I've always had a hard time justifying spending money, and that's especially true of software. For the longest time, the only piece of software I remember purchasing was an app called Link2SD, an Android app that let me move some app files from internal storage to an SD card, back when I had an Android phone with a whopping 200-ish megabytes of storage (it was a Samsung Galaxy Ace, if you're curious). Even at work, it took a long time for me to be convinced to pay for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, and when I was subscribed to Microsoft 365, it was only for a year and thanks to a major discount I had found.

But the primary reason I had Microsoft 365 was cloud storage, and even then, I never used more than 100GB of it. It seemed unnecessary, and I cancelled it in favor of using a NAS to store my files. Of course, though, I still needed a backup, and while I felt like I was overpaying for Microsoft 365, I finally found a backup solution that feels like it's worth the money: Backblaze. Let me tell you about it.

Easy backups for my NAS

And I really need that

If you haven't read my previous NAS antics, here's the thing: my NAS isn't really what you'd expect of one. This is a mini PC running Proxmox with TrueNAS inside a VM, and the mini PC has a single HDD slot in addition to the drive that's used to boot Proxmox. That means I have no redundancy, and thus no protection against a potentially failing drive.

I needed a way to back up the more important data I'm storing on the NAS, and Backblaze is a perfect solution. TrueNAS Scale, the version I'm using, has a built-in data protection feature that is designed to back up data to an alternative location, and Backblaze is one of the available targets for backups. All I needed to do was create a free Backblaze account (for the initial tests) and a Backblaze B2 bucket, then enter the appropriate information. I can choose which datasets in TrueNAS I want to include, and in my case, that's Immich and Nextcloud, where I have all my personal documents and memories from over the years.

It's fairly easy to set up, though there are a couple of things to be wary of. In my case, I had to set the backup method to "sync", so it forces the content in Backblaze to match what's currently in TrueNAS, rather than keep files I delete. Likewise, I needed to change the bucket settings in Backblaze settings to avoid keeping old versions of files when new ones are uploaded. Otherwise, though, the entire setup process is easy, and once it's set up, I can just let it run on a set schedule whenever I'm not using the NAS. I have it running every day at 7AM, so it always saves my latest data for the day.

I pay for what I need

No unnecessary spending

When I was using OneDrive to store my files, I was paying for 1TB of cloud storage, but I rarely ever used that much. When it comes to backups, I tend to be fairly frugal. I don't like keeping things I don't actually need, so I never used more than 100GB out of that maximum limit. If I was going to be paying $7 per month for it, it just seemed unnecessary (and that's before Microsoft increased the price by adding Copilot to the subscription).

With Backblaze, not only is the price per terabyte slightly lower (at $6/month), but it's more of a pay-as-you-go solution, with the first 10GB being free. With my wife's and my own files combined, our backed up files take up around 160GB on Backblaze, so I don't have to pay the whole $6. In fact, I've never paid more than $2 in a single month yet.

Backblaze also charges for certain "transactions", which are uses of specific APIs, and that can take the price up a bit, but even when I uploaded all my files and forgot to enable the "fast list" feature in TrueNAS (which considerably increased my API usage), I didn't break that $2 barrier. It's a much cheaper solution than using something like OneDrive or Google Drive, especially when there are multiple people involved with separate accounts. It's a much cheaper solution and I never feel like I'm wasting money.

It's not a cloud storage service, though

Not in the typical sense

Technically speaking, of course Backblaze is a cloud storage service. It stores files in the cloud, you can't get around that. But when you think of one of these services, like Google Drive or OneDrive, they also come with dedicated UIs and apps for browsing the files in your cloud storage. The files are designed to be accessed directly by the user.

With Backblaze, you can browse the files in your buckets, yes, but the UI isn't really designed for you to do this easily and frequently. There are no things like thumbnails or built-in file viewers. You can browse files and download them (up to 5GB) on the web, and that's about it. It's not meant to be intuitive.

However, it's perfect as a backup solution, especially for a NAS. It copies the entire structure of the datasets I selected, so if my NAS dies, I can set it up with a fresh HDD, download the datasets again, install the respective apps, and point those apps to the existing datasets. Everything will be right as day, as if the NAS never stopped working. That's what I want out of a solution like this; the user-friendly UI is part of the NAS itself, and I just need to have a backup of the data so I can restore it if needed.

Backblaze is integral to my self-hosting journey

If it weren't for Backblaze, I don't think I would have become as invested in self-hosting as I am now. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, but if I had to buy a whole dedicated NAS and a bunch of HDDs to get started, it would have been a much higher barrier to clear, and I probably wouldn't have done it. Being able to set up a backup on the cheap like this made things a no-brainer, and I'm so happy I did it. If you're looking to get started with a project like this, I certainly recommend keeping Backblaze in the back of your mind for when you need a backup solution.