
CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market - akulbe
https://blog.code42.com/data-protection-needs-diverge/
======
5_minutes
I actually have 3 Crashplan for Families under my hands.

My mom and dads iMacs is one of them. This is literally easy money for
Crashplan. But the price would double to move them to the new Small Business
plan.

What I liked about Crashplan, besides the unlimited space was that if files
would get deleted, and you would find out about it 3 months later, you could
recover them.

With Backblaze, which is mentioned here, you wouldn't. Which, for me beats the
whole purpose of doing backups at all.

See here:

[https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-
us/articles/217666688-What-...](https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-
us/articles/217666688-What-Happens-If-I-Delete-A-File-From-My-
Computer-?mobile_site=true)

This makes no sense to me: so if a malicious hacker, virus, Trojan or your kid
deletes a folder... by the time you find out, Backblaze might already have
stopped taking backups of it, itself.

~~~
rdtsc
Also works on Linux which Backblaze doesn't. I have Ubuntu on all the family
and some extended family machines and using Crashplan currently.

Anyone can recommend if a good backup alternative that works on a Linux
(desktop)?

~~~
andrewstuart2
For full folder backups, duplicity [1] has been great for me, does incremental
backups, and has quite a few backends. You control rotation policies, full-
snapshot frequency, etc, and bring your own storage (works with s3, rsync,
etc.). Full-folder recovery is also pretty easy in my experience.

The downside is that it's all on you to configure providers, pay for storage,
and I'm not aware of any indexing or ability to retrieve single files. Also,
it's CLI-based, so it might not be very intuitive for desktop use. Still, a
free solution with lots of utility. :-)

[1] [http://duplicity.nongnu.org/](http://duplicity.nongnu.org/)

~~~
ATsch
The issue with these for me is that with the common cloud storage providers,
even just backing up my Documents folder raises it above the price of
BackBlaze or a similar offering.

~~~
Ajedi32
Anyone have any experience with Sia? $2 per Terabyte-month sounds really
attractive.

~~~
jtagx
I dont't think there's an easy way to push incremental backups into Sia

------
NelsonMinar
So what's a good Linux consumer solution? We here are all capable of rolling
our own hacks, sure. But I want a good clean friendly product I don't have to
configure or think about. The real challenge in these things is the UX for
restoring files.

(For home-grown options, I've been using rsnapshot for years. But it really
works best on a local disk and the rsync-over-ssh hacks I've done are the
opposite of "clean consumer solution".)

~~~
DCKing
Duplicity [1] is a free software project that creates incremental backups and
encrypts them using GPG. It can use Backblaze B2 [2] as a remote
synchronization option, which when I looked at options last year was also the
cheapest cloud storage provider anywhere (if this has changed, let me know!).
Duplicity also supports a very wide array of other cloud storage services if
you'd like to use another one [1].

The killer feature Duplicity has for consumer use is that it's probably the
only (?) backup program on Linux that has an actual quality desktop GUI called
Déja Dup [3] that's included by default in Ubuntu. It works somewhat similar
to how Time Machine works on Macs. But if you need to backup headless systems
the Duplicity command line interface works fine as well.

When it comes to backup features it's not the most powerful tool compared to
some other solutions like Attic or Borg, but I think the GUI and out-of-the-
box (encrypted) integration with cloud services make it one of the most user
friendly solutions on Linux.

[1]: [http://duplicity.nongnu.org/](http://duplicity.nongnu.org/)

[2]: [https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-
storage.html](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage.html)

[3]: [https://www.linux.com/learn/total-system-backup-and-
recall-d...](https://www.linux.com/learn/total-system-backup-and-recall-deja-
dup)

[3b:] EDIT: Also Duplicati has a nice web GUI. Worth looking into as well.

~~~
dawnerd
Adding a support in for duplicati. Been running it in a docker container on my
servers for a while and it's been pretty smooth sailing. Sending all backups
to a gsuite business account.

~~~
rrauenza
Duplicati is suprisingly easy to set up for Windows -> Linux. Installed the
windows client, made an account on my linux box and pointed the windows client
at it.

