sounds damaging (and it does cause some wear), it’s perfectly safe. It doesn’t overwrite the data like other secure erase tools, so there’s actually less damage done to the SSD.
The Nuclear Option
When nothing less than total destruction will do, just make sure you do it safely. I asked around to see if our team could recommend the best way to bust up your drive. Our Senior Systems Administrator, Tim Lucas, is partial to explosives, but we don’t recommend it. You can wipe an HDD with a magnet, otherwise known as “degaussing,” but a regular old fridge magnet won’t work. You’ll need to open up your PC and get at the hard drive itself, and you’ll need a neodymium magnet—one that’s strong enough to obliterate digits (both the ones on your hard drive and the ones on your hand) in the process. Not the safest way to go, either.
If you’re going to tear apart your PC to get at the HDD anyway, drilling some holes through the platter or giving it an acid bath are better options, as our CEO, Gleb Budman, explained in this Scientific American article. Drilling holes distorts the platter, and acid eats away at its surface. Both render an HDD unreadable.
Finally, we still stand by our claim that the safest and most secure way to destroy an HDD, and the only way we’d recommend physically destroying an SSD, is to shred it. Check with your local electronics recycling center to see if they have a shredder you can use (or if they’ll at least let you watch as giant metal gears chomp down on your drive). Shredding it should be a last resort though. Drives typically last five to 10 years, and millions get shredded every year before the end of their useful life. While blowing up your hard drive is probably a blast, we’re pretty sure you can find something even more fun to do with that old drive.
Still have questions about how to securely erase or destroy your hard drives? Let us know in the comments.
This post has been updated to reflect new information for Android users. After posting about the Photos+ answer to iCloud, our first comment was a request to help our Android users—seek no further, there’s now a Photos+ app for that. You can try it for free, or sign up today for a 50% discount on your Photos+ subscription. Get started here.
“Storage Full” has to rank up there as one of the least favorite notifications on Apple and Android products, maybe of all products? For photographers, this message can be all the more frustrating, and eventually very expensive if you opt into a higher storage payment plan. That’s why we’re profiling Photos+ today. Photos+ is an application that leverages Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage to offer an easy and reasonable way to manage your data and put “Storage Full” notifications behind you.
Here’s the short story: If you’re storing 200GB or more of photos on iCloud or Google Photos, Photos+ can save you upwards of $100 per year.
With high resolution iPhone cameras, six hours of 4K videos and a few thousand photos is all it takes to exceed 200GB of storage, meaning your photos will no longer be backed up unless you upgrade to the 2TB plan at a cost of $120 per year. This is a steep jump from the 200GB plan at $36 per year. And for Android users, all photos uploaded to Google Photos now count towards the 15GB Google Drive limit, so that for photographers uploading high quality photos, upgrading to the 2TB Google One storage plan will also cost about $120/year. This leads many to ponder what their options are.
Alternatives to Storage Upgrades
Well, for those of you looking, here are your options:
Turn off cloud backups and don’t back up your phone? Not best practice—remember your 3-2-1 backup strategy!
Turn off cloud backups but remember to frequently back up your phone to your computer? This often ends in tears.
Transfer photos to your computer when you run out of space? It works, but it’s time intensive and means you lose access to photos on the go.
Use another service, like Dropbox, to offload photos? Unfortunately, they also feature a leap to 2TB of storage, so you might as well stick with upgrading iCloud or your Google One storage plan.
Or:
Use a service that charges you for exactly the storage you use at $0.005/GB. In this scenario, storing 200GB would cost $1 per month.
How to Avoid Storage Upgrade Bills
The Photos+ Cloud Library app is an iOS, Android, and web app that allows you to manage photos from your iPhone, Android device, or browser without incurring the costs typically associated with keeping photos on your phone. You can use Photos+ and pay for only what you store with no minimum fees and no upper limits on storage.
Test It for Free
The Photos+ Cloud Library app costs $6/year, and offers a free 14-day trial if you’d like to see how it works. Backblaze B2 costs $0.005/GB/month with the first 10GB free. So if you’d like to give this pairing a try, you’ve got some room to play around before you need to commit to the setup.
Storing 200GB using these two platforms will cost about $18/year instead of $120/year with iCloud or Google Photos.
To try both these platforms for free, download the Photos+ Cloud Library app for iOS or Android and sign up for the Backblaze B2 service (no credit card required). For detailed instructions on setting this up, we’ve developed one here.
Once your photos and videos are safely stored in your own Backblaze B2 account (where you can always verify they have been stored and download them directly from Backblaze or the Photos+ app), you can delete some or all of your photos and videos from your iPhone to open up space, and allow iCloud to back up the rest of your items without exceeding your 50GB or 200GB iCloud storage plan.
For a limited time, Android users can get started with the Photos+ Cloud Library app today and get 50% off your subscription. Sign up here for iPhone, or here for Android.
No More Upgrade Notices
With the lack of upgrade notifications, you’ll have more time to spend paying attention to “Scam Likely” calls and discerning the meaning of the badge numbers accumulating on apps you haven’t opened in years. We wish we could help you with those annoyances too, but for now, here’s hoping Photos+ can ease your cloud backup bill and give you some peace of mind.
Every month, millions of viewers tune in to their favorite channels live streaming League of Legends, Call of Duty, Dota, and more on Twitch. With over two million streamers creating live content each month, video games and streaming go hand in hand.
Whether you’re streaming for yourself, your friends, an audience, or you’re trying to build a brand, you’re creating a lot of great content when you stream. The problem is that most services will only protect your content for a few weeks before deleting it.
Whether you want to edit or rewatch your content for fun, to build a reel for a sponsor, or to distribute content to your adoring fans, backups of the raw and edited content are essential to make sure your hard work doesn’t disappear forever. Outside of videos, you should also consider backing up other Twitch content like stream graphics including overlays, alerts, emotes, and chat badges; your stream setup; and media files that you use on stream.
Read our guide below to learn:
Two methods for downloading your Twitch stream.
How to create a backup of your Twitch stream setup.
How to Download Your Twitch Stream
Once you finish a stream, Twitch automatically saves that broadcast as a video on demand. For most accounts, videos are saved for 14 days, but if you are a Twitch Partner or have Twitch linked to your Amazon Prime account, you have access to your videos for up to 60 days. You can also create clips up to a minute long of your streams within Twitch or upload longer videos as highlights, which are stored indefinitely.
Download Method #1
With this method, there’s almost no work required besides hitting the record button in your streaming software. Keep in mind that recording while streaming can put a strain on your output performance, so while it’s the simplest download method, it might not work best depending on your setup.
Continue reading to learn how to simultaneously stream and record a copy of your videos, or skip to method #2 to learn how to download without affecting performance during streaming.
If you, like many streamers, use software like OBS or Streamlabs OBS, you have the option of simultaneously streaming your output and recording a copy of the video locally.
Before you start recording, check to make sure that the folder for your local recordings is included in your computer backup system.
Then, go ahead with streaming. When you’re done, the video will save to your local folder.
Download Method #2
This second method for downloading and saving your videos requires a bit more work, but the benefit is that you can choose which videos you’d like to keep without affecting your streaming performance.
Once you’ve finished streaming, navigate to your Creator Dashboard.
On the left side of the screen, click “Content,” then “Video Producer.” Your clips and highlights live here and can be downloaded from this panel.
Find the video you’d like to download, then click the three vertical dots and choose “Download.” The menu will change to “Preparing” and may take several minutes.
Once the download is ready, a save screen will appear where you can choose where you’d like to save your video on your computer.
How to Download Your Stream Setup
If you’re using streaming software like OBS, most services allow you to export your Scene Profile and back it up, which will allow you to re-import without rebuilding all of your Scenes if you ever need to restore your Profile or switch computers. In OBS, go to the Profile menu, choose “Export” to download your data, and save it in a folder on your computer.
If you also use a caption program for your streams like Webcaptioner, you can follow similar steps to export and back up your caption settings as well.
How to Back Up Your Twitch Streams and Setups
Having a backup of your original videos as well as the edited clips and highlights is fundamental because data loss can happen at any time, and losing all your work is a huge setback. In case any data loss wreaks havoc on your setup or updates change your settings, you’ll always have a backup of all of your content that you can restore to your system. We recommend keeping a local copy on your computer and an off-site backup—you can learn more about this kind of backup strategy here.
Downloading your live streams will mean saving a collection of large files that will put a strain on your system to store. By creating a cloud storage archive of data you don’t need to access regularly, you can free up space on your local system. It’s quick and easy to organize your content using buckets where you simply drag and drop the files or folders you’d like to upload and save to the cloud. Take a look at how to set up and test a cloud storage archive here.
The difference between computer backup and cloud storage is that data is stored in the cloud for both options, but in backup, the data in the cloud is a copy of the data on your computer. For cloud storage, it’s just saved data without mirroring or versioning.
If you prefer to back up your files, computer backup services automatically scan your computer for new files, so all you have to do is make sure your local recordings folder is included in your backup.
Nowadays with our data scattered across multiple platforms, it’s all the more important to make sure you have a copy saved in case your media becomes inaccessible for any reason. Take a look at our other posts about downloading and backing up your data:
When it comes to having a backup plan, Navy SEALs go by the rule that “Two is one and one is none.” They’re not often one-upped, but in the world of computer backup, even two is none. The gold standard until recently has been the 3-2-1 rule—three copies of your data on two different media with one copy stored off-site.
The 3-2-1 rule still has value, especially for individuals who aren’t backing up at all. But today, the gold standard is evolving. In this post, we’ll explain why 3-2-1 is being replaced by more comprehensive strategies; we’ll look at the difference between the 3-2-1 rule and emerging rules, including 3-2-1-1-0 and 4-3-2; and we’ll help you decide which is best for you.
Why Is the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy Falling Out of Favor?
When the 3-2-1 backup strategy gained prominence, the world looked a lot different than it does today, technology-wise. The rule is thought to have originated in the world of photography in Peter Krogh’s 2009 book, “The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers.” At that time, tape backups were still widely used, especially at the enterprise level, due to their low cost, capacity, and longevity.
