Data Backup Digest

Although the world of data backup is often seen as oversaturated, we recently lost an ally in the fight to safeguard personal data. CrashPlan was a popular service that was used by a countless number of home computer users to backup and protect their data – but Code42, the company behind CrashPlan, ended their personal data backup services in October 2018. Although they're still focusing on business and enterprise-grade backup services, they've left many personal users looking for a new solution.

CrashPlan for Small Business

As stated, CrashPlan is still available in some capacity. If you just can't go without CrashPlan, consider switching to their small business plan. For starters, Code42 is offering a 75 percent discount for the first 12 months to all migrating users. After that, Code42's Small Business Plan only costs $10 per month for each device.

But there is one important catch to keep in mind – your backups can exceed 1TB in total size. Files that are larger than 1 TB in size must be uploaded to their service after the 12-month migratory period is over.

Carbonite

It's clear that Code42 doesn't want to leave their most valuable customers in the dark. To that extent, they've teamed with Carbonite to offer a 50% discount for a limited time. The discount – which is offered in collaboration with Code42 and CrashPlan – applies to both Carbonite Home and Carbonite Core, so you can receive the exact amount of protection you need with your new service.

There is a short verification process – which asks you to use the same email as your CrashPlan account – to confirm your status. Once complete, you'll be ready to take advantage of all the features Carbonite has to offer.

Backblaze

Another popular alternative, Backblaze is slightly more affordable than Carbonite's service. Despite the price difference, Backblaze offers nearly all of the features as its competition, including default file backups, automated backups, support for external USB drives, restoration for older operating systems, two-factor authentication, built-in encryption, and more.

Dropbox / Google Drive / OneDrive / iCloud

There are plenty of options to consider besides CrashPlan for Business, Carbonite and Backblaze. However, services like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and iCloud aren't really meant as full-scale backup solutions. Instead, their meant to sync the data on your local hard drive with that of their cloud servers. If a file is ever deleted from your local hard drive, it's typically removed from the cloud drive, too.

As such, these solutions aren't really designed to hold all of your data. While they work well in a pinch, especially if you don't require a full-scale backup service, they don't include all of the functionality seen in CrashPlan.

Moving Forward Without CrashPlan

If you're heading into the New Year without CrashPlan, remember: there are plenty of other solutions on the market that offer similar features and functionality. Given the plethora of threats that personal computer users face today – including malware, viruses, identity theft, and more – it's important that you migrate your data to a new backup service as soon as possible.