Is it a proper service on Windows? That's a problem. I want to configure it
from an admin account and have it still work when non admin/non tech savvy
users login.

~~~
geostyx
I can't answer your question, but every time I've tried Duplicati the DB gets
corrupted pretty quick.

------
archagon
In my mental checklist of evaluating new products and services, Backblaze has
always gone above and beyond while Crashplan irritated me enough to make me
switch:

* Are they one of the market leaders?

* Do they have a company blog? Are they passionate about their product? (Backblaze's technical articles are always a treat; barely a word from Crashplan.)

* Do they regularly interact with their users, e.g. on HN? (I often see Backblaze commenting on relevant articles.)

* Is their website user-focused, or is it aimed at the enterprise? (Crashplan's website is a confusing mess.)

* Do they offer secondary products that relate to their primary offering? (B2 leverages Backblaze's fine-tuned backup architecture.)

* Is their software well-built/designed, or is it annoying and bloated? (Crashplan's client forces you to wait for reindexing every time you check a new folder! The tree view is also very annoying, and Backblaze's whitelist just makes a whole lot more sense.)

A shame for Crashplan users, but I hope this change ensures BB's longevity for
many more years!

~~~
5_minutes
Their 30 day file retention policy makes all these questions irrelevant.

"Do they have a blog"?

Really? I'm sorry but when it comes to backups I rather have them working on
the product instead of having a marketing machine up and running.

~~~
archagon
There's a pronounced difference between flat-out marketing and posting
interesting articles that help promote your product. It's clear to me which
side of the divide Backblaze lies on. And I think Crashplan's shuttering bears
this out: their tech was always a means to an end for them, and their end
simply did not include power users.

~~~
gt_
This is basically the marketing that got Backblaze it's respect.

The service features and GUI experience fall short, and yes I am widely just
referring to the 30 day file retention. In practice, this basically means you
need yet another plan to make up for that. Once you find that other plan, it
should make Backblaze unnecessary if it works in a reasonable way.

------
Thespian2
Like many in this thread, I'm here looking for alternatives. CrashPlan was
sufficient for my family needs, and none of the other services I looked at hit
the same sweet spot. Slow, saturated uploads, and their bloated client were
tolerable for what I was paying, and what I got. We've got a few mentioned
replacement possibilities scattered in the comments and replies below, but I'd
like to put forth my "asks" for solutions, which seem to match others.

I'm a tech guy, and "rolling my own" Linux solution is possible, but in this
case, I'd be happy to pay someone else to worry about the details of storing a
copy of my bits, so I can do other things with my time.

My wish list is as follows:

MUST

======

have both Linux and Windows client

ability to whitelist/blacklist/select subsets of files/folders to be backed up

======

SHOULD offer as many of the following as possible (all optional)

=======

some sort of "Family" pricing deal for multiple machines in one account

encrypted backups with consumer controlled key not necessarily given to
service

option to switch out back end bulk storage infrastructure

"forever" file retention / restoration of old versions (charge me for storage)

user scheduled backups and/or don't bring client to crawl or saturate home
line

======

Feel free to add any replies with suggestions here which might be useful to
others.

For my point of view, if CrashPlan found the home offering unsustainable from
"abuse" of the "unlimited" feature, I would have much preferred them introduce
a cap to the home plan at some "reasonable" value. They could have balanced
the books, and saved 95% of their customers. Start rolling off oldest file
version backups when you hit space cap and/or offer extra space at
cost+profit. Done.

~~~
corford
I think [https://www.spideroak.com](https://www.spideroak.com) fits your list
(specifically "One" which is their consumer solution/app). I'm a happy user
who's had an account with them for years (it costs me under $10/month iirc).

It has/supports:

* Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android

* Lets you share your quota across unlimited machines/devices

* Lets you whitelist/blacklist folders & files to be backed up (by pointing and clicking and/or by specifying patterns)

* Does LAN syncing

* Keeps versioned file history forever (i.e. point-in-time recovery)

* Has scheduling but I haven't used this, it just runs quietly in the background and I never notice it negatively impacting anything (client and accompanying background service is currently using a total of 51MB of memory). You can cap the upload speed if you want to make sure it never saturates your uplink.

* Uses end to end encryption i.e. they don't have your key (important caveat: this is provided you only use their app and don't use their web interface, although even then they claim the key is never stored anywhere - just kept temporarily in the server's RAM while it auths/decrypts files for you)

* Been around for ages and not likely to go out of business any time soon

* Lets you share files with a self-destructing link

* Uses aggressive de-duping on their backend (ZFS based I think?) so you can squeeze the most out of your quota (just checked my account and I'm using 94GB without compression & de-duplication but only being charged for 41GB)

Edit: and they release a lot of opensource:
[https://github.com/SpiderOak](https://github.com/SpiderOak)

~~~
walkingolof
I've tried Spideroak and I really tried to like / use it, but it never worked
very well, feels unfocused and a bit unfinished.

