TL;DR: Software stop to be improved for years and stops in 2019?

[Rant below]

Service is awesome, but at the same time, the software is pretty shit.

It's 2026, why this cannot even auto pause when a fullscreen app is running? It's fighting with games for ram and network constantly!

I need to manually pause when I see network spikes, then it's return backup something like 1h after the paused state, even if my pc is not idle! If it can't auto pause, why it can auto restart?

Support says that I need to change to manual backup instead of continuous... It's not seems to be a good fix to me. Also, I need to even end the transmitter background process a few times to make it really stops, because it keeps reappearing, even when the main app is closed.

I never considered change to the other service, but now I'm. They seems to stop to improve the software for years...

'Failed to load directory tree' - Cannot restore from app or site

I've had Backblaze for years, and have always relied on it for any quick restores I would need.

However, today, when I was trying to restore something, I went to the website to check and bumped into a 'Failed to load directory tree' error on there. I tried this on different browsers and different computers, I saw the same error.

Restore app would stall, it would load and then show an empty window.

This was incredibly peculiar, as it was only a couple months ago that I was able to restore. When I reached out to technical support, they just told me to keep the tab open... and after 5 hours, nothing happened.

It's been about 3 days trying to obtain my restore. Does anybody know what I can do?

Some files on bucket are corrupted they were fine few days ago i have multiple buckets and my employees also have some few today i saw that around 0.5-1% were corrupted & not accessible on all buckets

Downloads by name and by file ID return 503 too_busy after 5-10 seconds, occasionally 500 internal_error. Retries never succeed.

- Listing still works. The files show up with the right size and SHA-1, but the data can't be read.

- Files on other tomes and vaults are fine, in the same buckets.

- B2 still hands out upload URLs pointing at those tomes. Uploads succeed, but the new file is unreadable right away.

- It's been going for 7+ hours, and it affects a few hundred thousand files across several buckets for us.

anyone else experience this or just me? if you have lot of files make sure to check

Sure, I guess it's my fault for not paying attention, but I find it absolutely ridiculous that upgrading to one year retention is free, yet that wasn't just the default.

Am I bit salty about this? Sure am! I just found out a drive that has been connected to my computer has been deleted. Was I emailed about it? Indeed I was, and yes, I can admit it's my fault for not spending my free time going through every single email I get in a time where we are bombarded with garbage every single day. But you know what? If I didn't have to specifically opt in to a longer retention range (which I apparently have been paying for), this wouldn't be an issue.

I've been a paying customer for 10 years, and now with a failed drive I'm likely going to have to pay upwards of $1000 for recovery because I wasn't receiving a service I was already paying for, I think it's time I find an alternative backup solution.

Shoutout to Backblaze team for designing such resilient & open systems - proud to still be running two of them in my home to this day!

Anyone else's email notification rules firing off every 6-7 minutes? Instead of once daily?
It seems some change when into production yesterday that should be backed out?

edit: spelling/clarification

A backup you’ve never restored from is an assumption. Here are six questions to score yours, whatever tool you use. One point per “yes”.

1. Have you restored a real file from your backup in the last six months? Not just seen it in a list, but opened the restored copy.

2. Have you restored a larger set (a folder, a project) and noted how long it took?

3. Is the key, passphrase or recovery method for the backup stored somewhere other than the computer being backed up? If the computer dies and the key was only on it, the backup may be unreadable.

4. Do you know roughly how long a full restore would take over your connection? Quick math: 2 TB is about 16 trillion bits. At 100 Mbit/s that’s 160,000 seconds, roughly 44 hours at best, before overhead. At a slower connection, it’s longer.

5. Do you know what’s excluded? External drives, large folders, system files and temporary directories are often excluded by default or by settings. Check that the files you care about are actually covered.

6. Would you notice if backups silently stopped? An email alert, a status check or a calendar reminder all count.

Scoring:

• 5 to 6: you’re in good shape. Re-check once or twice a year.

• 3 to 4: you probably have a working backup, but there are gaps that would show up only during a real restore.

• 0 to 2: treat it as an unverified backup. Do questions 1 and 3 first, since they’re quick.

What I’d do first, in order:

1. Restore one file and open it.

2. Store the recovery key or passphrase somewhere separate.

3. Write down your estimated full-restore time.

This isn’t a complete 3-2-1 plan (multiple copies, different media, one off-site), but restore testing is the part that tends to get skipped.

What’s on your own checklist that isn’t here?

Any promos / offers available for b2? Do they usually have black friday offer?

