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Backblaze big data restore. Get this: it involves disk drives

Restore Return Refund program means no-charge restore

Cloud backup provider Backblaze has a nifty new take on large data restores, involving disk drives.

Customers can order a flash drive or disk drive restore, meaning their data’s sent to them on a flash drive or external disk drive. This was a useful alternative where a web restore of data may take a while or be expensive if your ISP has bandwidth caps.

Backblaze now says that, ”If you order a flash drive or hard drive restore and then return the drive to us within 30 days we will refund you the entire price of the restore”

Of course, “You can always opt to keep the drive, in which case your payment will cover the purchase of the drive.”

The fees are $189 for a USB disk drive up to 4TB in size or $99 for a USB flash drive up to 128GB in size. With the Restore Return Refund program. Now customers can pay for return shipping and, if the drive us returned within 30 days, get their restore-by-mail fee back.

Backblaze CEO Gleb Budman said: "In addition to getting your data back via web download and iOS/Android apps, we've always offered "Restore by Mail" where we send you a drive with your data for a fee. We're introducing a program where you return that drive and we refund 100 per cent of the fee."

He added: "Think this should be pretty big since it allows people to restore large amounts of data quickly and easily, without worrying about ISP bandwidth caps/fees."

Before sending the drive back, delete the data and reformat it. It’s recommended that you use a delivery service with an item-tracking number facility in case the drive gets lost or delayed.

We wonder if other cloud backup service providers will follow suit. Our understanding is that Crashplan has stopped offering a "Restore-to-Door" feature for CrashPlan for Home users.

Carbonite has a mailed drive restore feature available for Windows, Personal Prime at $149.99/year for users in the US. BackBlaze's offer is available worldwide.

More info on the 3R program here. ®

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