I'm probably going to just move my photos to Dropbox (I know, its not a backup
program, but it works and is very simple to deal with)

~~~
corford
Not sure how recently you tried it but the current SpiderOak One app is solid
and polished (imho anyway). It just works and is brain dead simple to use.
Much more so than I remember Crash Plan ever being (admittedly haven't used
them in years).

Edit: I've only ever used SpiderOak's Windows app though. No idea how good/bad
their Linux client is.

Edit 2: this is what the current version looks like on my windows machine:
[http://imgur.com/a/KfnlQ](http://imgur.com/a/KfnlQ)

------
deanclatworthy
I was a heavy Crashplan user. I have around 4 family machines backing up to my
machine (free), and then my machine backing up to Crashplan (paid).

What are my options going forward?

I can easily switch _myself_ over to Backblaze, but are there any simple,
free, GUI clients for creating incremental, encrypted backups to another
machine over the internet? The great thing about crashplan has been I just
install it on the family member's machine and not once have I had a single
problem. It just worked and provided my family member's with reassurance that
I had a backup of their data, that I couldn't touch or see, if they had
problems with their own machine.

And as I see that BB employees are in this thread, how about making backup
folders opt-in for power users. I have sensitive files all over my machine,
and who knows what crap MS is storing in User/LocalData etc. so I prefer to
opt-in to folders rather than take a risk opting out and syncing a password or
keyfile to your servers. The UI for exclusions is awful too.

~~~
chrisper
You could try using Duplicati. It has a Web GUI. You could also just create
the configs at home and then export it! You could also just invoke it from
CLI.

~~~
deanclatworthy
I have looked into Duplicati, but I'm not so keen on running an SSH server on
my machine and/or SFTP in order to let others back up to it. A lot of extra
admin work would be involved in protecting that set up and creating the
necessary port-forwards and firewalls. Whereas crashplan just works.

I'm certainly not going to go through the steps of setting up CLI tasks on my
families machine members either.

~~~
chrisper
You can choose any kinds of destinations for Duplicati. Even a local place.

I personally use it with Google Drive.

~~~
deanclatworthy
If you see the parent comment, I am referring to backing up relatives'
machines to mine. These relatives are not local. Backup must happen over the
internet.

------
kentt
Good riddance. I switched from Backblaze to crashplan because it was cheaper
for families. I've regretted it ever since. The client is horrible. Right now
it's consuming about 4GB of memory. I had to increase that recently, otherwise
it wouldn't even start. It littered gigs of log files around my system when it
did that.

Often the webui would just timeout if I wanted to recover a file. Never could
figure out why, so I couldn't really recover files reliably anyway.

I'm glad I'm forced to find a solution that better. I'd definitely stay away
from them for business solutions.

------
rrauenza
I think this means it is also an end to CrashPlan's peer to peer free backup
solution? I don't believe their business plan offers that.

Thank goodness I bought into their long service plan. I have 1.9 years to
figure this out.

We have one Linux NAS and a bunch of Windows clients. I could go with
Crashplan Business on the NAS and then punt on the Windows clients. Or go back
to BackupPC for windows... I hope their windows client solution has improved
-- I used to have to install a Cygwin rsync daemon.

~~~
ant512
It's worth pointing out that CrashPlan's business client app uses Electron
(because the Java client app for home users wasn't bloated enough). That's
reason enough for me to look elsewhere.

~~~
mikevm
According to their website you continue using the same Java app: _Do I need to
install a new CrashPlan app? No. The conversion process automatically updates
the CrashPlan app on your computers. Instead of the green-themed CrashPlan for
Home branding, you 'll see the blue-themed CrashPlan for Small Business
branding._

[0]
[https://support.crashplan.com/Subscriptions/Migrate_your_Cra...](https://support.crashplan.com/Subscriptions/Migrate_your_CrashPlan_for_Home_account_to_CrashPlan_for_Small_Business)

~~~
ant512
Hmm, maybe it's just the Enterprise version that's using Electron.