The 3-2-1 strategy improved upon existing practices of making one copy of your data on tape and keeping it off-site. It advised keeping three copies of your data (e.g., one primary copy and two backups) on two different media (e.g., the primary copy on an internal hard disk, a backup copy on tape, and an additional backup copy on an external HDD or tape) with one copy off-site (likely the tape backup).
Before cloud storage was widely available, getting the third copy off-site usually involved hiring a storage service to pick up and store the tape drives or physically driving them to an off-site location. (One of our co-founders used to mail a copy of his backup to his brother.) This meant off-site tape backups were “air-gapped” or physically separated from the network that stored the primary copy by a literal gap of air. In the event the primary copy or on-site backup became corrupted or compromised, the off-site backup could be used for a restore.
As storage technology has evolved, the 3-2-1 backup strategy has gotten a little…cloudy. A company might employ a NAS device or SAN to store backups on-site, which is then backed up to object storage in the cloud. An individual might employ a 3-2-1 strategy by backing up their computer to an external hard drive as well as the cloud.
While a 3-2-1 strategy with off-site copies stored in the cloud works well for events like a natural disaster or accidental deletion, it lost the air gap protection that tape provided. Cloud backups are sometimes connected to production networks and thus vulnerable to a digital attack.
Ransomware: The Driver for Stronger Backup Strategies
With as many high-profile ransomware incidents as the past few months have seen, it shouldn’t be news to anyone that ransomware is on the rise. Ransom demands hit an all-time high of $50 million in 2021 so far, and attacks like the ones on Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods threatened gas and food supply supply chains. In their 2021 report, “Detect, Protect, Recover: How Modern Backup Applications Can Protect You From Ransomware,” Gartner predicted that at least 75% of IT organizations will face one or more attacks by 2025.
Backups are meant to be a company’s saving grace in the event of a ransomware attack, but they only work if they’re not compromised. And hackers know this. Ransomware operators like Sodinokibi, the outfit responsible for attacks on JBS Foods, Acer, and Quanta, are now going after backups in addition to production data.
Cloud backups are sometimes tied to a company’s active directory, and they’re often not virtually isolated from a company’s production network. Once hackers compromise a machine connected to the network, they spread laterally through the network attempting to gain access to admin credentials using tools like keyloggers, phishing attacks, or by reading documentation stored on servers. With admin credentials, they can extract all of the credentials from the active directory and use that information to access backups if they’re configured to authenticate through the active directory.
Is a 3-2-1 Backup Strategy Still Viable?
As emerging technology has changed the way backup strategies are implemented, the core principles of a 3-2-1 backup strategy still hold up:
You should have multiple copies of your data.
Copies should be geographically distanced.
One or more copies should be readily accessible for quick recoveries in the event of a physical disaster or accidental deletion.
But, they need to account for an additional layer of protection: One or more copies should be physically or virtually isolated in the event of a digital disaster like ransomware that targets all of their data, including backups.
What Backup Strategies Are Replacing 3-2-1?
A 3-2-1 backup strategy is still viable, but more extensive, comprehensive strategies exist that make up for the vulnerabilities introduced by connectivity. While not as catchy as 3-2-1, strategies like 3-2-1-1-0 and 4-3-2 offer more protection in the era of cloud backups and ransomware.
What Is 3-2-1-1-0?
A 3-2-1-1-0 strategy stipulates that you:
Maintain at least three copies of business data.
Store data on at least two different types of storage media.
Keep one copy of the backups in an off-site location.
Keep one copy of the media offline or air gapped.
Ensure all recoverability solutions have zero errors.
The 3-2-1-1-0 method reintroduced the idea of an offline or air gapped copy—either tape backups stored off-site as originally intended in 3-2-1, or cloud backups stored with immutability, meaning the data cannot be modified or changed.
If your company uses a backup software provider like Veeam, storing cloud backups with immutability can be accomplished by using Object Lock. Object Lock is a powerful backup protection tool that prevents a file from being altered or deleted until a given date. Only a few storage platforms currently offer the feature, but if your provider is one of them, you can enable Object Lock and specify the length of time an object should be locked in the storage provider’s user interface or by using API calls.
When Object Lock is set on data, any attempts to manipulate, encrypt, change, or delete the file will fail during that time. The files may be accessed, but no one can change them, including the file owner or whoever set the Object Lock and—most importantly—any hacker that happens upon the credentials of that person.
The 3-2-1-1-0 strategy goes a step further to require that backups are stored with zero errors. This includes data monitoring on a daily basis, correcting for any errors as soon as they’re identified, and regularly performing restore tests.
A strategy like 3-2-1-1-0 offers the protection of air gapped backups with the added fidelity of more rigorous monitoring and testing.
What Is 4-3-2?
If your data is being managed by a disaster recovery expert like Continuity Centers, for example, your backups may be subscribing to the 4-3-2 rule:
Four copies of your data.
Data in three locations (on-prem with you, on-prem with an MSP like Continuity Centers, and stored with a cloud provider).
Two locations for your data are off-site.
Continuity Centers’ CEO, Greg Tellone, explained the benefits of this strategy in a session with Backblaze’s VP of Sales, Nilay Patel, at VeeamON 2021, Veeam’s annual conference. A 4-3-2 strategy means backups are duplicated and geographically distant to offer protection from events like natural disasters. Backups are also stored on two separate networks, isolating them from production networks in the event they’re compromised. Finally, backup copies are stored with immutability, protecting them from deletion or encryption should a hacker gain access to systems.
Which Backup Strategy Is Right for You?
First, any backup strategy is better than no backup strategy. As long as it meets the core principles of 3-2-1 backup, you can still get your data back in the event of a natural disaster, a lost laptop, or an accidental deletion. To summarize, that means:
Keeping multiple copies of your data—at least three.
Storing copies of your data in geographically separate locations.
Keeping at least one copy on-site for quick recoveries.
With tools like Object Lock, you can apply the principles of 3-2-1-1-0 or 4-3-2, giving your data an additional layer of protection by virtually isolating it so it can’t be deleted or encrypted for a specific time. In the unfortunate event that you are attacked by ransomware, backups protected with Object Lock allow you to recover.
Thank you all for being Backblaze customers and fans. We’re writing today’s post to let you know that effective August 16th, 2021 at 5 p.m. Pacific, the prices for the Backblaze Computer Backup service are increasing. At that time, our prices per subscription will change to:
In short, because of a double digit growth in customer data storage, significant increases in supply chain costs, and our desire to continue investing in providing you with a great service.
Here’s a little more information:
Data Growth and Component Price Increases
Our Computer Backup service is unlimited (and we mean it). Businesses and individuals can back up as much data from their Macs and PCs as they like, and we back up external drives by default as well. This means that as our customers generate more and more data, our costs can rise while our prices remain fixed.
Over the last 14 years, we have worked diligently to keep our costs low and pass our savings on to customers. We’ve invested in deduplication, compression, and other technologies to continually optimize our storage platform and drive our costs down—savings which we pass on to our customers in the form of storing more data for the same price.
However, the average backup size stored by Computer Backup customers has spiked 15% over just the last two years. Additionally, not only have component prices not fallen at traditional rates, but recently electronic components that we rely on to provide our services have actually increased in price.
The combination of these two trends, along with our desire to continue investing in providing a great service, is driving the need to modestly increase our prices.
The Service Keeps Improving
While the cost of our Computer Backup service is increasing, you’re going to continue getting great value for your money. For example, in just the last two years (most recently with version 8.0), we have:
Added Extended Version History, which allows customers to retain their backups for longer—up to one year or even forever.
Increased backup speeds—faster networks and more intelligent threading means that you can back up quickly and get protected faster.
Optimized the app to be kinder to your computer—less load on the computer means we stay out of the way while keeping you protected, leaving your resources free for whatever else you’re working on.
Re-architected the app to reduce strain on SSDs—we’ve rewritten how the app handles copying files for backup, which reduces strain and extends the useful life of SSDs, which are common in newer computers.
Improved data access by enhancing our mobile apps—backing up your data is one thing, but accessing them is equally important. Our mobile apps give you access to all of your backed up files on the go.
Easing deployment options—for our business customers, installing and managing backups across all of their users’ machines is a huge job; we improved our silent installers and mass deployment tools to make their lives easier.
These are just some of the major improvements we’ve made in recent years—nearly every week we push big and small improvements to our service, upgrading our single sign-on options, optimizing inherit backup state functionality, and much more. (A lot of the investments are under-the-covers to silently make the service function more efficiently and seamlessly.)
Lock In Your Current Price With a Subscription Extension
As a way of thanking you for being a loyal Backblaze customer, we’re giving you the opportunity to lock in your existing Computer Backup pricing for one extra year beyond your current subscription period.
Thank you for being a customer. We really appreciate your trust in us and are committed to continuing to provide a service that makes it easy to get your data backed up, access it from anywhere in the world, protect it from ransomware, and to locate your computer should it be lost or stolen.
Answers to Questions You Might Have
Are Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage Prices Changing?
No. While data flowing into our storage cloud is up across the board, our B2 Cloud Storage platform charges for usage by the byte, so customers pay for the amount of data that they use. Meanwhile, Computer Backup is an unlimited service, and the increase in our customers’ average storage amount plus the recent spike in rising hardware costs are contributing factors to the increase.
Will You Raise Prices Again?
We have no plans to raise prices in the future. While we expect the data stored by our customers to continue growing, we also expect that the global supply chain challenges will stabilize. We work hard to drive down the cost of storage and provide a great service at an affordable price and intend to continue doing exactly that.
Announcing Backblaze Computer Backup 8.0! As a great philosopher once said, “8 is great”—and we couldn’t agree more. Our latest version is pretty great: It cranks up the speed—letting you upload at whatever rate your local system can attain—all while reducing stress on key elements of your computer by an order of magnitude.
Here’s what’s new for our app on your Mac and PC:
Performance Boost: As we’ve described in the past, thread count matters, but until today your max threading was set to 30. You now can run up to 100 threads concurrently if your system and network are up to it. From go-kart to highway speeds in one update! It’s like nitrous for uploads.
