Backblaze Review 2026: The Best Backup Deal That Isn't Cloud Storage

Backblaze is not cloud storage. That's not a criticism — it's the most important thing to understand before you buy it. Backblaze Personal Backup is a computer backup service. You install the client, it uploads everything on your hard drive, and it sits there quietly protecting you from drive failure, theft, and fire. There's no sync folder, no shared link, no way to access your files from another device without a restore request. If you want to drop a file in a folder and open it on your phone, look elsewhere.

If you want to protect your entire computer for less than $100 a year, there's nothing better.

We've run Backblaze Personal Backup on three Macs and one Windows machine over the past four years. Here's what we've actually seen.

What does Backblaze actually cost in 2026?

Personal Backup is $9/month or $99/year per computer. That's it. No storage cap, no file type restrictions (with one exception: by default it skips system files, applications, and a handful of common bloat folders, but you can override all of that). A 4TB hard drive full of photos, video, and documents: $99/year. A 10TB NAS full of raw files: same $99/year, same computer, one license.

The comparison that matters: iDrive's 5TB plan for personal use is $69.95 in year one but jumps to $99.95 at renewal. Carbonite's Basic plan is $71.99/year but limits file size. Backblaze has no file size limit at all, backs up external drives connected to your computer, and costs less than three dollars per month more than those alternatives.

Extended Version History is the one meaningful upgrade. By default, Backblaze keeps versions and deleted files for 30 days. The add-on extends that to 1 year ($2/month), or unlimited retention ($4/month). If you've ever been hit by ransomware that sat dormant for 45 days before triggering, you understand why the extended retention exists.

B2 Cloud Storage is Backblaze's S3-compatible object storage for developers and power users. It's $6/TB/month stored and $0.01/GB for downloads (with the first 1GB daily free, and free egress to Cloudflare partners via the Bandwidth Alliance). Not relevant to most consumer users, but if you're running rclone, restic, or Veeam, B2 is legitimately one of the cheapest S3-compatible backends available — typically three to four times cheaper than AWS S3 at scale.

Get Backblaze Personal Backup — $99/Year

How fast is Backblaze in real-world testing?

Initial backup speed is the number that matters most, and it's honest: slow at first, fast once it establishes a baseline.

Backblaze throttles aggressively during the initial backup to avoid disrupting your internet connection. On a 400 Mbps line, initial upload speed typically runs 25-50 Mbps and feels sluggish. Over time, as the backup stabilizes and Backblaze has indexed your files, it backs off from full-library scans and switches to continuous incremental mode — monitoring for changes and uploading only new or modified files. In incremental mode, you won't notice it running.

For perspective: backing up 1TB from scratch on a 100 Mbps connection takes roughly 24-48 hours depending on throttling and file count. Backing up 4TB from scratch is a weekend project, not an afternoon. Backblaze is transparent about this and recommends starting a new backup job over a weekend when you won't need full bandwidth.

There's no seeding option for Personal Backup — you can't drive a hard drive to Backblaze to skip the initial upload. (That's what Fireball Rapid Ingest is for on B2, at $550 per appliance — a business service, not personal.) If you have more than 4-5TB to back up initially and slow internet, budget your timeline accordingly.

Downloads are faster than uploads. File restore via the web interface typically delivers a zip of requested files at speeds that match your connection. The physical restore experience is covered below.

The private encryption key — read this before you enable it

This is the section most Backblaze reviews gloss over, and the omission has caused real data loss.

By default, Backblaze encrypts your files at rest with AES-128 (not AES-256 — more on that in a moment) using a key they manage. Your files are private from third parties and transit is protected by TLS, but Backblaze can technically access your data, and they will respond to valid legal requests.

Backblaze offers a Personal Encryption Key option that turns the service zero-knowledge: you supply the key, Backblaze stores only encrypted blobs they can never decrypt, and you are solely responsible for keeping the key safe.

The catch is severe and non-obvious. If you enable a personal encryption key:

• You cannot restore via the Backblaze website. The web interface cannot decrypt your files without the key. All restores must go through the desktop app with your key entered.
• If you lose your key, your backup is permanently unrecoverable. Backblaze cannot help you. There is no recovery process. The data is encrypted and gone.
• B2 restores, Fireball restores, and physical drive restores all require your key to be usable.

The number of Reddit threads from users who enabled personal encryption keys, reinstalled their OS, couldn't find the key, and lost years of backups is not small. If you want zero-knowledge, this is how you get it — but write the key down on paper, put it in a fireproof safe, and treat it like the title to your house.

On AES-128 vs AES-256: Backblaze uses AES-128 at rest, not the AES-256 that most competitors advertise. The practical difference is theoretical — no known attack against 128-bit AES is remotely viable — but it's a fair criticism that Backblaze hasn't updated to the standard everyone else uses. Backblaze's public response has been that AES-128 is computationally secure for any foreseeable threat and costs less CPU than AES-256. They're right on the math. It still looks worse on a spec sheet.

Physical restore — the feature no one else offers

This is genuinely differentiated and worth understanding if you're backing up more than a terabyte.