------
Grue3
Damn, this came out of left field. CrashPlan was a constant pain to use for me
(slow uploads, weird bugs where it wouldn't start up after updating, actually
deleting all my backups when I didn't renew my 4-year old subscription over
winter holidays with barely any warning). But the other services simply
couldn't compare on price and backup retention. Having old versions/deleted
files always available saved my ass so many times. The new business plan seems
only twice as expensive as my current one, but it seems like a rip off to be
charged twice as much for the same functionality. I think I'll take them for
the 75% discount offer, and then wait for any reasonable competitor to pop up.

~~~
DelightOne
Are you allowed to go with the business plan without having a business? What
do you put in as company name then?

~~~
magicalhippo
Another bummed out Crashplan user here. They offer account migration[1]. Of
course you then have to pay per computer, and you lose the computer-to-
computer backup feature.

[1]:
[https://www.crashplanpro.com/migration/](https://www.crashplanpro.com/migration/)

~~~
DelightOne
Yes! It says enter company name. Question is how to proceeed there cause it is
for my family and no company.

~~~
lsaferite
d/b/a <Insert Favorite Pet Name>

------
ishbits
This is unfortunate. I chose Crashplan initially due to great family pricing,
but more importantly as it had a Linux client. Given I backup Linux home
server, a Linux desktop and a Linux laptop this has been its killer feature
for me.

~~~
ad_hominem
This is also what drew me to Crashplan, but I've been irritated with the
service long enough that I think I'm glad they've forced my hand.

For one, their client is very bad at backing up without affecting other
network services; when I'm on a video call I frequently have to pause
Crashplan backups entirely or I'll have stream issues (or manually limit the
upload speed to something really small that I'll inevitably forget to undo
later). I've never had this issue with Dropbox for instance. The client is
also written in Java so it's a resource hog; beyond annoying my desktop
machine that also made it hard to install directly on a somewhat resource-
limited Synology NAS device a few years ago (I eventually got the install to
work but it sporadically won't start up on boot due to memory constraints).

Really, on my Linux desktop my most important files are my code, documents,
pictures, and video, which are all already backed up to Dropbox. If my hard
drive died it wouldn't be a big deal to do a fresh install as long as I can
sync my code, documents, etc. with Dropbox. So I may just go without a full
desktop backup solution.

I don't know how they're going to transition to enterprise given their trashy
desktop client but good luck.

edit: in addition to Dropbox I'll probably add tarsnap to sync the important
things to S3

~~~
SyneRyder
_> I don't know how they're going to transition to enterprise given their
trashy desktop client but good luck._

I kinda feel that makes them perfectly suited for enterprise. I've never
thought of enterprise software as having a particularly good user experience
_coff_ sharepoint _coff_

I'm also rather glad CrashPlan forced my hand. There were a lot of good ideas
about it (the peer-to-peer features were interesting), but I really hated the
Java client. And I always had to pause it's uploads if watching Netflix,
because it would saturate the upload channel completely. (On a Mac here, for
what it's worth.)

They've given plenty of notice though, so I'm thankful for that.

------
sumoboy
I'm sure there tired of consumers taking advantage of the unlimited storage by
storing PB's of data, and losing $$$. Amazon basically did the same thing
recently removing unlimited storage. Business data is more a bit more
predictable with storage needs and really makes alot more money.

I dumped crashplan a few years ago due to the bandwidth restrictions and time
it would take to download TB's worth of data, built my own solution with a
remote Synology nas. It's a real cost issue once you have more than 1-2TB of
data, otherwise it's just easier to use gdrive or dropbox for most needs.

~~~
porker
> Amazon basically did the same thing recently removing unlimited storage.

I'm working out what to do next since they did this. I use Arq
([https://arqbackup.com](https://arqbackup.com)) and back up my desktop
(Windows) and laptop (OSX) to Amazon Cloud Drive. Together it's approx 1.5TB
of backups - and this is excluding a bunch of folders and accepting data loss
on them.

The doubled price doesn't appeal, but I haven't found an up-to-date storage
price calculator to see what my options are in the TB range.