Smarter Gas Pedal: If you’re worried about stressing your motor, we’ve greatly improved our autothrottle, which will keep your bandwidth and system load in mind if you don’t want to.
Easier on the Engine: We’ve reduced the client’s load on your HDD or SSD by up to 80% by reconfiguring how reads and writes happen before encryption and upload.
A New Coat of Paint: Sometimes it helps to look faster, too, so we updated our brand a touch to keep up with what’s under the hood.
There’s more detail below for those who need it, but these are the major improvements. We look forward to hearing about how they work for you, your machines, and your data.
If you feel the need for speed and have the bandwidth at your home or office to match, version 8.0 is going to help you get backed up a lot more quickly. We’ve increased the maximum number of threads to 100 (up from 30). That means our multi-threaded app can now perform even more backup processes in parallel. Threads have also gotten a bit more intelligent—if your maximum selection of threads would cause too much system load, we’ll use fewer threads to maintain your system’s overall performance.
Optimizations
In addition to making our threading more intelligent, we’ve also taken a magnifying glass to our autothrottle feature and introduced smart throttling. If you have autothrottle enabled, and you’re using a lot of your available memory or bandwidth, we ease off until more system resources are available, helping reduce strain on the system and keeping your bandwidth clear—we’ve made that process more efficient and a lot speedier. If you don’t have autothrottle enabled, the backups will go as fast as your manual throttle and threading are set to.
We’ve also re-architected the way we handle file copies. In our previous 7.0 version of Backblaze Computer Backup, the client app running on your laptop or desktop made a copy of your file on your hard drive before uploading it. In version 8.0, this step has been removed. Now the client reads the file, encrypts it in RAM, and uploads it to the Backblaze data center. This results in better overall system performance and a reduction in strain on HDDs and SSDs on your laptops and desktops.
General Improvements
One last minor (but helpful) update we’ve made under the hood is how we handle uploads and the transmission of larger files. In version 8.0, you’ll get more information about what is getting uploaded and when. When we transfer large files, sometimes the app will appear to “hang” on uploading a part of that file, when in reality that file’s already been transmitted and we’re starting to work on the next batch of files. The UI will now reflect upload status more clearly.
And if you haven’t checked out our mobile apps, we’ve been making improvements to them (like uploading files to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage) over the last few months as well. Learn more about them at: www.backblaze.com/mobile.html.
The Look
With our rebrand efforts in full swing, we thought it would be nice to update our icons and apps with the latest Backblaze look.
You’ll notice our icons have gotten a little smoother since our latest and greatest visual identity is in full force, but we have kept the clean feel and easy UI that you’re used to.
Backblaze Computer Backup 8.0 Available: July 6th, 2021
We hope you love this new release! We will be slowly auto-updating all users in the coming weeks, but if you can’t wait and want to update now on your Mac or PC:
Perform a “Check for Updates” (right-click on the Backblaze icon).
Join Us for a Webinar on July 29th at 10 a.m. Pacific
If you’d like to learn more, join us for a webinar where we’ll be going over version 8.0 features and answering questions during a live Q&A. The webinar will be available on BrightTalk (registration is required) and you can sign up by visiting the Backblaze BrightTalk channel.
After 14 years, a lot has changed at Backblaze. We started out in 2007 as a consumer cloud backup company. Today, we’re a leader in the cloud storage industry with over an exabyte of data under management and we serve a wide variety of use cases for customers ranging from developers, to IT pros, to media-heavy businesses, and many more.
In all that time, we haven’t needed to change the brand. Like the services we provide, our brand was easy, trusted, and affordable.
And while those core principles haven’t changed, we realized that an update to our website and other communications tools could make the experience on our platforms clearer, more frictionless, and just plain blazier. With that in mind, we hunkered down to deliver a rebrand that would achieve all of this and more.
The Backblaze Rebrand
I won’t bore you with stories about the months of color wheels; name association and SWOT exercises; comparisons to other brands; and the blood, sweat, and tears our Creative and Front End Engineering teams poured into what went live today. All that and more contributed to this effort, but I do want to share some explanations relevant to you: What we changed, what we will change, and what we definitely won’t change.
What Did We Change?
Here are a few of the primary changes we’ve made as part of the rebranding process:
New(ish) Logo
The first thing many of you will notice is an updated logo. You can’t help but love our little flame that never stops burning—it’s a symbol of the blazing fast backup service we launched with, and today also serves as a representation of how we help our customers blaze forward with their businesses. For reference, here’s our old logo:
But you’ll notice below that our new logo features an update to the typeface and the color. We’ll talk about the updated color later, but the updated typeface is pretty straightforward. In its time, an all-caps name definitely worked, but today it feels a little “shouty”—we wanted a look and feel that says, we’re here to help you blaze on with whatever project comes next. We’re supportive and uncomplicated, if maybe a little irreverent. A side bonus is that we’d like the reporters of the world to know once and for all, there’s only one uppercase letter in our name… Here’s the new logo:
Changes to the User Experience
The overall user experience on the website has been updated to provide more ease for viewing on desktop or mobile. The navigation has been thoughtfully reorganized to make it easier to find the value each user needs within the site, especially within the robust footer we’ve added.
The design brings in more space (or padding) around and between content to allow for greater flow. And in many places, full-width sections have become islands to help you focus on key content, along with directional links to move you through the site.
Colors
If you head over to the Wayback Machine, or check the screenshots below, you’ll notice that our color palette is brighter, and, well, more “red” than before. Simply put, for the same reasons we doubled down on our blazing logo, we also doubled down on red. When you look around the cloud services space, it’s a sea of quiet blues. Feels a little cold.
We decided to own the heat: Whether you think of us as a catalyst, accelerant, or jet fuel, we’re here to help you blaze forward with whatever you’re trying to achieve—whether that’s a new app, business, or just backing up your precious data—we’ll keep you warm.
What We Will Change…
You don’t have to look farther than our familiar blog layout to see that this rebrand hasn’t touched the whole website, yet. We’re working through the remainder of our pages and assets over the rest of this year, but all of the changes to come will by and large just carry forward the new look and feel we’ve shared today.
…And What We Won’t Change
This rebrand covers a number of subtle and not-so-subtle changes, but an important thing to emphasize is that the substance of Backblaze won’t be changing. From day one, we’ve focused on being easy, affordable, and trusted for our customers. With the commitment to stick to those values in mind, the first thing we did in our rebrand was to reaffirm what exactly our foundation is, and I thought it would be good to share it with you today:
Backblaze’s Foundation: Data is the digital world’s most precious resource. We make storing and using that data astonishingly easy.
We hope this message comes through loud and clear in the new experience we’ve built for you.
Tell Us What You Think
As we work to continually serve our customers more effectively, we’ll keep improving the way you experience Backblaze products and services—hearing what works and what doesn’t from you is central to that improvement. So, let us know what you think if you have a chance. For a little incentive, we’re sending out some swag to the first 10 of you who respond to this post or share it on social media, so don’t be shy.
June is Backup Awareness Month and we’re now in our 13th year of working with The Harris Poll to ask a simple question: “How often do you back up all the data on your computer?” We’re always interested to see how average folks think about their data, and what they use for their primary backups. This year we also asked people about their history with data loss, and whether or not they are firmly grounded on how “the cloud” works. The results… may shock you.
How Backups Are Trending in 2021
Good news here, the results are positive! Of people who own a computer, more than ever are backing up daily, if not even more often: Our 2021 number is 11%. This is only an increase of one percentage point over last year, which may not seem like much, but does underline a positive upward trend over the years (6% in 2018, 9% in 2019, and 10% in 2020). As a computer backup provider, we’re thrilled that backups and disaster recovery are increasingly top of mind for people.
At the other end of the spectrum, 20% of those who own a computer have never backed up all the data on their systems, led by people 65 and older at 31%. It’s time to go visit the grandparents and help them back up their computers (I know I do!).
While the number of people who never back up their computers is down about 54.5% from when we first started the survey (35% in 2008 versus 20% in 2021), that still means one in five people are at risk of losing all their data should they have a computer or systems failure. That’s too much precious data at risk.
Love seeing the daily and yearly backups continue to rise.
A Different Look
Below, we take a look at the detailed breakdown of backup frequency over the years that we’ve been conducting the survey.
In the chart above you can see that for the most part, things are pretty stable. The “never” category remains near the all-time low it reached last year, while yearly and monthly backups hold steady.
Looking at the pie chart, it’s nice to see that over the years the mix has become more spread out as the “never” category gets whittled down.
Overall, we take this to mean that data awareness remains at an all-time high, which is great news for people and their data.
Who Is the Mythical “Best Backup Person?”
If we were to try find a person who is likely to be a “backer upper” (we define this as a person who owns a computer and backs it up at least once a day) here are some of the characteristics we’d look for: A woman between 35-44 years of age (21% likely to backup versus 9% of those 18-34 and 6% of those 55-64), who lives in the Western United States (17% more likely to back up vs. the South and Midwest at 9% and 7%, respectively), and with a household income of over $100K (13% likely to back up their data versus those households of $50K-$74.9K which are at 6%).
Other Interesting Takeaways
Data Loss Is a Big Deal
Like we mentioned above, one in five of those who own a computer and never back up their data are at risk of losing all the data on their computer, which is problematic. Especially when you consider that of the people who own a computer:
62% have lost data at some point.
76% have deleted something by accident.
51% have had an internal or external hard drive crash.
52% have lost access to their data.
61% had a security incident (with 25% of those happening within the last year).
That 61% of those who report having a security incident is astonishingly high. When you consider that the best way to protect yourself from malware and ransomware is having up-to-date backups, we’re thrilled that 11% of computer owners are backing up daily, but we still have a long way to go.
“The Cloud” Is Less Confusing Than We Thought…
This year we also asked people if they understood how “the cloud” works. It turns out that 31% of Americans don’t understand how the cloud works, which is a lower number than we had expected. One guess for why? COVID-19. As more of the world went virtual this year, people had to familiarize themselves with the cloud in a hurry, so overall awareness and understanding increased.
