backblaze raises subscription personal backup

#Backblaze raises subscription personal backup free#

One of the features of My Book Live storage is that its users can remotely access files stored there, through Western Digital’s cloud service. What happened here is more complicated, doesn’t involve cloud storage, and may well be even more disastrous. The other backup problem is even worse: if you still use Western Digital My Book Live networked storage (NAS), the chances are that over the last few days, all your backups on that storage system will have been erased. I hope Apple reviews that policy and either provides a cogent reason for doing this, or rectifies its behaviour. I can’t for the life of me comprehend why Apple has this policy, but it’s another reflection on the fact that cloud services only rent you the storage, and can impose what policies they like, including the removal of files such as backups.

#Backblaze raises subscription personal backup free#

This happens nowhere else in iCloud: you can leave all manner of files in your iCloud Drive or document folders, and those will be left there as long as you have sufficient free space.

However, if you had made that previous backup and one earlier this month, both should still be there ready to be accessed.

The meaning is that, if you had backed up your iPhone or iPad to iCloud before last Christmas, but not since, your old backup should now have vanished automatically even though you may have ample free space in iCloud. This isn’t exactly made clear either: most of Apple’s documentation on these iCloud backups doesn’t mention this limitation, and the only reference I can find is here, where Apple writes: “iCloud backups are available for 180 days after you disable or stop using iCloud Backup.” That seems out of place in a paragraph headed “Delete backups and turn off iCloud Backup for your device”. One of the strangest policies that Apple has, though, is that old iCloud backups can be automatically deleted. One of the most convenient ways for those with iOS or iPadOS devices to back them up is iCloud. These might appear unrelated, but bear a common lesson. This week backups relying on the services have hit the headlines: earlier in the week, some were horrified to discover Apple’s policy for deleting old iCloud backups of its devices, and in the last couple of days, users of WD’s My Book Live devices have found their local backups have been completely removed.