~~~
ValentineC
> _I haven 't found an up-to-date storage price calculator to see what my
> options are in the TB range._

For pay-as-you-go storage, I found this:
[http://coststorage.com/](http://coststorage.com/)

------
pavel_lishin
Well, fuck.

Let the suggestions begin - who should I switch to? Bonus points if moving
data to a newly purchased hard drive isn't a terrifying process that looks
like it's losing all of my backups, as well as Linux/Windows/Mac support.

~~~
dokument
We need a p2p backup solution. Something like what wuala used to be but open
source and distributed. Give up 1TB of local space to get ~750GB offsite, or
something like that.

~~~
pavel_lishin
You might need a p2p backup solution where your computer is part of the
network, but I want a me2idontcare solution, where I give up dollars, and gain
gigabytes offsite.

I want a boring solution, written by a boring company, that very boringly
stores my files.

------
yoda_sl
Like many I'm really disappointed by that news. Not only I have been using
CrashPlan for over 7 years, I did recommend it to many family members and
friends. I remember back in 2010 it took more than a month to upload / backup
all my Macs at home... Since then I have added a few extra TB of data which
CrashPlan uploaded without any issues. Asst one time, I even had to restore my
MBP which had a drive failure and I did loose only 15 minutes of work.

I need now to check all the different solutions, and start from scratch again!
I wish they had offer some bridge to transfer what is already backed up to
another provider; yes I know this is not a simple task but at least their
customers will not be upset by that news.

------
Luc
Their email was a good reminder to watch out with date formats.

"Your new subscription expiration date is 11/06/2017" had me thinking they
accidentally set the expiration to last June...

------
metafunctor
Oh, what a shame! My family is a heavy user of the computer-to-computer
backups that CrashPlan for Home offers. It's great knowing all of the data on
our family computers is securely backed up so that I can fetch the drive from
a 20 minute drive to the office or my parent's house.

In case of catastrophic failure, where on-site backups would also be destroyed
or corrupted, I would hate to have a drive shipped from the United States to
me. It would probably take forever.

Is there a alternative available that does computer-to-computer backups, and
supports Mac and Linux?

------
pjc50
My own notes on alternative backup/sync solutions:
[https://github.com/pjc50/pjc50.github.io/blob/master/secure-...](https://github.com/pjc50/pjc50.github.io/blob/master/secure-
clouds.md)

SyncThing+cloud storage seems most promising but I've not actually tried it
yet.

~~~
leipert
Yep. I am using syncthing since around 3 years now and never had a problem,
upgrades are flawlass, really not that much CPU/RAM (<1 % and 50 MB for 18000
Files ~ 70GB). Setup is like this:

1\. syncthing on PC -> syncthing on Synology NAS.

2\. NAS -> Internal backup from 3-Disk RAID to additional 4th disk

3\. I am thinking about additionally uploading it to Amazon Glacier or
Backblaze

------
AdmiralAsshat
Well, this sucks.

CrashPlan was awesome in that it doubled as both a backup app and a cloud
storage solution. Since I had my settings set to NEVER remove deleted files, I
didn't need to have each of my backed up external hard-drives plugged in at
all times in order to have them backed up. I could just plug them in as
needed, make sure Windows assigned them a unique drive letter, and let
Crashplan sync any new data up.

None of the alternatives I'm looking at can do this. Carbonite lets you back
up _one_ external hard drive on the Prime membership. Backblaze seems like it
would delete all of the external drives if I don't keep them constantly
plugged in. And no Linux client.

It's kinda sad that the market hasn't yet created something that seems
fundamentally basic to data hoarders:

\- TRULY unlimited

\- BACKUP, not SYNC (that means I shouldn't need to keep three external hard-
drives plugged in at all times just to ensure you don't delete it!)

\- Fully cross-platform (yes, Linux users exist, too)

~~~
eli
I don't see how "truly unlimited" and "data hoarders" can ever be the basis of
a sustainable business. Each additional terabyte costs them real money to
store.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
I think you underestimate how many people are in the "lite data hoarders"
category. I don't consider myself a _huge_ data hoarder. I have about 4
Terabytes. That's the totality of two decades of collecting music, video,
pictures, ROMS, game ISOs, etc. It's enough that I can still fit it all on
today's portable external hard-drives. And I don't think it's really much more
than other people who might do amateur photography or videos and like to store
their RAWs. However, it's more than is feasible for your standard
iCloud/Google Drive/Dropbox plan can provide without significant burden.