…But Cloud Services Continue to Confuse
While generally people say they understand “the cloud,” confusion over the protection and functionality that cloud services can provide continues to be a problem. When asked, “What is the primary method you use to back up all of the data on your computer?” 61% of those who have ever backed up all data on their computer indicated that their primary backup method was “the cloud.” However, only 9% indicated that they were using an actual cloud backup service (like Backblaze). 36% of those who have ever backed up all data pointed to their primary backup being a cloud drive service like Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, and 17% said their primary backup method was a cloud sync service like Dropbox or iCloud.
That may be the most troubling bit of data from this year’s survey. Backup and sync services are very different in nature and should be treated as complimentary, not equivalent services. We have a great resource explaining the differences between cloud backup vs. cloud sync that you can read here.
The TL/DR is that backups should happen automatically, in the background, and shouldn’t rely on the person to take any action. They also shouldn’t be susceptible to someone removing the data from a shared or synced location. (Remember those 50% of people who lost access to their data?) Sync and cloud drive tools are great for collaboration (and we use them internally at Backblaze for just that reason) but they’re an “in addition to” tool, and shouldn’t be used in lieu of having proper backups in place.
Spread the Word…and Back Up!
You can help us get better results in next year’s survey and help us make sure that people never lose data again!
If you’re already a Backblaze customer, you can send your friends an extended trial and earn Backblaze credits for yourself with our Refer-a-Friend program.
Also, if you recall, 62% of those who own a computer had lost data, and since you’re already using Backblaze, you’re well on your way to preventing that fate for yourself. But if you want to protect yourself even further, take a look at our Extended Version History feature which increases your backup’s retention period from 30 days to one year, or forever.
If you are joining us for the first time, get started with your online backup today by partaking in a 15-day free trial. It’s risk free and you can be one of the people keeping your data safe by backing up on a daily basis!
We’ll also be hosting a webinar on June 23rd at 10am Pacifc to discuss this year’s results, backup best practices, and doing a bit of a Q&A. Please join us: Backup Best Practices and Q&A.
Survey Method:
These surveys were conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of Backblaze among U.S. adults ages 18+ who own a computer in May 12-14, 2021 (n=1,870); June 1-3, 2020 (n=1,913); June 6-10, 2019 (n=1,858); June 5-7, 2018 (n=1,871); May 19-23, 2017 (n=1,954); May 13-17, 2016 (n=1,920); May 15-19, 2015 (n=2,009); June 2-4, 2014 (n=1,991); June 13–17, 2013 (n=1,952); May 31–June 4, 2012 (n=2,176); June 28–30, 2011 (n=2,209); June 3–7, 2010 (n=2,051); May 13–14, 2009 (n=2,154); and May 27–29, 2008 (n=2,723). These online surveys were not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Backblaze.
We announced that Backblaze earned a Veeam Ready-Object with Immutability qualification in October of 2020, and just yesterday we shared that Object Lock is now available for anyone using the Backblaze S3 Compatible API. After a big announcement, it’s easy to forget about the hard work that went into it. With that in mind, we’ve asked our Senior Java Engineer, Fabian Morgan, who focuses on the Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage product, to explain some of the challenges he found intriguing in the process of developing Object Lock functionality to support both Veeam users and Backblaze B2 customers in general. Read on if you’re interested in using Object Lock (via the Backblaze S3 Compatible API) or File Lock (via the B2 Native API) to protect your data, or if you’re just curious about how we develop new features.
We were proud to be the first public cloud storage alternative to Amazon S3 to earn the Veeam Ready-Object with Immutability qualification, but the work started well before that. In this post, I’ll walk you through how we approached development, sifted through discrepancies between AWS documentation and S3 API behavior, solved for problematic retention scenarios, and tested the solutions.
What Are Object Lock and File Lock? Are They the Same Thing?
Object Lock and File Lock both allow you to store objects using a Write Once, Read Many (WORM) model, meaning after it’s written, data cannot be modified or deleted for a defined period of time or indefinitely. Object Lock and File Lock are the same thing, but Object Lock is the terminology used in the S3 Compatible API documentation, and File Lock is the terminology used in the B2 Native API documentation.
How We Developed Object Lock and File Lock
Big picture, we wanted to offer our customers the ability to lock their data, but achieving that functionality for all customers involved a few different development objectives:
First, we wanted to answer the call for immutability support from Veeam + Backblaze B2 customers via the Backblaze S3 Compatible API, but we knew that Veeam was only part of the answer.
We also wanted to offer the ability to lock objects via the S3 Compatible API for non-Veeam customers.
And we wanted to offer the ability to lock files via the B2 Native API.
To avoid overlapping work and achieve priority objectives first, we took a phased approach. Within each phase, we identified tasks that had dependencies and tasks that could be completed in parallel. First, we focused on S3 Compatible API support and the subset of APIs that Veeam used to achieve the Veeam Ready-Object with Immutability qualification. Phase two brought the remainder of the S3 Compatible API as well as File Lock capabilities for the B2 Native API. Phasing development allowed us to be efficient and minimize rework for the B2 Native API after the S3 Compatible API was completed, in keeping with general good software principles of code reuse. For organizations that don’t use Veeam, our S3 Compatible API and B2 Native API solutions have been exactly what they needed to lock their files in a cost effective, easy to use way.
AWS Documentation Challenges: Solving for Unexpected Behavior
At the start of the project, we spent a lot of time testing various documented and undocumented scenarios in AWS. For example, the AWS documentation at that point did not specify what happens if you attempt to switch from governance mode to compliance mode and vice versa, so we issued API calls to find out. Moreover, if we saw inconsistencies between the final outputs of the AWS Command Line Interface and the Java SDK library, we would take the raw XML response from the AWS S3 server as the basis for our implementation.
Compliance Mode vs. Governance Mode: What’s the Diff?
In compliance mode, users can extend the retention period, but they cannot shorten it under any circumstances. In governance mode, users can alter the retention period to be shorter or longer, remove it altogether, or even remove the file itself if they have an enhanced application key capability along with the standard read and write capabilities. Without the enhanced application key capability, governance mode behaves similarly to compliance mode.
Not only did the AWS documentation fail to account for some scenarios, there were instances when the AWS documentation didn’t match up with the actual system behavior. We utilized an existing AWS S3 service to test the API responses with Postman, an API development platform, and compared them to the documentation. We made the decision to mimic the behavior rather than what the documentation said in order to maximize compatibility. We resolved the inconsistencies by making the same feature API invocation against the AWS S3 service and our server, then verified that our server brought back similar XML as the AWS S3 service.
Retention Challenges: What If a Customer Wants to Close Their Account?
Our team raised an intriguing question in the development process: What if a customer accidentally sets the retention term far in the future, and then they want to close their account?
Originally, we required customers to delete the buckets and files they created or uploaded before closing their account. If, for example, they enabled Object Lock on any files in compliance mode, and had not yet reached the retention expiration date when they wanted to close their account, they couldn’t delete those files. A good thing for data protection. A bad thing for customers who want to leave (even though we hate to see them go, we still want to make it as easy as possible).
The question spawned a separate project that allowed customers to close their account without deleting files and buckets. After the account was closed, the system would asynchronously delete the files even if they were under retention and the associated buckets afterward. However, this led to another problem: If we actually allow files with retention to be deleted asynchronously for this scenario, how do we ensure that no other files with retention would be mistakenly deleted?
The tedious but truthful answer is that we added extensive checks and tests to ensure that the system would only delete files under retention in two scenarios (assuming the retention date had not already expired):
If a customer closed an account.
If the file was retained under governance mode, and the customer had the appropriate application key capability when submitting the delete request.
Testing, Testing: Out-thinking Threats
Features like Object Lock or File Lock have to be bulletproof. As such, testing different scenarios, like the retention example above and many others, posed the most interesting challenges. One critical example: We had to ensure that we protected locked files such that there was no back door or sequence of API calls that would allow someone to delete a file with Object Lock or File Lock enabled. Not only that, we also had to prevent the metadata of the lock properties from being changed.
We approached this problem like a bank teller approaches counterfeit bill identification. They don’t study the counterfeits, they study the real thing to know the difference. What does that mean for us? There are an infinite number of ways a nefarious actor could try to game the system, just like there are an infinite number of counterfeits out there. Instead of thinking of every possible scenario, we identified the handful of ways a user could delete a file, then solved for how to reject anything outside of those strict parameters.
Looking Back
Developing and testing Object Lock and File Lock was truly a team effort, and making sure we had everything accounted for and covered was an exercise that we all welcomed. We expected challenges along the way, and thanks to our great team members, both on the Engineering team and in Compliance, TechOps, and QA, we were able to meet them. When all was said and done, it felt great to be able to work on a much sought-after feature and deliver even more data protection to our customers.
“The immutability support from Backblaze made the decision to tier our Veeam backups to Backblaze B2 easy. Immutability has given us one more level of protection against the hackers. That’s why that was so important to us and most importantly, to our customers.”
—Gregory Tellone, CEO, Continuity Centers
This post was written in collaboration by Fabian Morgan and Molly Clancy.
Upgrading to a network attached storage (NAS) system is a great decision for a growing business. They offer bigger storage capacity, a central place to organize your critical files and backups, easier multi-site collaboration, and better data protection than individual hard drives or workstations. But, configuring your NAS correctly can mean the difference between enjoying a functional storage system that will serve you well for years and spending what might feel like years on the phone with support.
After provisioning the right NAS for your needs (We have a guide for that, too.), you’ll want to get the most out of your investment. Let’s talk about the right way to configure your NAS using storage deployment best practices.
In this post, we’ll cover:
Where to locate your NAS and how to optimize networking.
How to set up your file structure and assign administrator and user access.
How to configure NAS software and backup services.
Disclaimer: This advice will work for almost all NAS systems aside from the very large and complex systems typically installed in data center racks with custom network and power connections. For that, you’ve probably already advanced well beyond NAS 101.
Setup Logistics: Where and How
Choosing a good location for your NAS and optimizing your network are critical first steps in ensuring the long-term health of your system and providing proper service to your users.