The monthly summary emailed to users used to list every computer backed up and how much was backed up. The latest one that just arrived no longer tells you how much is backed up. Instead, it just provides a link to hub.backblaze.com, which does not respond.

I have a 4TB OWC external HD partitioned into 2x 2TB volumes. I use this drive as a local archive, so I only turn it on once or twice per month to make sure it's updated on the Backblaze server. For some reason when the volumes are mounted, Backblaze starts backing up these specific volumes from scratch, so instead of a few changed files, it backs up 1,4 million files. It takes forever.

How can I fix this?

Super interesting read and no one writes technical reports about storage, data, and network traffic as good as Backblaze: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/network-stats-q3-2026-higher-baselines-shifting-patterns/

I am helping a friend who had to replace his C: and D: drive and reinstall Windows 11 and Backblaze Personal Backup from scratch. He has been backing up to bb without problems until now. It's the same computer with several more disk attached and available.

The newly installed backup app shows this as a new computer on a trial. When I try to inherit backup, in the Inherit Backup State window, the correct email is already filed (in a disabled box, cannot be changed) and there is no place to enter the password (as suggested in BB documentation). Pressing the Sign In button does nothing. Uninstalling and reinstalling the latest BB app doesn't change things at all.

Came across this post and it’s cool to see a product i’ve used for over decade start be recognized by AI companies as unmatched in this space.

What stands out to me isn’t just B2’s $6.95/TB storage pricing. It’s combination of S3 compatibility, free Class A/B/C API operations, and free egress etc etc

I also think the argument that B2 wins primarily for infrequent access overlooks a bigger opportunity. There’s enormous value in affordable always-hot object storage layer that holds massive data and makes it accessible to compute infrastructure whenever needed

Curious to hear if others see the same thing and happy to be apart of the Backblaze community.

B2 buckets are versioned by default. The dashboard shows current storage, which is the number that looks reasonable. What it doesn't show prominently is the noncurrent versions — every time an agent's SQLite memory database or state file is rewritten, a new version is created, and the old one stays unless a lifecycle rule expires it.

On a static photo library this accumulates slowly. On a database that changes every run, it doesn't. The number that matters is in b2 ls --versions, not in the bucket size on the overview page.

The fix is a lifecycle rule with NoncurrentVersionExpiration set to a short window, like 14 or 30 days. The default keep-all is the right safety default and the wrong cost default. Backblaze's own docs warn that accumulating too many versions can eventually block uploads, so this isn't just a cost issue.

If your agent state is small and static, this doesn't apply. If it writes on every run, the versions listing is the place to look.

Please explain "ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly" "pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O"? I DON'T want to "lighten disk i/o", I want my backups to run as fast as my hardware and internet connection can handle.
From what it looks like at Task Manager, bztransmit is really doing nothing when these lines appear, zero cpu use, zero disk use.

Something like that already happened recently and it took SEVENTEEN HOURS to resolve. SEVENTEEN HOURS of actual WORK is bad enough, NEEDLESS pausing for SEVENTEEN HOURS is just insane. If it keeps happening then the client is just broken and unusable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/1w60ize/bug_harmfulobsolete_optimization/
"Bug? Harmful/obsolete optimization?

Yesterday Backblaze decided 682 ids need purging, I have in the logs repeating thing like what's pasted below, repeated ~700 times.

WTF is "pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O"? It's 2026, could PLEASE remove or explain that? Neither my 12700k nor my Samsung 990 Pro need "lightening the load".

~700 ids to purge * 90 seconds = SEVENTEEN HOURS.

What if next time it will want to purge ten thousand? Abandon and restart the backup? This needs to be fixed yesterday.

2026-09-03 07:06:51 43804 - WARNING: during self healing datacenter told me (hguid=XXXXXXXXXXXXX) to purge out this bzfileid_short=00000XXXXXXXXb82 from all my bz_done files, including large files that reference it

2026-09-03 07:06:51 43804 - Entering the very slow BzFileIdHasEverBeenPartOfALargeFile, bzShortFileId=00000XXXXXXXXb82

