CrashPlan: multi-platform cloud backup

Backups are one of the most important elements of IT life. Ask anyone who has lost data to a failed hard drive, a stolen laptop, or a botched system upgrade. During the last two weeks, I have been evaluating CrashPlan, a multi-platform backup system with two very interesting features: unlimited, encrypted cloud backup for a small monthly fee, and the ability to back up to any computer running the CrashPlan client/server package. This can be any Mac OS X, Windows, Linux or OpenSolaris system. To be clear – the CrashPlan client and server packages are free to run for personal use – the only costs come in when using CrashPlan’s cloud storage.

The cloud backup system is really interesting. It’s called CrashPlan+. The first interesting feature is that when they say unlimited, they really mean it. There is no limit on the number or size of files you can backup to the system. They also let you setup your own 448-bit encryption keys which should give even the most paranoid user a solid sense of security. They do offer a seeding service, to allow an initial backup to be sent in via a hard drive, but that is currently limited to the continental United States. Here’s hoping they open the service to the whole world soon. The price? $55 USD/year gets you unlimited storage space for a single computer on the cloud storage systems, and $100 USD/year covers all computers you own.

The second notable feature is the ability to backup to any other computer on your home network, or the internet for that matter. These backups do not require a CrashPlan+ membership, and can be used simply by downloading and installing the software. This allows you to backup any laptops in your house to your primary machine – or, like me, to an external drive array attached to the primary machine. It also allows you to backup to a friend’s house or an office computer that is running the CrashPlan software. This offers even more protection in the event of a fire, robbery, or hard drive failure. There is no limit to the number of backup locations you can configure – right now I’m backup up to the cloud, to an external drive array, and to a computer at my office. Combined with DropBox, this gives me confidence that all my important data is fully replicated between multiple locations. The only real problem with this is the limited upload speed that DSL provides, and I don’t have a practical solution for that yet.

My only real complaint is that the backup files aren’t easily accessible if you aren’t using the CrashPlan software. This can’t be avoided, really, due to the encryption and the internal de-duplication, but always makes me nervous. It’s part of the reason that in addition to DropBox, TimeMachine and CrashPlan, I also burn DVD-R’s every month of important files. This provides “simple” backups, as long as DVD drives are common. Once we move to the next physical media format, I’ll convert my backups over. (Anyone who think’s my paranoia is laughable should try to find an Iomega Jazz2 drove or a working DVD-RAM drive and a compatible system. I have had to let go of a huge pile of SyQuest 44/88 MB disks, Zip100 and 250 disks and a couple of weirdly spec’ed DAT tapes over the years due to format obsolescence.)

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