There is finally a good cloud-backup service for Mac users.  It is called Backblaze, and after extensive beta testing, and a few much-requested modifications, the company has now finally opened the service to everyone. If you’ve been thinking about using online backups, or if you’ve tried another service and been disappointed, Backblaze may well be worth a look.

Like several other online backup systems, Backblaze uses Mac client software to back up your files, compressed and encrypted, to secure servers over the Internet. It operates continuously in the background, automatically uploading new data as you create or modify it. You can restore data by selecting files and folders in a Web-based interface and downloading a Zip file, or by requesting that the company send your data overnight by FedEx on DVD ($99 for up to 4.2 GB of data) or on a USB hard drive ($189 for a 500 GB hard drive, up from 160 GB during the beta program).

One of the key changes the company made during its beta program was adding support for resource forks on Mac files, including full deduplication of resource fork data. In addition, the company says it correctly backs up and restores each file’s type, creator, creation date, and modification date, and that packages (or bundles), such as those used to store iPhoto libraries, are handled correctly. All of this should be good news to users who have found these features lacking in Mozy, a similar but better-known backup service.

Among the numerous other changes in the 1.0 release (or 1.0.0.134, to be exact) are greatly improved support for external drives (which the software now keeps track of even after they’re disconnected), more helpful notifications and reports, improved translations into several different languages, performance and compression enhancements, and more intelligent exclusion of cache and temporary data. Backblaze now also includes an uninstaller.

For users who participated in beta testing, Backblaze should automatically and silently update its client software in the background no later than today. New users can download the software (a 3.6 MB file) from the Backblaze Web site. Setup is a matter of running the installer, entering your email address, and choosing a password. No other configuration is required, although users can manually exclude any folders, volumes, or file types they don’t want to back up.

Backblaze charges $5 per month, or $50 per year (which works out to $4.17 per month) for unlimited data storage, and the company offers a 15-day free trial. In addition, a special promotion is running today only (14-Apr-09): if you install the software (and, in the process, register for a new account) today, you may be one of 25 users randomly selected to receive a free one-year license. The company will announce the winners on Wednesday 15-Apr-09.

Are you going to sign up for BackBlaze?