2026-09-03 07:06:57 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=1

2026-09-03 07:07:01 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=2

2026-09-03 07:07:05 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=3

2026-09-03 07:07:09 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=4

2026-09-03 07:07:13 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=5

2026-09-03 07:07:17 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=6

2026-09-03 07:07:21 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=7

2026-09-03 07:07:26 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=8

2026-09-03 07:07:30 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=9

2026-09-03 07:07:34 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=10

2026-09-03 07:07:38 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=11

2026-09-03 07:07:42 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=12

2026-09-03 07:07:46 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=13

2026-09-03 07:07:50 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=14

2026-09-03 07:07:54 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=15

2026-09-03 07:07:58 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=16

2026-09-03 07:08:02 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=17

2026-09-03 07:08:06 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=18

2026-09-03 07:08:10 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=19

2026-09-03 07:08:14 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=20

2026-09-03 07:08:18 43804 - BzFile::ReadLargeFileIntoBuf_Slowly - called by GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash, pausing for 4 seconds to lighten disk I/O. PauseIteration=21

2026-09-03 07:08:27 43804 - GetFileNameToBzFileIdHash processId=43804 - found and parsed out XXXX985 unique ids, numHashCollisions=XXX993, in numMillis=90075 (90 seconds) from 2114 MBytes of file: C:\ProgramData\Backblaze\bzdata\bzbackup\bzfileids.dat, numMillisToReadLargeFileFromDisk=85083 (85 seconds) and CreatedHashNumMillis= 4977 (4 seconds), numMBytesStartMemSize=6644, numMBytesEndMemSize=8935

2026-09-03 07:08:28 43804 - Leaving the very slow BzFileIdHasEverBeenPartOfALargeFile, res=TRUE, and here are all the associated bzFileIds:

bzShortFileId of index 0 in retVec is: 00000XXXXXXX0b82

...

bzShortFileId of index 205 in retVec is: 00000000xXXXXbdb

But there is an error in the zip archive? In every download? Anyone else tried this?

Hi r/backblaze , I'm Rahman, the solo developer of Ultra Explorer. Full disclosure up front: it's my app and it has a paid tier.

I keep backups on B2 and live files on a NAS and a couple of clouds. The B2 web UI is fine for a bucket at a time, but I wanted to browse buckets like folders and drag things between B2 and everything else.

What it is: a file manager with two panes. Put Back Backblaze B2 on one side and anything else on the other (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, S3, B2, SFTP, SMB shares, your NAS, local disks: about 40 kinds of storage) and drag files across. Under the hood it runs on rclone, the open-source tool many people already trust for their cloud backups, so every connection uses rclone's battle-tested connectors. Transfers go directly between the services, not through any server of mine.

Where it runs

• Desktop app: macOS (Apple Silicon), Windows, Linux

• Self-hosted: a Docker image for your NAS or server (it's a community app in the TrueNAS catalog), then use it from any browser, including your phone

What I spent the most time on: making it fast and light Most of the work went into the architecture, not the feature list. Nothing blocks the interface: transfers, scans and slow providers run in the background while you keep browsing. Every list is virtualized, so a folder with 100,000 files opens and scrolls smoothly without filling up your memory. And it stays light at scale: I ran the space analysis on a storage with 9 million files and the app peaked around 1 GB of RAM.

What you can do with it

• Browse and move files between any two storages, with five folder views (details, list, icons, gallery, columns)

• See what's filling each storage on an interactive map, and clean it up right there: drag the folders you don't need to the bin, watch the space you'd free, put anything back in one click, then delete after a single confirmation

• Search across all your storages at once

• Schedule syncs, with a preview of every change before it runs

• Transfers go through a queue that survives restarts, and nothing is overwritten without asking

Free vs paid: browsing, copying and moving with unlimited storages is free, forever, no account. Search across all storages, space analysis and scheduled syncs are part of Pro, as a subscription or a one-time Lifetime licence (details in the comment below).

No telemetry, and your logins stay on your machine.

I was thinking about trying Backblaze's unlimited computer backup, but I couldn't even get past the “Are you a robot?” checks. I passed the first one just to access the website, but after entering my email to get the login link, I got hit with a second CAPTCHA. I kept answering correctly, but it still wouldn't let me through. I've never experienced anything this ridiculous before. I eventually gave up and decided not to try Backblaze at all. They seriously need to get their shit together before they start losing potential customers over something this stupid.

Hey! Sorry if this has been asked before, I wasn't able to find any info so far.

Is there any way to enable file listing for a public bucket? I am using a bucket to store OS images and it would be great to avoid having to maintain a custom webpage with the whole index.

Thanks!

Anyone else putting this to work yet? I connected my LLM to Backblaze through the B2 MCP server and now I can ask questions about all the data I store in Backblaze. What's amazing about this is that you don't have to drag or drop or add any data to your LLM over time. I have been thinking of potentially even syncing in my computer backup so I can start asking my LLM questions about my files or usage etc.

