backblaze

How to Migrate from Google Drive to Backblaze B2

May 11, 2026

Why Move from Google Drive to Backblaze B2?

Google Drive is a collaboration tool with storage built in. Backblaze B2 is pure storage built for scale. The reasons people move between them usually come down to one or more of these:

Cost. Google One charges $100/year for 2 TB. Backblaze B2 charges $6.95/TB/month, but for archival or backup data you access rarely, the math works differently. If you are storing 5+ TB of media, raw footage, or project archives, B2 can be significantly cheaper depending on your access patterns.
Control. B2 gives you S3-compatible API access, which means you can integrate it with backup tools, CDNs, media workflows, and custom applications. Google Drive’s API is more limited for bulk operations.
Redundancy. Keeping a copy of your Google Drive data in B2 means you are not dependent on a single provider. If Google changes pricing, restricts your account, or has an outage, your files are safe elsewhere.

The Google Drive Challenge

Google Drive stores native files (Docs, Sheets, Slides) as cloud-only application states, not as downloadable files. When you need them outside of Google, they must be converted to Office formats first.

Google Takeout can export your Drive, but it takes hours, produces fragmented zip archives, and flattens your folder structure. For a migration to B2 specifically, Takeout is especially awkward because you would need to download everything locally, extract it, then upload it to B2 using a separate tool.

How Blober Handles It

Blober connects to both Google Drive and Backblaze B2. It handles the tricky parts automatically:

Google Docs become .docx files during transfer
Google Sheets become .xlsx files during transfer
Google Slides become .pptx files during transfer
Regular files (photos, videos, PDFs) transfer as-is
Folder structure is preserved in your B2 bucket
Shared files are accessible through a “Shared with me” virtual folder

Steps

Connect Google Drive: Add Google Drive as a provider in Blober. OAuth login through your browser.
Connect Backblaze B2: Add B2 with your Application Key ID and Application Key. Blober auto-detects your bucket regions.
Create a workflow: Set Google Drive as source, B2 as destination. Browse and select files or folders.
Run: Blober streams files from Google Drive to B2 through your machine. No local storage needed for intermediate files.

Storage Cost Comparison

	Google One (2 TB)	Backblaze B2 (2 TB)
Monthly	$8.33	~$14
Annual	$100	~$167
5 TB	$25/month (Google One Premium)	~$35/month
10 TB+	Not available on consumer plans	~$70/month
Egress	Free (via Drive sync/download)	Free up to 3x stored

For small amounts of active data, Google Drive is the better deal. For large archives, backups, and media libraries that you rarely access, B2’s pay-for-what-you-use model wins.

A Common Setup

Many people do not fully leave Google Drive. Instead, they keep it for active collaboration (shared documents, team folders) and move everything else to B2:

Current projects stay in Google Drive for real-time editing
Completed projects, old photos, and archives go to Backblaze B2
Blober handles the transfer once, then you adjust your Google storage plan

This hybrid approach gives you the best of both: Google’s collaboration features for active work and B2’s affordable storage for everything else.

Get Blober

One-time purchase. No subscription, no per-GB fees.

Download Blober at blober.io

How to Move Files from Dropbox to Backblaze B2

May 11, 2026

Why People Leave Dropbox for Backblaze B2

Dropbox works well as a file sync tool. You drop files in a folder and they show up on all your devices. But as your data grows, Dropbox gets expensive. The Plus plan costs $120/year for 2 TB. If you have 5 TB or more, you need Dropbox Business at $180/year per user.

Backblaze B2 charges $6.95 per TB per month for storage. For 2 TB, that is about $14/month or $167/year. But here is where it gets interesting: most of the data sitting in Dropbox is not being actively synced. It is old projects, archives, backups, photos from three years ago. That data does not need instant sync to every device. It needs to be stored cheaply and retrieved when needed.

For archival and backup storage, Backblaze B2 is significantly cheaper. And unlike Dropbox, you only pay for what you use. No fixed plans, no storage ceilings.

The Problem with Moving Data Out of Dropbox

The obvious approach is to download everything from Dropbox to your computer, then upload it to Backblaze B2. This works for small amounts of data. For 500 GB or more, it becomes painful:

You need enough free space on your local disk to hold the download
Downloading takes hours or days depending on your connection
Uploading to B2 takes equally long
If anything fails midway, you start over

Some people try rclone for this. rclone works, but you need to configure both remotes in a text file, understand the command syntax, and handle errors yourself. If you are comfortable with the terminal, rclone is a solid choice. If you are not, it is a wall.

How to Transfer with Blober

Blober connects to both Dropbox and Backblaze B2. You set up both providers, select the files you want to move, and Blober handles the transfer. Files stream from Dropbox through your computer to Backblaze B2 without needing to store them locally.

