Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage vs. CrashPlan

I would consider Backblaze as a second or a third tier backup solution. Not in terms of quality, but I'd recommend having at least one more backup saved somewhere else. And with the cost as low as theirs, Backblaze is the perfect solution. It also provides very friendly recovery options on both the personal and business side.

Incentivized

This is a great Cloud backup solution. The cost is low, the bandwidth is managed well within the application, and the footprint for the client on a machine is very small and provides a notification menu icon with info about what is happening now or very recently. This does not backup to anything locally, so if that is a requirement, it will not meet that need. It used to be able to backup from one machine to another remote machine at one time, but now it is only cloud-based.

Incentivized

• easy to use
• works without you having to do anything
• notifies you if there's a problem
• easy to implement

Incentivized

• Code42 is the most affordable backup system offering unlimited storage that I could find. I came from SOS Online Backup, which I ultimately decided to drop after my monthly rate for their unlimited plan increased by 20x.
• With Code42's unlimited storage option, I don't have to worry about the fact that my backups are significant in space. As a photographer with thousands of images at stake, I need to run large backups often.
• Code42 runs continuously and silently in the background of my desktop computer. It is truly "set and go", so I don't have to think about it when I'm away. It runs until the designated drive has been fully backed up to my cloud storage. It will then automatically email me once the backup is complete (or, it will email me if it encounters any errors).
• Customer service is above par. Anytime I need help, a chat agent is available (chat is my communication preference), they are always friendly, and go above and beyond to resolve my needs.

Incentivized

• For what my company needs, I cannot think of anything more or better they could do, though a birthday card would be fun!

Incentivized

• The CrashPlan program installed on your computer is Java-based vs. a native application. While this makes development for CrashPlan easier, there are a lot of drawbacks to Java programs including more resources usage, less stability, and overall more clunky interface.
• While this was also in the Pros category - CrashPlan is an extremely powerful and flexible program, which adds a great deal of complexity. Setting up CrashPlan isn't always a simple procedure, and depending on the complexity of your backup set, can take a while to tinker around with the settings to get everything to work properly.
• The CrashPlan desktop program consists of a Java program front end, as well as a backend service - there are times when the backend service will crash, and the front end Java program will refuse to load. Typically, restarting the service or restarting the computer will resolve the issue, but sometimes more in-depth troubleshooting is required.
• Perhaps one of the biggest downsides to CrashPlan is its price - at $10/month/computer CrashPlan is more than double the price of some existing backup services such as Backblaze (priced at $50/year/computer). To add salt to the wound, about a year and a half ago, CrashPlan discontinued their consumer options - which were very reasonably priced at $60/year for a single computer or a family plan priced at $150/year for up to 10 computers. When these options were discontinued, the cost of backing up with CrashPlan was effectively doubled for the same feature set.
• Along with the previous example, CrashPlan had the option to back up to a remote machine on a different network with a free Crashplan account. This option was eliminated when the consumer line of services were discontinued.
• While the backup service provided by CrashPlan are still first in class, the above two controversial changes have broken some trust between CrashPlan and its clients.

No other product works as well.

Since Backblaze added S3 compatibility a few years ago, it's become the most perfect online backup solution.

I also like their transparency in describing their platform and the reports of hard drive reliability are very interesting.

The free egress is priceless, too.

Incentivized

Overall, it is simple to use, lightweight, and effective.

Incentivized

Friendly and knowledgeable support team available to assist with this product. Code 42 (formerly CrashPlan) offers unlimited storage options for reasonable costs, so you really can't go wrong with this product. They have been a reliable resource for our company, and I would recommend to others looking for an easy setup with unlimited storage.

Incentivized

Very easy to follow the install guide.

Because they continuously had times they required updating the account and there were hiccups when that happened, over time, I became skeptical of their ability to keep my files secure. They were the first cloud backup storage company I had ever used and I stayed with them for almost two decades. Then it happened that we did have to do a recovery two different times because of hardware failures. It was anything but a smooth or complete recovery, and their price kept rising as their service declined. Hundreds of files were totally lost in the process. I guessed that among their strategies, it might well have been a re-focus on their part to build up their enterprise accounts and didn't seem to care about small business. I finally had enough and left them as a client.

Incentivized

CrashPlan (in my specific case the CrashPlan Pro or CrashPlan for Small Business (there seems to be somewhat of an ongoing identity crisis with the products) is significantly lower overhead, in terms of cost and complexity, when compared to the other two products I have evaluated/used. The downsides are that it is also significantly less functional than the other products. CrashPlan is, as I have said a good value simple point solution.

• The per-byte pricing has saved us 30% over the competing Wasabi service which charges on a three-month minimum which causes us to pay for deleted objects.

Incentivized

• Tremendous cost savings as the amount of data you backup doesn't impact cost. One flat rate!
• Implementation time was minimal and requires little to no maintenance. Since installation, I've not had to correct or fix any issues. It just works.
• We opted to supplement Code42 with another solution that allowed us to backup data to a local repository due to the amount for data that changes in our firm.

Incentivized