Where to Keep Your NAS
Consider the following criteria when choosing where in your physical space to put your NAS. A good home for your NAS should be:
Temperature Controlled: If you can’t locate your NAS in a specific, temperature-controlled room meant for servers and IT equipment, choose a place with good airflow that stays cool to protect your NAS from higher temperatures that can shorten component life.
Clean: Dust gathering around the fans of your NAS is a sign that dust could be entering the device’s internal systems. Dust is a leading cause of failure for both system cooling fans and power supply fans, which are typically found under grills at the back of the device. Make sure your NAS’s environment is as dust-free as possible, and inspect the area around the fans and the fans themselves periodically. If you notice dust buildup, wipe the surface dust with a static-free cloth and investigate air handling in the room. Air filters can help to minimize dust.
Dust-free fans are happy fans.
Stable: You’ll want to place your system on a flat, stable surface. Try to avoid placing your NAS in rooms that get a lot of traffic. Vibration tends to be rough on the hard drives within the NAS—they value their quiet time.
Secure: A locked room would be best for a physical asset like a NAS system, but if that’s not possible, try to find an area where visitors won’t have easy access.
Finally, your NAS needs a reliable, stable power supply to protect the storage volumes and data stored therein. Unexpected power loss can lead to loss or corruption of files being copied. A quality surge protector is a must. Better yet, invest in an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) device. If the power goes out, a UPS device will give you enough time to safely power down your NAS or find another power source. Check with your vendor for guidance on recommended UPS systems, and configure your NAS to take advantage of that feature.
How to Network Your NAS
Your NAS delivers all of its file and backup services to your users via your network, so optimizing that network is key to enhancing the system’s resilience and reliability. Here are a few considerations when setting up your network:
Cabling: Use good Ethernet cabling and network router connections. Often, intermittent connectivity or slow file serving issues can be traced back to faulty Ethernet cables or ports on aging switches.
IP Addresses: If your NAS has multiple network ports (e.g. two 1GigE Ethernet ports), you have a few options to get the most out of them. You can connect your NAS to different local networks without needing a router. For example, you could connect one port to the main internal network that your users share and a second port to your internet connected cameras or IoT devices—a simple way to make both networks accessible to your NAS. Another option is to set one port with a static or specific IP address and configure the second port to dynamically retrieve an IP address via DHCP to give you an additional way to access the system in case one link goes down. A third option, if it’s available on your NAS, is to link multiple network connections into a single connection. This feature (called 802.3AD Link Aggregation, or port bonding) gets more network performance than a single port can provide.
Wait. What is DHCP again?
DHCP = Dynamic host configuration protocol. It automatically assigns an IP address from a pool of addresses, minimizing the human error in manual configuration and requires less network administration.
DNS: Your NAS relies on domain name servers—DNS—that the NAS system can query to help translate users’ web server requests to IP addresses, to provide its services. Most NAS systems will allow you to set two DNS entries for each port. You might already be running a DNS service locally (e.g. so that staging.yourcompany.local goes to the correct internal-only server), but it’s a good practice to provide a primary and secondary DNS server for the system to query. That way, if the first DNS server is unreachable, the second can still look up internet locations that applications running on your NAS will need. If one DNS entry is assigned by your local DHCP server or internet provider, set the second DNS entry to something like Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1 or 1.0.0.1) or Google DNS (8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4).
A typical network configuration interface. In this case, we’ve added Cloudflare DNS in addition to the DNS entry provided by the main internet gateway.
Access Management: Who and What
Deciding who has access to what is entirely unique to each organization, but there are some best practices that can make management easier. Here, we share some methods to help you plan for system longevity regardless of personnel changes.
Configuring Administrator Access
Who has the keys to the kingdom? What happens when that person moves departments or leaves the company? Planning ahead for these contingencies should be part of your NAS setup. We recommend two practices to help you prepare:
Designate multiple trusted people as administrators. Your NAS system probably comes with a default admin name and password which you should, of course, change, but it’s beneficial to have at least one more administrator account. If one admin isn’t available, a backup admin can still log in. Additionally, using an organization-wide password manager like Bitwarden for your business is highly recommended.
Use role-based emails for alerts. You’ll find many places in your NAS system configuration to enter an email address in case the system needs to send an alert—when power goes out or a disk has failed, for example. Instead of entering a single person’s email, use a role-based email instead. People change, but [email protected] will never leave you. Role-based emails are often implemented as a group email, allowing you to assign multiple people to the account and increasing the likelihood that someone will be available to respond to warnings.
Configuring User Access
With a NAS, you have the ability to easily manage how your users and groups access the shared storage needed for your teams to work effectively. Easy collaboration was probably one of the reasons you purchased a NAS in the first place. Building your folder system appropriately and configuring access by role or group helps you achieve that goal. Follow these steps when you first set up your NAS to streamline storage workflows:
Define your folders. Your NAS might come pre-formatted with folders like “Photo,” “Video,” “Web,” etc. This structure makes sense when only one person is using the NAS. In a multi-user scenario, you’ll want to define the folders you’ll need, for example, by role or group membership, instead.
Example Folder Structure
Here is an example folder structure you could start with:
Local Backups: A folder for local backups, accessible only by backup software. This keeps your backup data separate from your shared storage.
Shared Storage: A folder for company-wide shared storage accessible to everyone.
Group Folders: Accounting, training, marketing, manufacturing, support, etc.
Creating a shared folder.
Integrate with directory services. If you use a directory service like Active Directory or other LDAP services to manage users and privileges, you can integrate it with your NAS to assign access permissions. Integrating with directory services will let you use those tools to assign storage access instead of assigning permissions individually. Check your NAS user guide for instructions on how to integrate those services.
Use a group- or role-based approach. If you don’t use an external user management service, we recommend setting up permissions based on groups or roles. A senior-level person might need access to every department’s folders, whereas a person in one department might only need access to a few folders. For example, for the accounting team’s access, you can create a folder for their files called “Accounting,” assign every user in accounting to the “Accounting” group, then grant folder access for that group rather than for each and every user. As people come and go, you can just add them to the appropriate group instead of configuring user access permissions for every new hire.
Applying group-level permissions to a shared folder. In this case, the permissions include the main folder open to all employees, the accounting folder, and the operations folder. Any user added to this user group will automatically inherit these default permissions.
The Last Step: NAS Software and Backup Management
Once you’ve found a suitable place for your NAS, connected it to your network, structured your folders, and configured access permissions, the final step is choosing what software will run on your NAS, including software to ensure your systems and your NAS itself are backed up. As you do so, keep the following in mind:
Prioritize the services you need. When prioritizing your services, adopt the principle of least privilege. For example, if a system has many services enabled by default, it makes sense to turn some of them off to minimize the system load and avoid exposing any services that are unnecessary. Then, when you are ready to enable a service, you can thoughtfully implement it for your users with good data and security practices, including applying the latest patches and updates. This keeps your NAS focused on its most important services—for example, file system service—first so that it runs efficiently and optimizes resources. Depending on your business, this might look like turning off video-serving applications or photo servers and turning on things like SMB for file service for Mac, Windows, and Linux; SSH if you’re accessing the system via command line; and services for backup and sync.
Enabling priority file services—in this case, SMB service for Mac and Windows users.
Back up local systems to your NAS. Your NAS is an ideal local storage target to back up all systems in your network—your servers, desktops, and laptops. For example, QNAP and Synology systems allow you to use the NAS as a Time Machine backup for your Mac users. Windows users can use QNAP NetBak Replicator, or Active Backup Suite on Synology devices.
Setting a NAS device to accept Time Machine backups from local Mac systems.
Common Services for Your NAS
SMB: The most common storage access and browsing protocol to “talk” to modern OS clients. It allows these systems to browse available systems, authenticate to them, and send and retrieve files.
AFP: An older protocol that serves files for older Mac clients that do not work well with SMB.
NFS: A distributed file system protocol used primarily for UNIX and Linux systems.
FTP and SFTP: File serving protocols for multiple, simultaneous users, common for large directories of files that users will need occasional access to, like training or support documents. SFTP is more secure and highly preferred over FTP. You will likely find that it’s easier to create and manage a folder on your NAS with read-only access instead.
rsync: A file protocol for backups, allowing systems to easily connect to and backup their systems using the rsync file transfer and sync utility. If your local servers or systems back up to your NAS via rsync, this service will need to be enabled on the NAS.
The Final, Final Step: Enjoy All the Benefits Your NAS Offers
If you’ve followed our NAS 101 series, you now have a system sized for your important data and growing business that’s configured to run at its best. To summarize, here are the major takeaways to remember when setting up your NAS:
Keep your NAS in a cool, safe, clean location.
Optimize your network to ensure reliability and maximize performance.
Plan for ease of use and longevity when it comes to folder structure and access management.
Prioritize the software and services you need when first configuring your NAS.
Make sure your systems are backed up to your NAS, and your NAS is backed up to an off-site location.
Have you recently set up a NAS in your office or home office? Let us know about your experience in the comments.
When you’re growing a business, every milestone often pairs exciting opportunities with serious challenges. Gavin Wade, Founder & CEO of Cloudspot, put it best: “In any startup environment, there are fires all over the place. You touch the door handle. If it’s not too hot, you let it burn, and you go take care of the door that has smoke pouring out.”
Expanding your business to new locations or managing a remote team has the potential to become a five-alarm fire, and fast—particularly from a data management perspective. Your team needs simple, shared storage and fail-safe data backups, and all in a cost-effective package.
Installing multiple NAS devices across locations and syncing with the cloud provides all three, and it’s easier than it sounds. Even if you’re not ready to expand just yet, upgrading from swapping hard drives or using a sync service like G Suite or Dropbox to a NAS system will provide a scalable approach to future growth.
This guide explains:
Why NAS devices make sense for growing businesses.
How to implement cloud sync for streamlined collaboration in four steps.
How to protect data on your NAS devices with cloud backup.
NAS = An Upgrade for Your Business
How do you handle data sharing and workflow between locations? Maybe you rely on ferrying external hard drives between offices, and you’re frustrated by the hassle and potential for human error. Maybe you use G Suite, and their new 2TB caps are killing your bottom line. Maybe you already use a NAS device, but you need to add another one and you’re not sure how to sync them.