Step 1: Connect Dropbox

Add Dropbox as a provider in Blober. Click the OAuth login button and authorize Blober with your Dropbox account. Blober stores your credentials locally on your machine, not on any server.

Step 2: Connect Backblaze B2

Add Backblaze B2 as a provider. You will need your Application Key ID and Application Key from the Backblaze dashboard. Blober verifies the connection and lists your buckets.

Step 3: Create a Workflow

Create a new workflow with Dropbox as the source and Backblaze B2 as the destination. Browse your Dropbox files, select what you want to transfer, and choose which B2 bucket to send it to.

Step 4: Run

Click run. Blober transfers files with parallel uploads, progress tracking, and automatic resume if your connection drops.

What About Folder Structure?

Blober preserves your folder structure. If you have Projects/2024/Client-A/ in Dropbox, it creates the same path in your B2 bucket. You do not end up with a flat pile of files.

Cost Comparison

	Dropbox Plus	Backblaze B2 (2 TB)
Monthly cost	$10/month	~$14/month
5 TB	Need Business plan ($15/user/mo)	~$35/month
10 TB	Need Business plan	~$70/month
Egress	Free (sync)	Free to Cloudflare partners, $0.01/GB otherwise
API access	OAuth	S3-compatible

For pure storage (not sync), B2 wins at every tier above 2 TB. And if you pair B2 with Cloudflare CDN through the Bandwidth Alliance, egress is free.

When to Keep Dropbox

This is not about abandoning Dropbox entirely. Dropbox is great for active files you need on every device. The move that makes sense for most people is:

Keep Dropbox for current projects and actively used files
Move archives, old projects, and large media to Backblaze B2
Use Blober to transfer the archival data once, then cancel the upgraded Dropbox plan

Get Blober

Blober is a one-time purchase. No subscription, no per-GB transfer fees.

Download Blober at blober.io

How to Switch from Wasabi to Backblaze B2

May 11, 2026

Two S3-Compatible Providers, Different Tradeoffs

Wasabi and Backblaze B2 both position themselves as affordable alternatives to AWS S3. Both are S3-compatible. Both offer low-cost storage. But they have meaningful differences that lead people to switch from one to the other.

Wasabi’s Model

Wasabi charges $6.99/TB/month with no egress fees. Sounds perfect, until you read the fine print:

90-day minimum retention. If you delete or overwrite a file within 90 days, you still pay for the full 90 days of storage.
Egress is “free” with conditions. Your monthly egress cannot exceed your stored data. If you store 1 TB and download 1.5 TB in a month, Wasabi may contact you about their “reasonable use” policy.
No native CDN partnerships. Wasabi does not have bandwidth alliance partnerships like Backblaze does.

Backblaze B2’s Model

Backblaze B2 charges $6.95/TB/month for storage and $0.01/GB for egress. But:

Free egress through Cloudflare. Through the Bandwidth Alliance, egress from B2 to Cloudflare is free. If you use Cloudflare as your CDN (many do), egress is effectively $0.
No minimum retention. Store and delete whenever you want.
Free egress allowance. B2 includes 3x your storage amount in free egress each month. If you store 1 TB, you get 3 TB of free downloads.

For most use cases, Backblaze B2 ends up cheaper or equivalent to Wasabi, with fewer restrictions.

Moving the Data

Both Wasabi and Backblaze B2 speak the S3 protocol. This means Blober uses the same underlying S3 operations for both providers, making the transfer clean and predictable.

Steps

Connect Wasabi: Add Wasabi as a provider with your Access Key, Secret Key, and region (Wasabi uses region-specific endpoints like s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com).
Connect Backblaze B2: Add B2 with your Application Key ID and Application Key. Blober auto-detects your bucket regions.
Create a workflow: Source = Wasabi, Destination = B2. Browse your Wasabi buckets, select what to move.
Run: Blober transfers with parallel multipart uploads and automatic resume.

What Blober Handles

Multi-region detection for B2. Backblaze B2 buckets can be in different regions. Blober fetches all buckets via B2’s native API to determine the correct region for each, then configures the S3 endpoint accordingly.
Region-aware endpoints for Wasabi. Wasabi uses different endpoints per region. Blober maps your chosen region to the correct endpoint.
Large file support. Both providers handle multipart uploads. Blober chunks large files and uploads them in parallel.

Watch the 90-Day Window

When migrating from Wasabi, keep in mind the 90-day minimum retention policy. If you uploaded files to Wasabi less than 90 days ago, you will be charged for the full 90 days even after you delete them.

