I got an email from a reader recently about backing up a computer. He was lamenting about the demise of CrashPlan’s cloud backup service for home users.
I’ve written about online backup service CrashPlan in the past. The cloud backup service allows users to send their files to CrashPlan servers or to send their backups to other computers or external hard drives. I used it for a time and really liked it.
Last year, CrashPlan announced that it was discontinuing and shutting down its Home Plan later this year, leaving all of its home users scrambling to find a replacement.
CrashPlan is going to concentrate on enterprise and small business customers.
Existing CrashPlan Home Plan customers can transition to the small business version for a reduced cost of $2.50 per month per computer for the first 12 months, with the price increasing to $10 per month per computer after the first year.
Nothing is stopping individuals from paying for and using the small business plan, but for personal use, CrashPlan is recommending that its customers use Carbonite, which has personal cloud backup plans starting at $6 per month per computer. (In the original version of this story, I said Carbonite was not compatible with Macintosh computers. Carbonite does work with Macs).
LOCAL OPTIONS
Well, I’m a fan of taking the simple approach of buying an external hard drive at least as large as your internal drive and making your own backup using software included in the Apple MacOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
One backup is good, but two is even better. Get a few external drives and rotate them regularly to keep the backups fresh. I also recommend keeping one away from your computer and preferably outside your home or office.
OTHER ONLINE SERVICES
Besides Carbonite, I know of some friends who are moving their data to Backblaze, which is a similar online backup service that offers unlimited backups for $5 per month or $50 per year for each computer.
Another online service is iDrive, which offers a free five gigabytes of online storage and an annual plan offering two terabytes of cloud backup for $52.12 for the first year.
I’m sure all these services will get the job done, but I have to wonder whether CrashPlan users will ever really trust an online backup service to be there for the long haul. If you want to take advantage of the ease of automatically backing up to an online service, make sure you back up locally as a backup for your backup.
———
ABOUT THE WRITER
Jim Rossman writes for The Dallas Morning News. He may be reached at jrossman@dallasnews.com.
About the Author
