What is Backblaze used for?

What Backblaze is used for, in practice

Most people searching for Backblaze mean the first product, and it solves one specific problem: the files that exist only on your computer. A sync drive protects the folder you put into it; Backblaze inverts the model and protects everything by default, deciding only what to exclude. Typical uses:

• Disaster insurance for a laptop or desktop — theft, spills, drive failure, ransomware✕Ransomware is malware that encrypts your files and demands a ransom to release them. An up-to-date backup is the best protection against it.More in the glossary →.
• Backing up external USB drives that hold photo archives or media libraries.
• Recovering older versions of a file after an unwanted change or deletion.
• Getting huge restores by courier — Backblaze can ship your data on a physical drive instead of a week-long download.

What it is not used for: syncing files between devices, sharing folders with other people, or freeing space on your phone. Those are sync-drive jobs — if that is what you need, start with which cloud storage fits personal useGuideWhich is the best cloud storage for personal use?Which cloud storage is best for personal use? How to match free space, privacy and backup needs — and which providers honestly fit which profile.Read guide → instead.

4.4/5

Backblaze

• ✓ Truly unlimited backup for one computer
• ✓ Dead-simple, set-and-forget setup

Prices can change — always check them on the provider’s official website before you buy.

fromUS$99/yr (unlimited, 1 PC)Price checked: Jul 2026

View deal → About the brand

How Backblaze Computer Backup works

You install one app, and it runs in the background from then on. There is no picking folders and no storage meter to watch: the service backs up all user data by default and applies its exclusion list to the rest✕A REST API is the most common style for building web APIs: it uses web addresses (URLs) and standard HTTP methods to request and send data, usually in JSON format.More in the glossary →. Pricing is a flat fee per computer — the card above shows the current rate for your market — which makes the economics unusually simple: one machine, everything on it, one price.

Deleted and changed files stay recoverable inside a version-history window — 30 days as standard, extendable to a year at no extra storage cost, or indefinitely for a fee. That window is the difference between “I noticed the corrupted file this week” and “I noticed three months too late.”

What Backblaze does not back up

The honest limits, straight from Backblaze’s own documentation:

• Operating system and applications — it protects your data, not Windows or your installed programs; after a disaster you reinstall those, then restore files.
• Network drives and NAS devices — only drives physically attached to the computer count. NAS users are pointed to B2 instead.
• Transient clutter — caches, temporary files, disk images and similar are excluded by default (the exclusion list is editable).
• Disconnected externals — an external drive must be plugged in regularly to keep its backup alive.

What is Backblaze B2, then?

B2 is the other half of the company: raw cloud object storage, billed per gigabyte actually stored, with an S3-compatible API✕An API is a set of rules that lets two programs talk to each other. It works like a go-between that carries requests from one application to another and returns the response.More in the glossary →. You meet it as a developer storing app assets, as a photographer archiving terabytes, or as a NAS owner pointing a Synology or QNAP backup job at it. It is infrastructure rather than a consumer app — there is no “install and forget” client, which is exactly why the two products coexist.

Can Backblaze be trusted?

Its track record is unusually public. The company has run since 2007, has been publicly traded on the Nasdaq since 2021, and publishes its famous Drive Stats reports on the failure rates of the very disks that store customer data — a level of operational transparency few storage companies match.

The honest caveat is the encryption✕Encryption turns readable data into unreadable code using a key. Only someone with the right key can read it again — the basis of secure communication and storage.More in the glossary → model: data is encrypted in transit and at rest, but Backblaze manages the keys by default, so it is not a zero-knowledge✕Zero-knowledge means a provider has no access to your data or keys — only you can decrypt them. Even the provider "knows nothing."More in the glossary → service. A private encryption key can be set for stronger protection, with a real trade-off — lose it and Backblaze cannot help you, and restores still pass through its servers. If structural provider-blindness is your requirement, an end-to-end sync drive covers that job.

Frequently asked questions

Is Backblaze backup really unlimited?

For what it covers, yes — there is no data cap, no file-size limit and no throttling tied to how much you store on the backed-up computer. The scope is the limit: one computer per licence, attached drives included, network storage excluded.

Which is better, Backblaze or IDrive?

Different shapes. Backblaze: one computer, unlimited data, zero configuration. IDrive: a fixed storage pool shared by unlimited devices — PCs, phones, even NAS — plus folder sync. A single data-heavy computer favours Backblaze; a household of many moderate devices favours IDrive.

Who owns Backblaze?

No parent company — Backblaze, Inc. is an independent, publicly listed company (Nasdaq: BLZE), founded in 2007 and headquartered in San Mateo, California. Ownership sits with public shareholders rather than a single owner.

How much does Backblaze cost?

Computer Backup is a flat per-computer subscription — the product card above shows the current price for your market, and the official pricing page lists the billing terms. B2 is metered: you pay for the gigabytes you actually store each month.

The bottom line

Backblaze is used to make one computer disaster-proof with the least possible effort — and, through B2, to give developers cheap raw storage. It deliberately does not compete with sync drives. Where it sits among the best cloud storage services overall, encryption models included, is ranked here.