Hard drives and reliability analytics charts illustrating Backblaze Drive Stats trends.

Backblaze Hard Drive Reliability: What Years of Drive Data Really Tell Home Users

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Backblaze publishes one of the most useful public datasets in storage: daily health records from hundreds of thousands of drives running in its data centers. I wanted to know what that data actually tells a home user shopping for backup, NAS or bulk-storage drives, so I pulled the public Drive Stats data into my own deterministic analysis instead of relying on a single quarter or a few headline numbers. Quick answer: Backblaze data is extremely useful, but it does not support a simple conclusion like “Brand X is best.” The better lesson is that specific drive models, capacity generations, age,

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Cloud Storage Know IT Guyde comparing OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox and backup options

Cloud Storage Know IT Guyde: OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox or Something Else?

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As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Cloud storage has changed a lot since I first built the Cloud Storage Know IT Guyde. Back then, the idea was pretty simple: collect as many cloud storage services as I could find, put them into one place, list how much free storage they offered and try to keep the list current. That worked for a while. It also produced a page full of names like Cubby, Pogoplug, Wuala, Copy and Ubuntu One. Some disappeared. Others were acquired or changed direction. Prices changed. Free storage changed. New services appeared. And the

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Windows Know IT Guyde showing a Windows laptop and the choices keep, upgrade, repair, or replace

Windows Know IT Guyde: Upgrade, Repair, Replace or Keep What You Have

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I’ve been writing and talking about Windows on The Average Guy for a long time. Years ago, I built separate Know IT Guydes for Windows 8 and Windows 10. The idea was pretty simple: put useful information in one place and keep updating it as Windows changed. The keeping-it-updated part didn’t exactly go according to plan. So I’m doing things differently this time. Instead of creating another Guyde tied permanently to one version of Windows, this is the Windows Know IT Guyde. Windows versions will change. Hardware will change. Microsoft’s requirements will change. But the questions most people are trying

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