The practical approach:

Transfer everything to Backblaze B2
Wait until the oldest files in Wasabi pass the 90-day mark
Then delete and close the Wasabi account

This avoids paying both Wasabi and B2 for the same data longer than necessary.

Pricing Side-by-Side

	Wasabi	Backblaze B2
Storage per TB/mo	$6.99	$6.95
Egress per GB	$0 (with conditions)	$0.01 (free via Cloudflare)
Min retention	90 days	None
Free egress allowance	Equal to storage	3x storage
CDN partnership	None	Cloudflare Bandwidth Alliance

Get Blober

One-time purchase. No recurring fees, no per-GB charges.

Download Blober at blober.io

Migrating 100M+ Files from DigitalOcean Spaces to Backblaze B2

Feb 28, 2026

The Scenario

A media company has 25TB of data spread across 120 million files in DigitalOcean Spaces. Monthly bill: roughly $500/month. They want to move everything to Backblaze B2 to cut costs and get more flexibility.

This is a real-world pattern we see a lot. Let’s walk through what it actually takes.

What It Costs

Item	Details	Estimated Cost
Blober License	One-time purchase	$49
DigitalOcean Egress	~24TB billable at $0.01/GiB (first 1TB free)	~$240
Backblaze Ingress	Free. Backblaze never charges for uploads	$0
Backblaze API Calls	Uploads are free Class A calls, minor listing costs	~$2
Total		~$291

After migrating, the monthly bill drops from ~$500 on DigitalOcean to ~$150 on Backblaze B2. The entire migration pays for itself in about two weeks.

About Egress Fees

This is where it gets interesting. Backblaze actively wants people to switch to their platform and they back that up with real programs:

Free egress up to 3x your average monthly storage on B2, which means once you’re on Backblaze, downloading your own data doesn’t cost extra in most scenarios.
Unlimited free egress through CDN and compute partners like Cloudflare, Fastly, Bunny.net, and Vultr.
Assisted data migration is listed as a standard B2 feature on their pricing page.
Universal Data Migration is available for larger committed contracts (50TB+ on pay-as-you-go, or included with B2 Reserve annual plans).

Backblaze explains their philosophy well in this blog post: Cloud Egress Fees: What They Are and How to Reduce Them. The short version is that they believe egress fees are vendor lock-in, and they want to make switching easy.

Even if your dataset is under the 50TB threshold, it’s worth contacting their sales team. With a 25TB dataset and willingness to commit for 12 months, there’s a solid chance they’ll help reduce or cover the DigitalOcean egress fees to get you onboarded.

How Long Does It Take

Let’s be honest here. 25TB is a lot of data.

Every file needs its own set of API calls: list from the source, download, then upload to the destination. Each round-trip carries network latency regardless of file size. When you multiply that per-object overhead across 120 million files with 25TB of bandwidth on top, the aggregate time adds up fast.

For a client-side migration where data streams through your local machine, you’re looking at:

Several weeks of continuous runtime depending on your connection speed and latency
Your machine needs to stay on and connected the entire time
If your ISP has a monthly data cap, 25TB will almost certainly exceed it
16GB+ RAM recommended for handling the file listing at this scale

This isn’t a Blober limitation. Any client-side tool (rclone, Cyberduck, whatever) will face the same physics. Data has to travel from DigitalOcean’s datacenter to your machine, then from your machine to Backblaze’s datacenter. That’s two full trips through your ISP.

The Smart Approach: Two Phases

Phase 1: Let the Datacenters Do the Heavy Lifting

Contact Backblaze’s sales team and ask about their assisted migration options. For datasets at this scale, they partner with migration services that can move data directly between datacenters at speeds your home connection can’t match. What takes weeks on a home connection can take hours on a datacenter link.

Reach out here: Backblaze Sales

Phase 2: Use Blober for Everything After

Once the initial bulk migration is done, Blober becomes your daily tool for managing files across providers. New uploads, folder syncs, log rotations, moving files between buckets, all handled from your desktop with no per-GB fees and no subscriptions. Your credentials stay on your machine and never touch a third-party server.

Monthly Cost Comparison (Post-Migration)

	DigitalOcean Spaces	Backblaze B2
Storage (25TB)	~$500/mo	~$174/mo
Egress (3TB/mo)	~$30/mo	Free (within 3x allowance)
Total	~$530/mo	~$174/mo
Annual	~$6,360/yr	~$2,088/yr

That’s about $4,200 saved per year, every year.

Bottom Line

For large-scale one-time migrations, use Backblaze’s own migration programs. They want your business and they’ll often help you get there.

For everything after that, Blober gives you a one-time $49 license to manage, sync, and move files across any supported provider, with no recurring costs and no third party ever touching your credentials.