Making collaboration easy and protecting your data in the process are likely essential goals for your business, and an ad hoc solution can only go so far. What worked when you started might not work for the long term if you want to achieve sustainable growth. Investing in a NAS device or multiple devices provides a few key advantages, including:
More storage. First and foremost, NAS provides more storage space than individual hard drives or individual workstations because NAS systems create a single storage volume from several drives (often arranged in a RAID scheme).
Faster storage. NAS works as fast as your local office network speed; you won’t need to wait on internet bandwidth or track down the right drive for restores.
Enhanced collaboration. As opposed to individual hard drives, multiple people can access a NAS device at the same time. You can also sync multiple drives easily, as we’ll detail below.
Better protection and security. Because the drives in a NAS system are configured in a RAID, the data stored on the drives is protected from individual drive failures. And drives do fail. A NAS device can also serve as a central place to hold backups of laptops, workstations, and servers. You can quickly recover those systems if they go down, and the backups can serve as part of an effective ransomware defense strategy.
Cost-efficiency. Compared to individual hard drives, NAS devices are a bigger upfront investment. But the benefits of more efficient workflows plus the protection from data loss and expensive recoveries make the investment well worth considering for growing businesses.
Hold up. What’s a RAID again?
RAID stands for “redundant array of independent disks.” It combines multiple hard drives into one or more storage volumes and distributes data across the drives to allow for data recovery in the event of one or multiple drive failures, depending on configuration.
The Next Step: Pairing NAS + Cloud
Most NAS devices include software to achieve cloud backups and cloud sync baked in. For our purposes, we’ll look specifically at the benefits of enabling cloud solutions on a QNAP NAS system to facilitate collaboration between offices and implement a 3-2-1 backup strategy.
NAS + Cloud + Sync = Collaboration
Pairing NAS systems with cloud storage enables you to sync files between multiple NAS devices, boosting collaboration between offices or remote teams. Each location has access to the same, commonly used, up-to-date documents or assets, and you no longer need an external service to share large files—just place them in shared folders on your local NAS and they appear on synced devices in minutes.
If this seems complex or maybe you haven’t even considered using cloud sync between offices, here’s a four-step process to configure sync on QNAP NAS devices and cloud storage:
Prepare your cloud storage to serve as your content sync interchange. Create a folder in your cloud storage, separate from your backup folders, to serve as the interchange between the NAS systems in each office. Each of your NAS systems will stay synchronized with this cloud destination.
Step 1: Create cloud sync destination.
Determine the content you want to make available across all of your offices. For example, it may be helpful to have a large main folder for the entire company, and folders within that organized by department. Then, use QNAP Sync to copy the contents of that folder to a new folder or bucket location in the cloud.
Step 2: Copy first source to cloud.
Copy the content from the cloud location to your second NAS. You can speed this up by first syncing the data on your new office’s NAS on your local network, then physically moving it to the new location. Now, you have the same content on both NAS systems. If bringing your new NAS on-site isn’t possible due to geography or access issues, then copy the cloud folders you created in step two down to the second system over internet bandwidth.
Step 3: Copy cloud to second location.
Set up two-way syncs between each NAS and the cloud. Now that you have the same shared files on both NAS systems and the cloud, the last step is to enable two-way sync from each location. Your QNAP NAS will move changed files up or down continuously, ensuring everyone is working on the most up-to-date files.
Step 4: Keep both locations synchronized via cloud.
With both NAS devices synchronized via the cloud, all offices have access to common folders and files can be shared instantaneously. When someone in one office wants to collaborate on a large file with someone in the other office, they simply move the file into their local all-office shared folder, and it will appear in that folder in the other office within minutes.
NAS + Cloud Storage = Data Security
An additional benefit of combining a NAS with cloud storage for backup is that it completes a solid 3-2-1 backup strategy, which provides for three copies of your data—two on different media on-site, with one off-site. The cloud provides the off-site part of this equation. Here’s an example of how you’d accomplish this with a QNAP NAS in each office and simple cloud backup:
Back up the NAS itself to cloud storage. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this with Hyper Backup 3 to Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, which is already integrated with NAS systems from QNAP.
With backup in place, if any of those office systems fail, you can restore them directly from your NAS, and your NAS itself is backed up to the cloud if some catastrophic event were to affect all of your in-office devices.
Adding Up the Benefits of NAS + Cloud
To recap, here are a few takeaways to consider when managing data for a growing business:
NAS systems give you more storage on fast, local networks; better data protection than hard drives; and the ability to easily sync should you add locations or remote team members.
Connecting your NAS to cloud storage means every system in every office or location is backed up and protected, both locally and in the cloud.
Syncing NAS devices with the cloud gives all of your offices access to consistent, shared files on fast, local networks.
You no longer need to use outside services to share large files between offices.
You can configure backups and sync between multiple devices using software that comes baked in with a QNAP NAS system or augment with any of our Backblaze B2 integrations.
If you’re sick of putting out fires related to ad hoc collaboration solutions or just looking to upgrade from hard drives or G Suite, combining NAS systems with cloud storage delivers performance, protection, and easy collaboration between remote teams or offices.
Thinking about upgrading to a NAS device, but not sure where to start? Check out our NAS 101: Buyer’s Guide for guidance on navigating your choices. Already using NAS, but have questions about syncing? Let us know in the comments.
As your business grows, the amount of data that it needs to store and manage also grows. Storing this data on loose hard drives and individual workstations will no longer cut it: Your team needs ready data access, protection from loss, and capacity for future growth. The easiest way to provide all three quickly and easily is network attached storage (NAS).
You might have already considered buying a NAS device, or you purchased one that you’ve already grown out of, or this could be your first time looking at your options. No matter where you’re starting, the number of choices and features NAS systems offer today are overwhelming, especially when you’re trying to buy something that will work now and in the future.
This post aims to make your process a little easier. The following content will help you:
Review the benefits of a NAS system.
Navigate the options you’ll need to choose from.
Understand the reason to pair your NAS with cloud storage.
How Can NAS Benefit Your Business?
There are multiple benefits that a NAS system can provide to users on your network, but we’ll recap a few of the key advantages here.
More Storage. It’s a tad obvious, but the primary benefit of a NAS system is that it will provide a significant addition to your storage capacity if you’re relying on workstations and hard drives. NAS systems create a single storage volume from several drives (often arranged in a RAID scheme).
Protection From Data Loss. Less obvious, but equally important, the RAID configuration in a NAS system ensures that the data you store can survive the failure of one or more of its hard drives. Hard drives fail! NAS helps to make that statement of fact less scary.
Security and Speed. Beyond protection from drive failure, NAS also provides security for your data from outside actors as it is only accessible on your local office network and to user accounts which you can control. Not only that, but it generally works as fast as your local office network speeds.
Better Data Management Tools. Fully automated backups, deduplication, compression, and encryption are just a handful of the functions you can put to work on a NAS system—all of which make your data storage more efficient and secure. You can also configure sync workflows to ease collaboration for your team, enable services to manage your users and groups with directory services, and even add services like photo or media management.
If this all sounds useful for your business, read on to learn more about bringing these benefits in-house.
The Network Attached Storage (NAS) Buyer’s Guide
How do you evaluate the differences between different NAS vendors? Or even within a single company’s product line? We’re here to help. This tour of the major components of a NAS system will help you to develop a tick list for the sizing and features of a system that will fit your needs.
Choosing a NAS: The Components
How your NAS performs is dictated by the components that make up the system, and capability of future upgrades. Let’s walk through the different options.
NAS Storage Capacity: How Many Bays Do You Need?
One of the first ways to distinguish between different NAS systems is the number of drive bays a given system offers, as this determines how many disks the system can hold. Generally speaking, the larger the number of drive bays, the more storage you can provide to your users and the more flexibility you have around protecting your data from disk failure.
In a NAS system, storage is defined by the number of drives, the shared volume they create, and their striping scheme (e.g. RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, etc.). For example, one drive gives no additional performance or protection. Two drives allows the option of simple mirroring. Mirroring is also referred to as RAID 0, when one volume is built from two drives, allowing for the failure of one of those drives without data loss. Two drives also allows for striping—referred to as RAID 1—when one volume is “stretched” across two drives, making a single, larger drive that also gives some performance improvement, but increases risk because the loss of one drive means that the entire volume will be unavailable.
Refresher: How Does RAID Work Again?
A redundant array of independent disks, or RAID, combines multiple hard drives into one or more storage volumes. RAID distributes data and parity (drive recovery information) across the drives in different ways, and each layout provides different degrees of data protection.
Three drives is the minimum for RAID 5, which can survive the loss of one drive, though four drives is a more common NAS system configuration. Five drives allow for RAID 6, which can survive the loss of two drives. Six to eight drives are very common NAS configurations that allow more storage, space, performance, and even drive sparing—the ability to designate a stand-by drive to immediately rebuild a failed drive.
Many believe that, if you’re in the market for a NAS system with multiple bays, you should opt for capacity that allows for RAID 6 if possible. RAID 6 can survive the loss of two drives, and delivers performance nearly equal to RAID 5 with better protection.
It’s understandable to think: Why do I need to prepare in case two drives fail? Well, when a drive fails and you replace it with a fresh drive, the rebuilding process to restore that drive’s data and parity information can take a long time. Though it’s rare, it’s possible to have another drive fail during the rebuilding process. In that scenario, if you have RAID 6 you’re likely going to be okay. If you have RAID 5, you may have just lost data.
Buyer’s Note: Some systems are sold without drives. Should you buy NAS with or without drives? That decision usually boils down to the size and type of drives you’d like to have.
When buying a NAS system with drives provided:
The drives are usually covered by the manufacturer’s warranty as part of the complete system.
The drives are typically bought directly from the manufacturer’s supply chain and shipped directly from the hard drive manufacturer.
If you choose to buy drives separately from your NAS:
The drives may be a mix of drive production runs, and have been in the supply chain longer. Match the drive capacities and models for the most predictable performance across the RAID volume.
Choose drives rated for NAS systems—NAS vendors publish lists of supported drive types. Here’s a list from QNAP, for example.
