Today’s Question: Do you think that cloud storage, such as Backblaze, is advisable for the off-site portion of a 3-2-1 strategy or would you recommend using another physical location? Backblaze seems a good choice with their flat fee pricing for unlimited storage, but maybe I’m missing something.
Tim’s Quick Answer: I treat online backup solutions such as Backblaze (https://timgrey.me/cloudbackup) as a “bonus” supplement to a backup workflow, not as a replacement for an offsite backup that you control.
More Detail: During my presentations on “Backing Up Your Photos” as part of a recent GreyLearning Ultimate Event, I discussed the “3-2-1” strategy for backing up your data. This involves having copies of your data on three separate storage devices (one primary and two backup copies), with two of those devices stored locally, and one of those devices stored at a separate physical location.
On online backup solution certainly meets the criteria of being an offsite backup of your data. However, you aren’t in direct control over that copy of your data. With an online backup solution, you generally won’t have any idea where the servers are that contain your data. While in general I’m confident that these services do a good job of keeping your data safe, I prefer to be a little more paranoid about my data when it comes to my backup strategy.
Because of these issues, I prefer to use services like Backblaze (https://timgrey.me/cloudbackup) as a supplement to my backup workflow. For what I consider to be a modest price, Backblaze provides me with an additional offsite backup in addition to my own workflow. For each primary hard drive I have two backup drives (and a third backup drive for my most important data) that I alternate between. I store those backup drives separately, but I still like the additional peace of mind of my Backblaze online backup.
If you missed my GreyLearning Ultimate Event on Backing Up Your Photos, the recordings of all sessions are available. These are included at no additional cost with the GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle, but you can also purchase the recordings from the event here:
https://www.greylearning.com/courses/greylearning-ultimate-event-backing-up-your-photos-may-2023