Testing CrashPlan. What’s Your Backup Plan?
November 26, 2009 by Sherman Hu
Filed under Productivity
Yes, I know… backups or backing up our data is not a SEXY topic whatsoever. But it’s a necessary evil, like insurance, taxes, and liking soy sauce if you’re an Asian dude 
I’m testing out CrashPlan, according to them, its ‘an easy, automatic backup that works quietly in the background. You never have to think about backing up.’
We’ll see. I like setting up systems on auto-pilot and not having to ‘think’ too much about it – so we’ll see how this CrashPlan lives up to their claims.
Get The Lowdown At CrashPlan.com
Free Alternatives, Cross-Platform & Low-Cost Cloud Backup
(1) A cool advantage to CrashPlan is the software helps you backup to your own drives or to another computer (could be a friend’s computer too – think collaboration!) for FREE. Or you can backup to their cloud (3) with *unlimited storage* for a low cost.
(2) I do like their cross-platform flexibility.
And if you’re considering using it for personal use (and not commercial), it’s free!
Feature Comparison Chart
On their Features page, they dive into more detail about their offer, including this Feature Comparison chart.
Compare Online Pricing
On their "Compare Online Pricing" page, they showcase your savings with CrashPlan, compared with the alternatives. What caught my attention is the Amazon S3 comparison, as I do backup to my S3 account using JungleDisk.
CrashPlan shows the Family Plan calculation by default. Let’s see what my savings are for an Individual computer using 1TB of data…
Savings For 1 Computer Backing Up 1TB Of Data
Yowza!! How do U like dem apples now?!
These numbers make me seriously reconsider my plan to backup all my data to my S3 account. Wouldn’t you? 
Where CrashPlan Really Shines – Offsite Or Other Computer Backup
Though CrashPlan would like your subscription to CrashPlan Central, they’ve offered you options to backup to your other offsite computer or another computer – and this service is free. Simply brilliant!
Check this video where he shares how simple it is to perform backups and restore to/from a Mac-to-PC. In addition, you can seed your backup to their offsite service via a 1TB external drive they provide, along with free shipping. Check out details in their store.
View Software (Mac Version)
This shows the Overview view of the CrashPlan software on my Mac. Very simple, clean UI and easy to use.
What’s Your Crash Plan?
What are you using for backup or your "crash plan"? Online service? Offsite service?
Appreciate your thoughts and feedback
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Sherman…. this is interesting. I did a bunch of research into this after a HD failed on me. I wrote this post and had “dornquast” from Crashplan respond. What he responded to is almost opposite to what they show in your screenshots.
http://www.jayleishman.com/my-new-love-of-the-week-crashplancom/
After this post, I made my decision to switch to Carbonite and love them so far. I meant to update that post to say, ” why choose Crash Plan when Carbonite is actually unlimited with no hidden gimmicks.” Besides, their name Crash Plan just bleeds the idea that you will crash your computer someday! Interested to see where this goes.
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Testing CrashPlan. What’s Your Backup Plan? | Sherman Hu … http://bit.ly/4pKmio
This comment was originally posted on Twitter