Backblaze has launched an S3 compatible APIS for its B2 cloud storage, which it claims is 75 per cent cheaper than AWS. Not convinced? The company is offering to pay AWS S3 egress fees for customers that migrate more than 50TB of data and keep it in Backblaze’s B2 Cloud Storage for at least 12 months.
Backblaze added S3 API support in May this year and started a 90-day beta test in which, it says, thousands of customers migrated petabytes of data. During the trial, Backblaze recorded interactions with more than 1000 unique S3-compatible tools from multiple companies. The results show “customers can point their existing workflows and tools at Backblaze B2 and not miss a beat”.
Gavin Wade, CEO of CloudSpot, a Backblaze customer, provided a prepared quote: “With Backblaze, we have a system for scaling infinitely. It lowers our breakeven customer volume while increasing our margins, so we can reinvest back into the business. My investors are happy. I’m happy. It feels incredible.”
Cloudspot faced paying 9 cents/GB to move 700TB of data from AWS S3 to Backblaze. The company moved that data across in less than six days because AWS storage costs were eating into profits as business, and the amount of stored data, grew.
Backblaze’s B2 Cloud Storage is already popular, with the amount of data in its vaults growing at 25 per cent month on month. It costs $0.005/GB per month for data storage and $0.01/GB to download data. There are no costs to upload data.
A final thought. AWS, with its enormous scale must be making money hand over fist from S3, when Backblaze can offer this service at one quarter of the price. This shows the cloud giant has plenty of scope for cost-cutting. But in the meantime cloud storage backup suppliers such as Datto and OVHcloud may be encouraged to follow Backblaze’s suit.
