Backblaze Benchmark Reveals Performance Gaps Among Top Cloud Storage Providers
What Happened – Backblaze published its Q1 2026 performance benchmark comparing B2, AWS S3, Cloudflare R2 and Wasabi Object Storage across US‑East and EU‑Central regions. The neutral test suite measured upload/download latency, time‑to‑first‑byte and sustained throughput for a range of file sizes, and disclosed where Backblaze’s own rate‑limits impacted results.
Why It Matters for TPRM –
- Performance variability can affect service‑level commitments and downstream business processes.
- Hidden rate‑limit policies may surface only under load, exposing a vendor’s capacity constraints.
- Objective, third‑party data helps organisations validate vendor claims and adjust risk models.
Who Is Affected – Enterprises that rely on cloud object storage (SaaS, media, backup, analytics, fintech, healthcare, etc.).
Recommended Actions –
- Review existing contracts for performance SLAs and rate‑limit clauses.
- Conduct independent latency/throughput testing for critical workloads.
- Update vendor risk registers with the benchmark findings and monitor future quarterly reports.
Technical Notes – Tests used a neutral Vultr‑hosted Ubuntu VM, routed through Catchpoint, and covered 256 KiB, 2 MiB, 5 MiB, 50 MiB and 100 MiB files in single‑ and multi‑threaded modes. Backblaze hit its own bandwidth caps on larger multi‑threaded uploads, prompting an auto‑retry script and temporary cap increase. Source: Help Net Security