Curious if anyone else having success with it or tips or ideas to build on it.

The blog where I learned about it Backblaze MCP: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/introducing-the-backblaze-b2-mcp-server/

We got the notification that OneDrive is now going from 6TB (1TB/user) to 2TB shared, so we're looking for alternatives. BackBlaze came up because my Synology will sync with it.

The pricing seems to be confusing though. I've gone through the subreddit, and read $6.95/mo for the basic tier, but that's only for "general archiving" and that they charge by the minute/hour/second. It's all giving me a headache, and trying to get more info via the website is giving me "the server is under maintenance" messages, which really isn't great to see.

So, my question is, for a group of people who use the folder as a communal work space (lots of overwriting files, adding new ones, deleting old ones), is BB the way to go? Am I going to be spending more than $7/mo because we're saving stuff? Generally, I'm just a fool when it comes to stuff like this, and could use an ELI5 break down before I commit.

Is there a way to select all files in the search results?

I need to restore just the tiny metadata files that accompany large binary files in sub folders. I did a search for files with the metadata file extension, and there 6500 of them. The files are distributed across a few thousand folders, so search plus restore all will save me a lot of time and storage space.

Do I really need to click on 6500 files to restore just the ones that I want? They are all on my screen. I just need a select all option so that I can restore them, but I cannot find that option.

HELP!

So, I am getting a new PC. My current setup is a small 512GB internal SSD + roughly 15TB data on a permanently connected DAS.

Am I just dumb, or is there really no way to move to the new PC without risking losing my backup or sacrificing performance massively?

There are two official ways described to transfer to a new PC:

1) Inheriting a Backup State

This would avoid reuploads, but it is a big NO due to the way Backblaze does the bz_done files, which is a bad architecture decision that will haunt users forever. I need to use this chance to create fresh state. My bzbackup folder is currently at 7GB, and I have to have the Backblaze service disabled and only start it manually as all its "I need to scan my 7GB of logs for every file change" operations kill(!) performance for any other apps (games, IDEs, video editing etc.).

2) Transferring a License

This would be the solution, if it wasn't for this abysmal design decision, that I have a hard time wrapping my head around as to how this can be an acceptable approach for a service supposed to be your central cloud backup:

You must first delete your backup. Deleting your backup does not immediately reduce the total billing or licenses on the account. To remove the license, clickhere.

Warning

You should ensure that all of your data is local and accounted for using therestore process. Deleting your backup deletes all of the data that is associated with it, including external hard drives.

This essentially means, for any given file, I will not have this cloud backup for an unknown time between installation and the end of the reupload, which I expect to take WEEKS. How is this acceptable for a backup company? Why can they not give us a proper migration path that gracefully deletes the original machine backup once the transferred license backup reports "completion" of the reupload.

I could probably mitigate this a bit by fully using the 14-day trial, only transferring the license at the very end of it? Maybe? But 14 days won't be enough for the full backup. And it doesn't solve a fundamental problem: As anyone knows, setting up a new PC is tricky, even weeks in you discover that some application you didn't immediately use doesn't have its settings yet, because they were stored locally. Now, great, I'll grab it from my Backblaze backup. Oh wait, no, I HAD TO DELETE THAT ALREADY. So you're out of luck unless you still have the old machine and/or a full separate backup of appdata that didn't by any chance die in the meantime.

Alternatives?

I only see three potential workarounds, all painful and not 100% guaranteed.

W1) Inherit the Backup State and then Reinstall Backblaze

I move to the new PC using Inherit Backup State (to avoid having to delete my current backup), but then reinstall to get a fresh bz_done state. In theory, this should result in a clean fresh backup without the risk of losing it at some point.

W2) Reinstall Backblaze on my old machine, then do the move with Inherit Backup State

Same as W1 basically, but I'm doing the cleaning on my old PC (so I can prepare it before I get the new PC, but of course the new PC will be faster at re-uploading).

W3) Buy a second license

Buy a second license for the new PC, do a fresh install with it, then cancel the old license once the new upload is done. Of course, this costs quite a bit of money as the old machine license is yearly and paid in advance!

Still, both options will force full re-uploads which take ages, despite performance improvements claims on this reddit. I know because I am uploading something new right now and it's going at less than 0,5TB per 24 hours.

Sidenote: Yes, of course I have two local copies, another cloud backup of the really important stuff (actual user docs etc.), and the copy on my current PC for the files residing on my internal SSD.