If your computer dies and you need everything back, downloading 2TB over your home internet connection takes days. Backblaze's answer is physical restore by mail: they write your backup to a hard drive (up to 8TB) and ship it to you. You restore from the drive, then ship it back within 30 days and get a full refund on the drive cost under the Restore Return Refund program. Net cost: just the restore service fee ($189 for a 4TB drive, $199 for 8TB, current pricing).

In a disaster recovery scenario — house fire, catastrophic ransomware, laptop theft while traveling — this is the feature that can get you back to work in days instead of weeks. No other personal backup service at this price point offers anything equivalent.

Where does Backblaze actually break?

It's Mac and Windows only. There is no Linux client for Personal Backup. If you run Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution, Backblaze won't back up that machine. B2 has Linux API support (and rclone works beautifully), but the personal backup client doesn't exist on Linux.

Mobile devices are not backed up. Your iPhone photos, Android files, and tablet content are entirely outside Backblaze's scope. Backblaze backs up the computer the client is installed on, period. This is a common surprise for users who assume "unlimited backup" means all their devices.

Per-computer pricing adds up. Each computer requires its own subscription. Two MacBooks and a Windows desktop = three subscriptions = $297/year. For a household with multiple machines, that's not necessarily a bad deal — iDrive covers 5 machines on one plan for similar money — but it's worth knowing the cost is per device.

The 30-day deleted file window is easy to miss. If you delete a file and don't notice for 31 days, it's gone from your backup too (unless you're on the extended version history add-on). This is standard backup behavior, but a lot of users don't realize it until they go looking for something they deleted two months ago.

No sharing, no sync, no collaboration. Backblaze Personal Backup is not Dropbox. You cannot share a file link with a colleague, you cannot sync a folder to your phone, and you cannot access your files on the go without initiating a restore. If you need those things, use a different tool alongside Backblaze. The two are not in competition.

Backblaze vs. the competition

The real comparison is Backblaze vs. the other dedicated backup services: Carbonite and iDrive.

Carbonite Basic backs up one computer for $71.99/year but has a significant limitation: it backs up files, not video files larger than a certain size (unless you upgrade to their Plus or Prime tiers). For anyone with a substantial video library, that's a deal-breaker. Backblaze backs up everything with no file type or size restriction.

iDrive 5TB for personal covers multiple devices on one plan and has mobile backup. The trade-off: the 5TB cap is real, and if you're a heavy user, you'll hit it. iDrive also has a steeper renewal price increase than Backblaze. If you have more than 5TB of data or value simplicity over device coverage, Backblaze wins. If you need mobile backup or multi-device on one license, iDrive is worth looking at.

Pros and Cons

Who should actually use Backblaze?

• Mac and Windows users who want to protect their computer without thinking about it — it's the most cost-effective set-and-forget computer backup on the market
• Photographers and videographers with large local libraries who need a backup that won't cap their file sizes or types
• Developers and power users who want cheap, reliable S3-compatible object storage through B2 and are comfortable with an API
• Anyone who's had a hard drive die and learned the lesson — Backblaze is the answer to "I just need everything backed up"

Skip Backblaze if you need Linux backup, mobile device backup, multi-device coverage on a single plan, or anything resembling file sync and sharing.

FAQ

Is Backblaze actually unlimited backup?

Yes, with one clarification. Backblaze Personal Backup is unlimited storage for files on the computer where the client is installed, including external drives physically connected to that computer. "Unlimited" means no storage cap and no file size limit. It does not back up network-attached storage (NAS) that isn't mapped as a local drive, it does not back up mobile devices, and it skips certain system folders by default (though you can change the exclusion settings). For a single computer, the unlimited claim holds up.

What happens if Backblaze goes out of business?

Backblaze has been operating since 2007 and went public on Nasdaq in 2021. They've published their annual revenue, they're consistently growing, and they've explicitly addressed the "what if we go under" scenario in their documentation: they would give users 30+ days notice to download their data. No backup provider can guarantee they'll exist forever, which is why backups-of-backups (local + Backblaze) are the right approach for irreplaceable data.

Does Backblaze back up external drives?

Yes, if the external drive is connected to the computer at least once every 30 days. Backblaze tracks when a drive was last seen, and drives not connected for more than 30 days are removed from the backup. For external drives you use regularly, this isn't a problem. For archival drives you connect occasionally, pay attention to the 30-day window.

Can I use Backblaze as my only backup?

The 3-2-1 backup rule says no, and it's right. Backblaze is one layer of a backup strategy — the offsite copy. You should also have a local copy (external hard drive or NAS) so you can restore quickly without waiting for a download or drive shipment. Backblaze + a local drive is a real backup strategy. Backblaze alone is better than nothing but still a single point of failure.

Is Backblaze B2 good for Plex or media server backup?

Yes, B2 is one of the most popular backends for media server backup among the r/DataHoarder and r/homelab communities, used with rclone, restic, or Duplicati. The pricing is competitive at $6/TB/month stored and $0.01/GB download. Cloudflare's Bandwidth Alliance means zero egress fees if you proxy through Cloudflare R2 or use Cloudflare Workers in front of B2 — a popular cost optimization. It's not the cheapest object storage by raw GB (Wasabi and Cloudflare R2 are cheaper with no egress) but B2 has the longest track record in the independent storage community.