At this point there's nothing really comparable out there to what Crashplan
offers. Even the services like Amazon Glacier or Backblaze's B2 start becoming
way more expensive once you pass the terabyte mark or so.

~~~
freehunter
>I have about 4 Terabytes. That's the totality of two decades of collecting
music, video, pictures, ROMS, game ISOs, etc.

Good lord. And you need to back this all up in the cloud?

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
If you had a lossless rip of a rare album that is not on iTunes, not on
Amazon, not on Google Play Music, and cannot be found via torrents, wouldn't
you want a backup of it in the cloud as well?

~~~
eli
Of course, but it might be better for everyone involved if I paid for it per
GB.

------
seltzered_
Fwiw, I've been a crashplan family user for years, here's my future plan for
family backups:

\- Use a freenas at home

\- Make everyone in the family back up to it instead of crashplan. (No idea
what app to use here yet but assume there's a dozen of em)

\- Anything that isn't already acting as an offsite backup via the freenas
server (I.e. My own stuff, and server only files), upload to backblaze b2.

I'm overall okay with the announcement. Was already planning to switch away
since crashplan wasn't offering the great deals they had years ago (crashplan
family was ~7.50/month with 4 year plan in 2014)

I look forward to no longer futzing with Bhyve/Linux just to use crashplan
from my server too.

I don't look forward to spending more time figuring this stuff out more
though.

------
turc1656
I chose pCloud as my provider of choice. It's not unlimited, but it's $10/mo
for 2 TB of storage and 2 TB of traffic. That is more than enough for most
users, and you can increase the size in 2 TB increments at additional cost.
pCloud has pretty much all the bells and whistles one would need. I certainly
consider it rich in features. I also like that it can be used as a sync
storage or just as a "hard drive in the cloud" where I don't have to keep the
data or folder structure on my machine if I don't want to.

The only downside is that the integrated encryption is an additional charge.
To get around that, I decided to go with Boxcryptor, which I already had. The
average user can use the free version of Boxcryptor. It is awesome and I
highly recommend it. Both pCloud and Boxcryptor show up as physical drives on
your computer, which I find convenient. So I have my primary source drive
synced with the Boxcryptor drive/location and Boxcryptor is set up on my
machine to encrypt the data on the fly as it is copied (surprisingly, this is
not the default setting). Then, I have a separate process that syncs the raw
Boxcryptor directory where the files show in their encrypted format (the
"drive" version shows them unencrypted because everything is done on the fly
both ways) to my pCloud storage. In the end, I have 3 versions - the
unencrypted source, the encrypted Boxcryptor copy, and the pCloud backup which
contains the encrypted copy.

------
turc1656
I recently had evaluated my entire backup plan and CrashPlan was evaluated as
a possible change. It was one of two finalists I was debating between. Boy am
I glad I didn't go with them. I understand that they will not just cancel the
existing users and are only preventing new customers from signing up. But
let's be real. We know what this means. It means they will not be giving the
individual consumers in any sort of priority whatsoever. The non-commercial
customers have now become a legacy operation.

FWIW - the reason I decided against CrashPlan was: 1) I inherently don't trust
anything that is unlimited everything (storage space, versions, undelete,
etc.) 2) I especially don't trust anything that gives all those unlimited
features for a paltry $5 a month 3) My speed was horrendously slow. Seemingly
capped at about 2 mpbs (250 kbps). 4) The application seemed to be bloated and
resource heavy. 5) They have a well known issue where you can wipe your entire
backup from their server if you encounter the dreaded disaster scenario (or
get a new machine) and have a fresh O/S with a new installation of the
software. If you don't do the steps exactly in the correct order, it will see
your new installation as being the source copy and having nothing to store,
and subsequently wipe everything on their servers. I see that they recently
posted something on August 1, 2017 about "adoption" which seems to be
migration for new machines so maybe this issue is finally addressed.

~~~
rrauenza
And who was the other finalist?