Check the warranty and return procedures, and if you are moving a collection of older drives into your NAS, you may also consider how much of the warranty has already run out.
Buyer Takeaway: Choose a system that can support RAID 5 or RAID 6 to allow a combination of more storage space, performance, and drive failure protection. But be sure to check whether the NAS system is sold with or without drives.
Selecting Drive Capacity for the NAS: What Size of Drives Should You Buy?
You can quickly estimate how much storage you’ll need by adding up the hard drives and external drives of all the systems you’ll be backing up in your office, adding the amount of shared storage you’ll want to provide to your users, and factor in any growing demand you project for shared storage.
If you have any historical data under management from previous years, you can calculate a simple growth rate. But, include a buffer as data growth accelerates every year. Generally speaking, price out systems at two or four times the size of your existing data capacity. Let’s say that your hard drives and external drives to back up, and any additional shared storage you’d like to provide your users, add up to 20TB. Double that size to get 40TB to account for growth, then divide by a common hard drive size such as 10TB. With that in mind, you can start shopping for four bay systems and larger.
Formula 1: ((Number of NAS Users x Hard Drive Size ) + Shared Storage) * Growth Factor = NAS Storage Needed
Example: There are six users in an office that will each be backing up their 2TB workstations and laptops. The team will want to use another 6TB of shared storage for documents, images, and videos for everyone to use. Multiplied times a growth factor of two, you’d start shopping for NAS systems that offer at least 36TB of storage.
((Six users * 2TB each) + 6TB shared storage ) * growth factor of two = 36TB
Formula 2: ((NAS Storage Needed / Hard Drive Size) + Two Parity Drives) = Drive Bays Needed
Example: Continuing the example above, when looking for a new NAS system using 12TB drives, accounting for two additional drives for RAID 6, you’d look for NAS systems that can support five or more drive bays of 12TB hard drives.
(( 36TB / 12TB ) + two additional drives ) = Five drive bays and up
If your budget allows, opting for larger drives and more drive bays will give you more storage overhead that you’ll surely grow into over time. Factor in, however, that if you go too big, you’re paying for unused storage space for a longer period of time. And if you use GAAP accounting, you’ll need to capitalize that investment over the same time window as a smaller NAS system which will hit your bottom line on an annual basis. This is the classic CapEx vs. Opex dilemma you can learn more about here.
If your cash budget is tight you can always purchase a NAS system with more bays but smaller drives, which will significantly reduce your upfront pricing. You can then replace those drives in the future with larger ones when you need them. Hard drive prices generally fall over time, so they will likely be less expensive in the future. You’ll end up purchasing two sets of drives over time, which will be less cash-intensive at the outset, but likely more expensive in the long run.
Similarly, you can partially fill the drive bays. If you want to get an eight bay system, but only have the budget for six drives, just add the other drives later. One of the best parts of NAS systems is the flexibility they allow you for right-sizing your shared storage approach.
Buyer Takeaway: Estimate how much storage you’ll need, add the amount of shared storage you’ll want to provide to your users, and factor in growing demand for shared storage—then balance long term growth potential against cash flow.
Processor, Controllers, and Memory: What Performance Levels Do You Require?
Is it better to have big onboard processors or controllers? Smaller, embedded chips common in smaller NAS systems provide basic functionality, but might bog down when serving many users or crunching through deduplication and encryption tasks, which are options with many backup solutions. Larger NAS systems typically stored in IT data center racks usually offer multiple storage controllers that can deliver the fastest performance and even failover capability.
Processor: Provides compute power for the system operation, services, and applications.
Controller: Manages the storage volume presentation and health.
Memory: Improves speed of applications and file serving performance.
ARM and Intel Atom chips are good for basic systems, while larger and more capable processors such as the Intel Corei3 and Corei5 are faster at NAS tasks like encryption, deduplication, and serving any on-board apps. Xeon server class chips can be found in many rack-mounted systems, too.
So if you’re just looking for basic storage expansion, the entry-level systems with more modest, basic chips will likely suit you just fine. If deduplication, encryption, sync, and other functions many NAS systems offer as optional tools are part of your future workflow, this is one area where you shouldn’t cut corners.
Adding memory modules to your NAS can be a simple performance upgrade.
If you have the option to expand the system memory, this can be an easy performance upgrade. Generally, the higher the ratio of memory to drives will benefit the performance of reading and writing to disk and the speed of on-board applications.
Buyer Takeaway: Entry-level NAS systems provide good basic functionality, but you should ensure your components are up to the challenge if you plan to make heavy use of deduplication, encryption, compression, and other functions.
Network and Connections: What Capacity for Speed Do You Need?
A basic NAS will have a Gigabit Ethernet connection, which you will often find listed as 1GigE. This throughput of 1 Gb/s in network speeds is equivalent to 125 MB/s coming from your storage system. That means that the NAS system must fit storage service to all users within that limitation, which is usually not an issue when serving only a few users. Many systems offer expansion ports inside, allowing you to purchase a 10GigE network card later to upgrade your NAS.
An example of a small 10GigE add-in card that can boost your NAS network performance.
Some NAS vendors offer 2.5 Gb/s, or 5 Gb/s connections on their systems—these will give you more performance than 1GigE connections, but usually require that you get a compatible network switch, and possibly, USB adapters or expansion cards for every system that will connect to that NAS via the switch. If your office is already wired for 10GigE, make sure your NAS is also 10GigE. Otherwise, the more network ports in the back of the system, the better. If you aren’t ready to get a 10GigE capable system now, but you think you might be in the future, select a system that has expansion capability.
Some NAS systems offer not only multiple network ports, but faster connections as well, such as Thunderbolt.
Some systems provide another option of Thunderbolt connections in addition to Ethernet connections. These allow laptops and workstations with Thunderbolt ports to directly connect to the NAS and offer much higher bandwidth—up to 40GigE (5 GB/s)—and are good for systems that need to edit large files directly on the NAS, such as is often the case in video editing. If you’ll be directly connecting systems that need the fastest possible speeds, select a system with Thunderbolt ports, one per Thunderbolt-connected user.
Buyer Takeaway: It’s best to have more network ports in the back of your system. Or, select a system with network expansion card capability.
Caching and Hybrid Drive Features: How Fast Do You Need to Serve Files?
Many of the higher-end NAS systems can complement standard 5.25” hard drives with higher performing, smaller form factor SSD or M.2 drives. These smaller, faster drives can dramatically improve the NAS file serving performance by caching files in most recent, or most frequently requested files. By combining these different types of drives, the NAS can deliver both improved file serving performance, and large capacity.
As the number of users you support in each office grows, these capabilities will become more important as a relatively simple way to boost performance. Like we mentioned earlier, you can purchase a system with these slots unpopulated and add them in later.
Buyer Takeaway: Combine different types of drives, like smaller form factor SSD or M.2 storage with 5.25” hard drives to gain improved file serving performance.
Operating System: What Kind of Management Features Do You Require?
The NAS operating systems of the major vendors generally provide the same services in an OS-like interface delivered via an on-board web server. By simply typing in your NAS’s IP address, you can sign in and manage your system’s settings, create and manage the storage volumes, set up groups of users on your network who have access, configure and monitor backup and sync tasks, and more.
If there are specific user management features in your IT environment that you need, or want to test how the NAS OS works, you can test them by spinning up a demonstration virtual machine offered by some NAS vendors. You can test service configuration and get a feel for the interface and tools, but obviously as a virtual environment you won’t be able to manage hardware directly. Here are some options:
Buyer Takeaway: The on-board NAS OS looks similar to a Mac or PC operating system to make it easy to navigate system setup and maintenance and allows you to manage settings, storage, and tasks.
Solutions: What Added Services Do You Require?
While the onboard processor and memory on your NAS are primarily for file service, backup, and sync tasks, you can also install other solutions directly onto it. For instance, QNAP and Synology—two popular NAS providers—have app stores accessible from their management software where you can select applications to download and install on your NAS. You might be interested in a backup and sync solution such as Archiware, or CMS solutions like Joomla or WordPress.
Applications available to install directly within some NAS vendors’ management system.
However, beyond backup solutions, you’d benefit from installing mission-critical apps onto a dedicated system rather than on your NAS. For a small number of users, running applications directly on the NAS can be a good temporary use or a pathway to testing something out. But if the application becomes very busy, it could impact the other services of the NAS. Big picture, native apps on your NAS can be useful, but don’t overdo it.
Buyer Takeaway: The main backup and sync apps from the major NAS vendors are excellent—give them a good test drive, but know that there are many excellent backup and sync solutions available as well.
Why Adding Cloud Storage to Your NAS Offers Additional Benefits
When you pair cloud storage with your NAS, you gain access to features that complement the security of your data and your ability to share files both locally and remotely.
To start with, cloud storage provides off-site backup protection. This aligns your NAS setup with the industry standard for data protection: a 3-2-1 backup strategy—which ensures that you have three copies of your data, the source data and two backups—one of which is on your NAS, and the second copy of your data is protected off-site. And in the event of data loss, you can restore your systems directly from the cloud even if all the systems in your office are knocked out or destroyed.
While data sent to the cloud is encrypted in-flight via SSL, you can also encrypt your backups so that they are only openable with your team’s encryption key. The cloud can also give you advanced storage options for your backup files like Write Once, Read Many (WORM) or immutability—making your data unchangeable for a defined period of time—or set custom data lifecycle rules at the bucket level to help match your ideal backup workflow.
Additionally, cloud storage provides valuable access to your data and documents from your NAS through sync capabilities. In case anyone on your team needs to access a file when they are away from the office, or as is more common now, in case your entire team is working from home, they’ll be able to access the files that have been synced to the cloud through your NAS’s secure sync program. You can even sync across multiple locations using the cloud as a two-way sync to quickly replicate data across locations. For employees collaborating across great distances, this helps to ensure they’re not waiting on the internet to deliver critical files: They’re already on-site.
Refresher: What’s the Difference Between Cloud Sync, Cloud Backup, and Cloud Storage? Sync services allow multiple users across multiple devices to access the same file. Backup stores a copy of those files somewhere remote from your work environment, oftentimes in an off-site server—like cloud storage. It’s important to know that a “sync” is not a backup, but they can work well together when properly coordinated. You can read more about the differences in this blog post.
