Backblaze for Photographers

Backblaze is one of a few photo backup systems that I use. When I first started getting into photography, I had a hard drive with some of my first digital photos and negative scans on it. I lost the power cable to the hard drive, and then the hard drive eventually went missing after moving a few times. At the time, I had no cloud backups or copies of these photos. The photos are gone. Forever 😿.

Backing up photos with Backblaze is a solid option if you don’t want to lose any of your photos or digital files. Backblaze makes it easy because they have a simple app for your computer and an easy-to-use-web interface. If you encounter a drive failure, Backblaze can even send you a replacement hard drive with all of your photos and digital files.

How much does Backblaze cost?

Backblaze is currently $7/mo and $70/year. There is a two year plan that costs $130.

I like Backblaze because the desktop app (I use the Mac app) is simple to use. It runs in the background and backs up your photos quickly. In the past, I recovered a 200GB hard drive from Backblase and the process was very seamless!

There are no limits on how much you can back up, either. You’re able to download a ZIP file of your data or have your data sent to a location of your choice. Your data is safe because everything is encrypted. I’ve been using Backblaze for almost three years, and it’s been a seamless and passive way to back up my photos.

Backblaze vs Carbonite vs Crashplan

Backblaze has an excellent guide describing the differences between Backblaze vs. Crashplan. Some of the major takeaways for my uses are the various restoring options and being able to back up multiple external hard drives.

Backblaze has a similar guide for choosing the difference between Backblaze vs. Carbonite. The big difference falls in price. The Carbonite Basic plan has a lot of features that are useful, but are only included in their more expensive Carbonite Prime plan. The most significant advantages that I see are backing up multiple hard drives and some various recovery options.

Why is Backblaze good for photographers?

Backblaze has less customization over which data you want to back up than its competitors do. I think this is an advantage for Backblaze because the external drives that I want to backup only contain photo and video files. There are no selective sync options that I need to enable with my backup drives.

There’s an interface for browsing and restoring your files. With my backup system, I have a few hard drives and partitions that split up my workflow. I don’t always have my external hard drives with me, and that could cause a problem if I needed to access a file. With Backblaze, it’s almost like you did have all of your external hard drives, because you can access whatever you need. You can even search for a specific file name and get a breakdown of where those files exist. I don’t recommend that you treat this as a way to normally access files. But, in a pinch, you can find the files that you’re looking for if need be.

There’s no limit to the size of a file or the total backup size. If you have 5000 TB worth of photos, you’re technically able to back them up (although I bet they might contact you and try to figure out why you have so many photos).

Why is Backblaze a good backup service?

There’s more to Backblaze than the typical features, the low price and the its quality app. Under the same account, you’re able to enable B2 Cloud Storage. With B2, you can back up a RAID system and other large amounts of data. B2 is considered cold storage, and you pay to access and store. Because I travel so often, it doesn’t make sense to own a NAS drive, like Synology or something else. When I’m ready to have a stable office, a NAS is on the top of my list. To back up that NAS, B2 is my go-to option.

With Backblaze, you can share files with anyone. This is good if you have large files that you don’t want to store on Dropbox. You’re easily able to create a share link and have someone download your file. This sharing capability is only a feature on B2.

One feature that isn’t mentioned too often is the ability to locate your computer. If your laptop is stolen or you somehow forget where you left it, you can sign into your Backblaze account and locate your laptop. Computer theft is tricky, because computers often get stripped and sold for the parts that make them up. Using this feature of Backblaze is one additional measure that you can take to try and locate a stolen machine.

How can you get started with Backblaze?

If you’re interested in starting a trial with Backblaze to start backing up all of your photos, check out their website. When you sign up, you’ll get three months for free! Without Backblaze, I wouldn’t feel ensured that my photos are safe and secure. This is one of the best options that you can choose to back up your photos.

Why photo backups with Backblaze is important?

I use external hard drives for all of my photo backups. External hard drives are the easiest to travel with, and they’re inexpensive. You can find 5TB hard drives for about $150. You can find a 500GB solid state hard drive for about $100. Without backing up your photos, there’s very little you can do if your main working hard drive fails.

If your working hard drive does fail, you can pay a lot of money to try and have the data recovered. If you have any backup system, you don’t have to worry about any data loss if you have a hard drive failure.

I think of digital photos the same way that I think of physical photos. I have a lot of physical photos from my childhood that don’t exist anymore. I want to make sure that my digital photos live on forever so that I can share them many years in the future.