~~~
turc1656
Sorry, I had split my original (long) comment into two separate ones and I
thought I left a brief mention of it.

The winner was pCloud. Please see my other comment for a more detailed
explanation of how I have things set up and why I use them if you are
interested.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15075935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15075935)

~~~
jimmux
After checking them out, it does seem like they hit a nice sweet spot of
features and price. The lifetime plan is pretty tempting as well, but I do
wonder how sustainable that is. I assume they are banking on a charge for
increased storage in the future.

------
linopolus
For all those complaining about Backblaze not holding deleted data forever: Do
you really rely on a cloud solution as your one and only backup?

I use Backblaze, and I don't worry. It's not my only backup. I additionally
have a local backup, which today has files I deleted like 5 years ago, as you
should to.

So go get happy with Backblaze, it's a nice application, not some slow Java
thing like Crashplan, and just works..

~~~
freehunter
>Do you really rely on a cloud solution as your one and only backup?

Most likely yes. Considering most people don't have any backups of any kind,
having at least one backup, and an off-site backup at that, is infinitely
better.

The number of people who have any backup is small. The number of people who
have two is far, far smaller. Most people just don't care about their data
that much unless they're a business, which is why this thread exists to begin
with.

------
geostyx
HashBackup[0] works well for me and works with several remote storage
providers such as B2. I recently wrote a post about one of the ways I use
it[1].

[0] [http://www.hashbackup.com](http://www.hashbackup.com) [1]
[https://jacobhands.com/hashbackup-
example-1/](https://jacobhands.com/hashbackup-example-1/)

------
hkchad
I just canceled my Crashplan about 2 weeks ago and fully switched to Backblaze
B2. Mostly because I consolidated all my computers to a Synology NAS and now I
upload to B2 via Synology Cloud Sync. This way I have a single on-site backup
plus my offsite backup. I never liked that I had to manage Crashplan on each
individual computer. Now I just setup NAS sync and upload from the NAS.

------
berdario
I got a 4 year contract with Crashplan (expiring in 2018) and I'm also pissed
by this news...

I paid less than 4$ per month (the price would've been already higher if I
renewed yesterday, but still acceptable) and stored around 130 GB of data (so
not a lot, but it's already more than the 100GB threshold that some services
use)

I need something that would keep watch on all the files on the system (see
inotify) to avoid continuous rescans of the disks, and that would work on
Linux...

Just these 2 simple requirements already seem to disqualify any other tool
suggested here:

Carbonite (no Linux)

Backblaze (no Linux, and none of the 3rd party integrations with B2 seems to
support live watching of files)

Tarsnap (no watching)

Borg (no watching)

Does anyone know if it's feasible to keep the whole / under Dropbox, Google
Drive or Spideroak? (I know that GDrive doesn't have an official linux client)

The only solutions I know would be:

Lsync (but it would be only syncing, no history), r1soft (but it seems to be
only servers, haven't checked yet the features)...

Are there any other tools out there?

I'd really thinking that I should write my own

~~~
brianwski
Brian from Backblaze here.

> Backblaze ... none of the 3rd party integrations with B2 seems to support
> live watching of files

I'm not exactly sure what you are going for, but you can "preview" files
through the web interface on BOTH the Backblaze online backup and also B2.

If you are specifically asking about movies, just stay tuned. The first step
was allowing preview of simple images, next we want to support previewing of
movies.

Also, a feature we added a week ago in Backblaze Online Backup is the ability
to "Share Files" (any file in your backup) with other people. For the first
release we limited the file size (just so our servers did not tip over) but we
plan to support the ability to share all files less than 10 GBytes.

~~~
0x5f3759df-i
>I need something that would keep watch on all the files on the system (see
inotify) to avoid continuous rescans of the disks, and that would work on
Linux...

What op is looking for has nothing to do with previews

------
alkonaut
I backup 5 computers with their unlimited family plan. ~250GB at $12.50/month
(I think). Is there any service even remotely similar in price?

This was super convenient because I could offer parents etc to backup to my
account at no extra cost to myself. Peace of mind. I also suspect this was
what made this unsustainable.

Where should I go now?

------
akulbe
My position on this whole thing is that CrashPlan isn't just selling storage
for backup.