Ready to Set Up Your NAS With Cloud Storage
To summarize, here are a few things to remember when shopping for a NAS system:
Consider how much storage you’ll need for both local backup and for shared user storage.
Look for a system with three to five drive bays at minimum.
Check that the NAS system is sold with drives—if not, you’ll have to source enough of the same size drives.
Opt for a system that lets you upgrade the memory and network options.
Choose a system that meets your needs today; you can always upgrade in the future.
Coupled with cloud storage like Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, which is already integrated with NAS systems from Synology and QNAP, you gain necessary backup protection and restoration from the cloud, as well as the capability to sync across locations.
Have more questions about NAS features or how to implement a NAS system in your environment? Ask away in the comments.
Are New Year’s resolutions still a thing after 2020? Given the way most of ours were blown out of the water in March of this past year, we’re not sure. At the least though, we learned that no matter our good intentions, the unexpected can still have its way with us. Thankfully we also learned new ways to plan and prepare (and we don’t mean buying 20 packs of toilet paper) to ensure that the unexpected isn’t quite as unpleasant as it might have been.
With this post, we want to help ensure that data loss is one challenge you can take OFF your list of potential unpleasantness in 2021. By preparing for accidental deletions and computer crashes with a computer backup or cloud storage plan, you can shelve at least one uncertainty for the rest of 2021 and beyond.
Best Practices for Starting Your Backup Plan
With the holiday season (and the sales that come with it) coming to an end, you may have updated to a new computer or need to set up a computer for one of your family members. If so, you may have heard about the importance of backup and want to know how to set it up yourself. First thing to know: It’s super easy!
To back up pictures and other files on your computer using a cloud backup system, you simply need to choose a service and install the software on your computer or laptop. Depending on what you choose, you may need to go through all of your files and folders and select what you’d like to protect. We’re partial to our backup service, however, which backs up everything on your machine for you. You don’t need to worry about anything getting missed. You won’t notice the Backblaze backup client is there, but it will store a backup of everything on your computer, and whenever you modify a file or add something, it will back that up, too. Other than ensuring your credit card is up to date and that you connect to the internet long enough for it to upload data, you don’t need to do anything else to keep the service rolling.
For many of us, accomplishing this first step is good enough to keep us feeling safe and sound for a long time. But if you’ve been reading about ransomware attacks, had a friend lose data, or you’ve ever lost data yourself, there are six more easy steps you can take to ensure MAXIMUM peace of mind going forward.
Top Six Things to Keep in Mind When Monitoring Your Backup and Cloud Storage Strategy in 2021
1. Lay Out Your Strategy.
When you’re just starting out, or even later on in your computer backup journey, it’s a good idea to have a basic backup strategy. Here are three questions to help you establish one:
What data needs to be backed up?
“Everything” might be your answer, but it’s a little more complex than that. Do you want to preserve every version of every file? Do you have external hard drives with data on them? Do you want to back up your social profiles or other data that doesn’t live on your machine? Make sure you’re truly considering everything.
How often should it be backed up?
Important files should be backed up at minimum once a week, preferably once every 24 hours. If your data changes less frequently, then scheduling a periodic backup might be better for you. If you have older hard drives you don’t use often, you might want to simply archive your backup for them, rather than needing to plug them in whenever you get close to the edge of your version history.
How should I continue to monitor my backup?
It can be devastating to find out that your data backup has been failing at the time when you may have lost your data. If your backup job has been running quietly for months, it is a good idea to check and make sure it’s doing its job. Testing the restore feature on your backup gives you the ability to check that all the data you deem important is going to still be there when you need it most.
2. Keep Data Security in Mind.
At the end of 2019, we shared six New Year’s resolutions to help protect your data, but we realize that some of your New Year’s resolutions may have been deferred. So here’s a little reminder that data security is always important! We’ll keep it simple: If you take one security step in 2021, make it to set two-factor authentication on all of your accounts.
Two-factor authentication notifies you whenever someone tries to log in to your account and will not give them access until you enter the second identification code. You can choose from many different delivery options to receive the code, like an SMS text, voicemail, or using an application like Google Authenticator (we recommend the latter as it’s the most secure).
Either way, two-factor authentication means that not only will hackers have to steal your credentials and password, they’ll also have to get access to one of your personal devices. Needless to say, this will greatly decrease the chances that your data will be compromised.
3. Know Where Your Data Lives.
Over the years, our data often becomes “scattered.” Bits and pieces of our data are strewn from place to place as we create new data on different platforms and services. Between new and old computers, multiple hard drives, sync services like Google Drive, all of your social profiles, and all the others, it’s easy to lose track of where your most important data is when you need it. Especially because many of these locations will not be covered by standard backup services.
Mapping out where your data lives will help you to track what’s being stored off of your computer (like on a hard drive or USB), what’s being synced to the cloud, and what data is being backed up.
Once you have an idea of where your data is, your backup strategy comes into play. If there are important files that are being synced or that live on a hard drive, you may want to think about moving those files to a device that is being backed up or to an archive. Once you do, you’ll never have to worry about them again!
4. Consider Which Retention Span Fits Best for You.
Backup retention—also known as data retention—is how long you would like your data to be archived. At Backblaze, you have three options for your data retention: 30 days (the default), 1 Year, or Forever Version History. Picking between the three can feel tricky but it really just depends on your needs. If you have a college student away at school for a year and want to make sure their data is retrievable in case of emergency (like a coffee spill on their computer in the library), then yearly may be the best option for you. If you are a writer who constantly needs to look back on past versions of material you have written, then forever version history may be the best option for you.
Any retention plan should work just fine as long as you are monitoring your backup and understand what data is still being retained.
5. Testing Restores
There’s an old saying that “Data is only as good as your last backup, and your backup is only as good as your ability to restore it.” When data loss occurs, the first question that comes to mind is, “Who is responsible for restoring those backups?” and the answer is simple: you are!
Think of testing your restore as a fire drill. When you go through the steps to restore your data you want to make sure that you know what the steps are, what files are backed up when you want to recover them, and what options you have for restoring your data. When testing out your restore, this may clue you in on potential holes in your backup that you can fix before it’s too late.
6. Archive Your Data
Backups are great for things you are actively using on your computer, but when you’re done with a project or your computer starts underperforming due to the amount of data on it, you may want to think about archiving that data. In cloud storage and backup, an “archive” is a place to keep data for long term storage. This ensures your computer can run its best with some freed up storage space.
Archives can be used for space management on your computer and long term retention. The original data may (or may not be) deleted after the archive copy is made and stored—it’s up to you! You can always store another copy on a hard drive if you want to be extra careful.
With our Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage product, you can create an archive of your data in various different ways. You can experiment with setting up your own archive by creating a B2 Cloud Storage Bucket within your Backblaze Computer Backup account. It’s easy (we even outlined a step by step process on how to do it), and more importantly, free: Your first 10GB of data stored are on us!
These are some of the recommendations we have for utilizing your computer backup and cloud storage account. If you could just try one, three, or more, then you are starting 2021 out right!
Writing a “year in review” for 2020 feels more than a little challenging. After all, it’s the first year in memory that became its own descriptor: The phrase “because 2020” has become the lead in or blanket explanation for just about any news story we never could have predicted at the beginning of this year.
And yet, looking forward to 2021, I can’t help but feel hopeful when I think about what we did with these hard times. Families rediscovered ways to stay connected and celebrate, neighbors and communities strengthened their bonds and their empathy for one another, and all sorts of businesses and organizations reached well beyond any idea of normal operations to provide services and support despite wild headwinds. Healthcare professionals, grocery stores, poll workers, restaurants, teachers—the creativity and resilience shown in all they’ve accomplished in a matter of months is humbling. If we can do all of this and more in a year of unprecedented challenges, imagine what we can do when we’re no longer held back by a global pandemic?
Looking closer to home, at the Backblaze community—some 190 employees, as well as their families and pets, and our hundreds of thousands of customers and partners around the world—I’m similarly hopeful. In the grand scheme of the pandemic, we were lucky. Most of our work, our services, and our customers’ work, can be accomplished remotely. And yet, I can’t help but be inspired by the stories from this year.
There were Andrew Davis and Alex Acosta, two-thirds of the IT operations team at Gladstone Institutes—a leader in biomedical research that rapidly shifted many of its labs’ focus this year to studying the virus that causes COVID-19. After realizing their data was vulnerable, these two worked with our team to move petabytes of data off of tape and into the cloud, protecting all of it from ransomware and data loss.
Research in process at Gladstone Institutes. Photo Credit: Gladstone Institutes.
And then there were Cédric Pierre-Louis, Director of Programming for the African Fiction Channels at THEMA, and Gareth Howells, Director of Out Point Media, who worked with our friends at iconik to make collaboration and storytelling easier across the African Fiction Channels at THEMA—a Canal+ Group company that has more than 180 television channels in its portfolio. The creative collaboration that goes into TV might not rival the life-saving potential of Gladstone’s work, but I think everyone needed to escape through the power of media at some point this year.
Members of the Backblaze team, connecting remotely.
And if you had told me on March 7th—the day after we made the decision to shift Backblaze to mostly 100% work from home status until the COVID-19 situation resolved—that the majority of our team would work for 10 more months (and counting) from our kitchens and attics and garages…and that we’d still launch the Backblaze S3 Compatible APIs, clear an exabyte of data under management, enable Cloud to Cloud Migration, and announce so many other solutions and partnerships, I’m not sure which part would have been harder to believe. But during a year when cloud storage and computer backup became increasingly important for businesses and individuals, I’m truly proud of the way our team stepped up to support and serve our customers.
These are just a sampling of the hopeful stories from our year. There’s no question that there are still challenges in our future, but tallying what we’ve been able to achieve while our Wi-Fi cut in and out, our pets and children rampaged through the house, while we swapped hard drives while masked and six feet distant from our coworkers, there’s little question in my mind that we can meet them. Until then, thanks for your good work, your business, and sticking with us, together, while apart.
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