Data Recovery Digest

To have a truly secure backup plan, it’s all about redundancy. This means that if one your backups fail, you’ve got others that you can rely on. For example, backing up data from one internal drive to another isn’t suitable. It’ll protect you against logical failure, but it certainly won’t help if the system catches on fire and destroys both drives. Worst case scenario, sure, but with data backup you have to be prepared for the worst.

That’s why online cloud backup is so popular. You can store your data offsite in a secure location and have it automatically backed up. Normally, backing up offsite would come with huge costs for the physical location and the upkeep. But because these services are provided to consumers and businesses en masse, you’re able to use them for relatively reasonable prices.

One thing to bear in mind with online backup is the effect it’ll have on your bandwidth, especially if you’re subject to data limitations. While it’s fine to backup incrementally, adjusting as each file changes, if you end having to restore gigabytes or terabytes of data then it’s going to drain your data pretty quickly. Not only that, but it could take an extremely long time to complete restoration too.

Introducing Backblaze’s Hard Drive Recycling Program, which aims to combat these problems. Backblaze is a popular cloud storage backup utility, which will backup an unlimited amount of your data for $5 a month.

For a while now, Backblaze have offered the ability for their users to receive a flash drive or hard drive containing all their data shipped to their house. However, it wasn’t without cost. Sending out a 128GB flash drive would cost $99, while an external drive up to 4TB would cost $189. That’s all changing.

Now, while you’ll still need to give Backblaze the money initially in order to receive the hard drive, the company will fully refund you the cost of the drive providing you send it back to them. The only expenditure on your part will be the shipping.

“As customers have more data and ISPs at times have caps, it becomes more important for customers to be able to get their data back via mail,” Backblaze CEO Gleb Budman told PCWorld.

Providing that you return the hard drive within 30 days of receiving it, Backblaze will refund you the money when they receive it. That gives you plenty of time to transfer the data off the backup drive and onto your system.

However, you might be wondering about security. If these drives are being recycled, how can they be sure that your data won’t end up with someone else?

“Backblaze uses standalone USB erase devices which are set to the DoD 5220.22-M 3-pass wipe standard,” says Budman. “This will securely remove any data on the drive.”

Providing you subscribe to Backblaze’s personal backup service, the Hard Drive Recycling Program will be available to you.

This is great news for Backblaze customers, as CrashPlan phased out the option for home users, and Carbonite only offer the service for those on their Prime plans.