CrashPlan Review

• Features
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• Likes
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• Dislikes
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• Customer Reviews
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• Where to Buy

Editor’s Rating:

Avg. User Rating:

Overall
Ease of Use
Features
Value for Money
Customer Service

CrashPlan Features/Benefits

CrashPlan was created by a Minnesota based company called Code42. CrashPlan itself has only been around since 2008, but is relatively well liked by users in the online backup community. They are one of a few, along with MyPCBackup that still offer unlimited storage without file size or bandwidth limitations of any kind. They offer some very unique features not commonly found in online backup, such as the ability to create custom backup sets that you can then send to different locations – yes, not just online, but to a friends computer for example.

Likes

Backup Sets and Multiple Backup Destinations: CrashPlan allows you to create different backup sets of data. For example, you can create one set that contains photos you want backed up online, and another set that contains large work files you want backed up to a local external hard drive or possibly another work computer. You can also select different times to backup different backup sets – maybe one set is backed up every day and another is only backed up weekly. The list of possible destinations includes: CrashPlan Central(online), Friend, Another Computer, and Folder. However backing up to CrashPlan Central is not an option with the free version. You can have the same backup set go to multiple destinations as well. This creates huge leaps forward in data redundancy and the triple security of knowing your data is safe online, offsite, and even on a local drive. It also allows for reduced bandwidth and system resources and allows you to manage your online storage requirements better. But if all of this seems way too confusing you can also just use CrashPlan’s continuous backup to backup all of your critical data to CrashPlan Central.

True Unlimited Backup: CrashPlan is another of the very few companies offering a true unlimited backup. They, along with MyPCBackup do not enforce any file size or bandwidth limitations. As we’ve mentioned before, other companies such as Mozy have either eliminated their unlimited backup option, or have implemented bandwidth limitations on their unlimited storage service.

Seeded Backup: If you have a lot of data or some extremely large files, and are concerned about the amount of time and bandwidth it will take to back up everything to CrashPlan Central(online), you can use their Seeded Backup option. For $124.99 CrashPlan will send you a 1TB drive you can connect to your computer and configure CrashPlan to backup to the external drive(folder) and when it’s finished just ship it back to CrashPlan. They will then load everything to your account on their servers (no worries – all your data is encrypted, so no-one can see it), and you can then set up your computer(s) to incremental backups from that point on.

Restore to Your Door: Let’s say you have to do a full system restore – or maybe just an extremely large restore and you don’t want to attempt this over the internet, well CrashPlan will basically do the "seeded backup" in reverse for you. It’s called "Restore to Your Door" and for $124.99 (or $164.99 for overnight delivery), CrashPlan will send you a 1TB drive with the data on it that you requested to be restored. This can save you huge amounts of time and frustration if you are dealing with large restores and potentially slow or troublesome internet connections.

Mobile App’s for iOS and Android Devices: CrashPlan recently released mobile app’s for both the iOS(iPhone) and Android operating systems. You can now download, view and share files directly from these mobile devices using the free mobile app’s available in the respective app stores.

Dislikes

Can Not Backup Online with Free Version: The free version does not allow you to backup to CrashPlan Central(online). You also can not set up multiple backup sets with the free version, and you will be annoyed by advertising to no end.

No File Sharing: CrashPlan does not support file sharing of any kind at this point. If you are looking to want to share files on line and collaborate on work then you will want to look to another solution such as SugarSync.

No File Syncing: CrashPlan also does not do any type of file syncing between computers or devices. So if you are looking to keep multiple computers in a home or home office environment in sync, again you will want to look at a different solution provider.

To Many Destinations and Options for Backing up Adds Complexity: With options comes complexity, and for some users the ability to create multiple backup sets and send them to multiple destinations with different timing may be a bit too confusing. If you have a large amount of data it can be easy to get lost in all of the "what do I have going where and when". For some, just creating a backup that automatically sends their data online may be enough.

  Where to Buy

• Get CrashPlan+

• Get CrashPlan For Business

  Summary

Crashplan is a great option for those looking to create multiple, “redundant” locations for their backed up data, and won’t have any problems managing the complexity of all of that. It however is not a file sharing or a file syncing tool, so users will need to keep that in mind if either of those is on their requirements list. However CrashPlan provides a great unlimited backup solution at a great price. Try CrashPlan for 30 Days free!