Highest-Throughput Cloud Storage for AI | Backblaze
What is the difference between B2 Cloud Storage and B2 Overdrive?
B2 Overdrive is built on the foundation of B2 Cloud Storage, but with additional networking capacity that can reach up to 1Tbps throughput. B2 Overdrive has designated storage and networking resources walled off from other Backblaze infrastructure to support maximum performance for performance-sensitive workloads.
Why does throughput affect cloud storage performance?
Throughput directly impacts how quickly data can be transferred to and from storage. High throughput object storage like B2 Overdrive allows for more concurrent storage operations, and helps to ensure compute resources (including expensive hourly GPUs) have the fastest-possible access to data to minimize time sitting idle or waiting on data to be transferred.
How do I access B2 Overdrive?
Access to B2 Overdrive infrastructure will be enabled in your Backblaze account after talking to our Sales team, including for testing purposes. Contact or Sales team to request access.
Why is there a minimum data storage commitment for B2 Overdrive?
B2 Overdrive is specifically designed to optimize performance for large quantities of frequently accessed data for AI, machine learning workloads, and mission-critical software as a service (SaaS) applications. For Backblaze as a storage cloud provider, there is additional overhead to provide the networking resources needed to support high throughput storage. At this time, access to B2 Overdrive is limited to customers storing at least 1PB of data per month to sustainably offer and expand this offering.
Who is B2 Overdrive best suited for?
B2 Overdrive is specifically designed for organizations with demanding, throughput-intensive applications like AI/ML training and inference, high-performance compute (HPC), large-scale data analytics, media processing pipelines, and research compute.
How does the free unlimited egress and API transaction pricing work?
B2 Cloud Storage offers 3x the storage capacity in included egress to make it cost-effective to migrate data between Backblaze and other storage destinations, including and especially compute cloud providers. We offer free egress with many of our strategic compute partners.
B2 Overdrive takes that to the next level with unlimited free egress, so you’ll never see an egress line item on your B2 Overdrive invoice. Unlimited requests, or API transactions, are also included. With B2 Overdrive, you’ll only be charged for your contract per-TB monthly storage commitment.
Is it possible to migrate my data from a legacy storage solution to B2 Overdrive?
Yes, Backblaze offers Universal Data Migration to support moving or copying data from a range of sources, including legacy public cloud providers such as AWS, Google, and Microsoft, cloud drive services such as Google Drive and Box, on-premises servers, storage area network (SAN), and network attached storage (NAS), and LTO tape media. Backblaze will help cover migration costs with qualifying commitments.
Does Backblaze B2 support hybrid cloud/multi-cloud infrastructure?
Yes, Backblaze B2 is often used within organizations’ hybrid cloud or multi-cloud infrastructure. You can easily integrate Backblaze B2 via API, CLI, or third-party software and/or hardware integration.