*This post may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a commission. Please read our disclosure for more information.

My entire business is run directly from my computer. It’s important that I have the systems in place in case something goes wrong with my computer.

If you follow me on social media, you may already know that I’ve had my fair share of computer problems over the last two years.

You may also know that BackBlaze has saved my butt every time. 

I travel a lot and my MacBook Pro has become my main computer. Actually, it’s the only computer I have at the moment but we’ll get into that in a second.

About two years ago I started getting the ‘spinning wheel of death’. Not too long after that my MacBook Pro died. Luckily I did some research prior to the failure so I knew exactly what happened, my hard drive failed. So I ordered one right away and was up and running again in less than 48 hours thanks to BackBlaze.

Then less than a year later, the exact same thing started happening again. I decided that I would replace my hard drive before it died completely so I wasn’t in a panic. The first time I ordered a random hard drive off of Amazon when I probably shouldn’t have. This second time I did some research and ordered one from MacSales.com. FYI; I’ve ordered a few things from that site since then and do recommend the site for Mac items. I received my hard drive within a few days and was up and running fairly quickly again.

Then not too long after that the screen on my desktop computer crapped out. Ugh. I just threw that computer out, even though it was a fairly new computer. It was an All-In-One touchscreen and the screen replacement was more than the cost of buying a new computer. Figures.

So that is how I ended up just using my MacBook Pro as my main computer. That and the fact that I am never in one place for long so it just makes sense. 

So you might be wondering how I was able to get my entire business up and running quickly each time?

Well, besides the fact that I spent a fortune on express shipping. It was because I use BackBlaze Backup.

If you don’t know what BackBlaze is; it’s an affordable in the cloud backup system. BackBlaze is a program that you install on your computer and it continuously backs up your computer into the cloud. It only costs around $6 a month and gives me peace of mind as I know my computer is always backed up.

You can access your files from anywhere at any time from their website. 

The first time I used BackBlaze when my hard drive failed I downloaded my backup directly from their website and unzipped it. The download process takes a while depending on how many files you have, so this isn’t the ideal option. But it does work. 

The next time because I planned everything out I used the Time Machine on my Macbook. Which I found to be a little bit of pain to use when installing a new hard drive. While I was figuring out how to use Time Machine to install the new OS I was able to access all my files through BackBlaze from another computer. I probably wouldn’t use Time Machine again to be honest. I prefer BackBlaze. 

Then when my desktop died I just threw it out and didn’t really care because I knew that everything was backed up with BackBlaze. I took the hard drive out before throwing it away but have yet to access it. My desktop has always been my main computer where I keep all my backup files basically. I never used it because I preferred my Mac. But it’s always been treated like the mothership. It has everything on it from business files to years of photos.

So about a month ago I said to myself… Hey, I really need to download my desktop backup from BackBlaze since I don’t even have that computer anymore. So I went onto their website and ordered a hard drive copy of my backup.

BackBlaze has a few options for restoring your backing. You can choose to either:

• Download your backup for no cost over the internet.
• Order a USB up to 256 GB for $99 
• Order an actual portable hard drive for $189 with up to 8 TB of data. 

But here’s the exciting part…

If you chose to order the hard drive for $189 you can get the full amount paid back!

Once you select your files and pay the $189, BackBlaze starts preparing your backup and then sends it out to you. It took probably about 7-10 days for mine to arrive via FedEx. Keep in mind that a signature is required for the package for security reasons. 10 days might seem like a long time to wait for your backup, but you can still go onto their website and download any of the files you want in the time being. Maybe you just need a few files and can wait on the other ones. Just go online and download them and you are good to go until your hard drive arrives.

Once you receive the backup you can download your entire backup after entering your ‘drive unlock code’ that is found in your account online. Then after that you just wipe out the hard drive and send it back. Within a few days, I had my $189 back. They refund you the entire amount paid if you send the hard drive back.

Here’s what I did with my physical BackBlaze backup…

I am paranoid about losing my files so after I ordered my computer backup from BackBlaze for $189 I went onto Amazon and ordered one of the Western Digital Hard Drives for around $60. I have so many of these hard drives, they are awesome. BackBlaze actually sent me the exact same type hard drive that I ordered off Amazon. 

Once I had both of my hard drives I just plugged them into my computer at the same time and transferred all the files from one hard drive to the next. I also copied any files I wanted right away onto my MacBook Pro. You don’t have to order a second hard drive, but I wanted another backup of my files. 

Once I was done I put the BackBlaze hard drive back into the box walked over to USPS and mailed it back for like $10 or something, I insured it just in case. Within a few days BackBlaze refunded me the entire $189. 

AMAZING!

I was so thrilled about this hard drive backup return program that I had to share it with you.

It costs only $6 a month per computer to use BackBlaze. It costs even less if you purchase it on a yearly basis, only $60. It’s so much easier to pay for things yearly instead of monthly, less bookkeeping plus you typically get you a discount.

BackBlaze has saved me on numerous occasions. I highly recommend it. It’s so inexpensive and gives you that piece of mind. It constantly backs up my computer, so if I go save a file on my computer right now it’s going to back it up for me automatically. You can also select folders that you don’t want to be backed up if you are worried about specific things being in the cloud. 

Even though I absolutely LOVE BackBlaze, it isn’t the only backup system that I have in place. I have several hard drives that I will randomly back my computer up to. I also back up a lot of my computer to Amazon S3. I also occasionally use the Time Machine on my Macbook. Which reminds me, it’s saying I haven’t backed up to Time Machine for 126 days. But that’s okay, I have BackBlaze. 

Oh and an awesome feature I found while writing this blog post… BackBlaze has a ‘Locate My Computer’ area. So say you were traveling with your laptop and left it somewhere you can look up the IP address location of your computer and map it. Pretty cool!

I highly recommend you sign up to BackBlaze. They have a free trial if you want to test it out, I’m certain you will purchase a plan after you try it. It’s fabulous.

Oh and did I mention that I was even able to restore all my old emails into Outlook with BackBlaze? That’s always a fear for some, losing all their email correspondence.

So what are you waiting for? Go sign up to BackBlaze now and PLEASE let me know what you think in the comments below. 

Also, if you sign up I’d love if you’d use my referral link, if you don’t want to that’s fine. But it helps me out by giving me free months of storage, although I just renewed my account for another year. 🙂 

Well, now that I’ve pretty much written an entire novel about my computer problems I should get back to more important things. Thanks for making it to the end!