Post by circleplusarrow on May 22, 2018 16:05:45 GMT
I keep all of my data on an external hard drive, connected to my laptop because the laptop HD is small. Last Thursday, I couldn’t get the drive to read properly and by Friday night, it looked like the drive had completely failed. I thought I was OK, because I subscribe to a cloud backup service, Backblaze, and it had been backing up my data all along (that’s what it told me anyway – more about that later).
I logged into Backblaze’s website and tried to look for the files to restore but to my surprise, I couldn’t find ANY files from this hard drive. Panicking, I read the instructions on the website on how to make sure your external HD is backed up (just check a checkbox in a Settings dialog for the drive) which is what I did. I contacted customer service yesterday and started a long conversation with them about (1) whether they have the files from my external HD and (2) if not, what did I do wrong since I thought I did everything right. They eventually tell me that they couldn’t find my files and that the files from that HD were not backed up because the HD is NTFS format, which is not a native format to Mac.
How was I supposed to know that? I asked the CS guy that and he didn’t answer. There was NO error message or indication that the files weren’t being backed up, and there were NO details about certain drive formats not working in the instructions web page on how to make sure your external drives are backed up. I previously was using Crashplan (another cloud backup service) last year and the same configuration/hard drive was backed up on their service so I would never have guessed there would be a problem using another provider.
I also found a backup summary email from Backblaze in March which indicated all was backed up. It says:
macbook-air_2018_01_21
Backed Up/Selected: 1,341,922 MB / 1,342,152 MB
Last Backup: Today
Unless I’m reading this wrong, this reads to me like 1.3 TB was backed up, which says at some point my external HD contents were being backed up, since my laptop HD is only 128 GB.
A friend of mine thinks Backblaze somehow lost my data (maybe there was some kind of failure at the data center) and they are trying to CYA. Regardless, I am LIVID and I want to do something about it!!! There was NO reason for me to think my files weren't being backed up, given no error message and the email summary of files backed up above. I asked for a full refund and the CS rep told me he could only give me a prorated amount for the rest of the year (since I purchased a year subscription) which I told him was unacceptable since they didn’t even back up my entire system earlier in the year. Is there anything else I can do? Report this company somewhere? File a complaint? What would be effective, if anything?
I am currently in the process of trying to get my failed HD recovered at a data recovery center, but I am pretty sure this will be VERY expensive, and it’s not even certain they can recover the files. I am feeling really upset and quite devastated, since this drive had ALL of my photos, including the first year of my daughter’s life – completely irreplaceable.
I logged into Backblaze’s website and tried to look for the files to restore but to my surprise, I couldn’t find ANY files from this hard drive. Panicking, I read the instructions on the website on how to make sure your external HD is backed up (just check a checkbox in a Settings dialog for the drive) which is what I did. I contacted customer service yesterday and started a long conversation with them about (1) whether they have the files from my external HD and (2) if not, what did I do wrong since I thought I did everything right. They eventually tell me that they couldn’t find my files and that the files from that HD were not backed up because the HD is NTFS format, which is not a native format to Mac.
How was I supposed to know that? I asked the CS guy that and he didn’t answer. There was NO error message or indication that the files weren’t being backed up, and there were NO details about certain drive formats not working in the instructions web page on how to make sure your external drives are backed up. I previously was using Crashplan (another cloud backup service) last year and the same configuration/hard drive was backed up on their service so I would never have guessed there would be a problem using another provider.
I also found a backup summary email from Backblaze in March which indicated all was backed up. It says:
macbook-air_2018_01_21
Backed Up/Selected: 1,341,922 MB / 1,342,152 MB
Last Backup: Today
Unless I’m reading this wrong, this reads to me like 1.3 TB was backed up, which says at some point my external HD contents were being backed up, since my laptop HD is only 128 GB.
A friend of mine thinks Backblaze somehow lost my data (maybe there was some kind of failure at the data center) and they are trying to CYA. Regardless, I am LIVID and I want to do something about it!!! There was NO reason for me to think my files weren't being backed up, given no error message and the email summary of files backed up above. I asked for a full refund and the CS rep told me he could only give me a prorated amount for the rest of the year (since I purchased a year subscription) which I told him was unacceptable since they didn’t even back up my entire system earlier in the year. Is there anything else I can do? Report this company somewhere? File a complaint? What would be effective, if anything?
I am currently in the process of trying to get my failed HD recovered at a data recovery center, but I am pretty sure this will be VERY expensive, and it’s not even certain they can recover the files. I am feeling really upset and quite devastated, since this drive had ALL of my photos, including the first year of my daughter’s life – completely irreplaceable.