Their value is in the fact that they could be trusted to have your back if
something happened locally. It was literally a set-it-and-forget-it solution.
I have multiple backups, but this was my primary offsite solution.

I understand the consumer market isn't as profitable as the business market,
but why not opt to raise prices, and let consumers decide if it was valuable
enough to them to pay the increased prices? Why just abandon that market
completely?

I recently opted to trial the CrashPlan Pro (which they just renamed to
CrashPlan for Small Business) subscription. This move by Code42 gives me
pause. It makes me wonder when they'll do the same thing to the Business
segment?

I went with the Business plan _because_ was I was a happy Home customer. Now,
I wonder if it was good move.

------
hendersoon
I am using Duplicati [1] to backup. It's FOSS, supports linux, windows, and
MacOS, and creates block-based encrypted backups. The client works on most
SOHO NAS devices too. Very happy with it.

I backup to a Google Drive with unlimited storage. This costs $10 per month
with a G Suite for Business [2] account. You do not need 5 users to get
unlimited storage. I have just under 9TB in my GDrive.

Backup services generally charge $5 to $6 per computer. My solution costs
double that but can backup every computer I own and gives me a cloud drive
with unlimited storage to boot.

[1] [https://www.duplicati.com/](https://www.duplicati.com/) [2]
[https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html](https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html)

------
Havoc
Not sure I need a backup solution anymore to be honest. All my stuff is on
something cloud-y already anyway. (Cloud =/= backup I know).

Realistically my data loss risk profile is pretty low. So not sure I need to
spend coin on backup...

Much more scared of say Lastpass dropping dead.

~~~
fencepost
The reason for backup in that case isn't so much dying hardware as it is data
corruption or malicious activity.

Backup needs to account for a bunch of failure modes: data failure
(corruption, malware, "Windows Ate My Data," user error), hardware
failure/loss (drive death, laptop legs), building failure ("all my backups are
in that safe that reached 600 degrees internally.....").

Used to be that for serious emergencies you could usually get data recovered
by a lab, but with SSDs that's iffy at best or likely not happening at all
with drive encryption.

------
mikevm
I don't understand all the whining in this thread. Their new offer is pretty
unbeatable: _Back up for free until the end of your current CrashPlan for Home
subscription, then enjoy a 75% discount for your next 12 months. After that,
CrashPlan for Small Business costs $10 per device each month._

So after the first discounted 12 months it will only cost $10 per backed up
device. And you get:

* Unlimited storage

* Unlimited file versioning

* Keep deleted files forever

* Encryption

* Headless Linux client

I'm amazed that people here (who probably take in pretty decent salaries)
cannot afford to pay $10 for a backup service that gives you all that.

~~~
Oletros
Perhaps a lot of the "whining" comes from the people using the Family Plan.

Going from $149/year for 2-10 computers to $240-$1200/year is not a little
increase

~~~
fencepost
If I were actively whining it'd be about the apparent demise of the peer-to-
peer option which is what I've been using for years. Heck, I have some old
backup archives from old systems in there that I never got around to figuring
out how to import. Guess there's new urgency if I want to pull anything out of
those.

That said, Crashplan itself has been a lot less reliable in recent months than
I'd like - little things like my laptop only being able to back up to a home
system when I'm NOT on the same network, even though I can access other
services on the same machine. Guess it's time to move a new backup system
higher on my priority list.

Edit: The thing I really like(d) and will miss about Crashplan is the ease of
adding another system to it. Either by signing into my account after
installing the client on a new box (e.g. when I added a laptop) or by sharing
a short code with my parents that they could simply enter to back up to my
system with no real configuration required.

------
IdontRememberIt
I had Mozy and noticed by chance that it had silently stopped backuping. I
needed to reupload everything. I was surprised to see how long an inital
backup can be when you have a lot of data (they are capping on their side).
This was a gentle reminder to use 2 tools. Today I use Crashplan and
Backblaze. I will switch to the small business (love the private key and
unlimited backup) but I will miss the computer-to-computer backup feature
which is great for a massive restore.

~~~
DINKDINK
>I will switch to the small business (love the private key[...]

Are you talking about this?:

[https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/4/Configuring/Archive_e...](https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/4/Configuring/Archive_encryption_key_security)

"Archive encryption key security options Your encryption key is secured in one
of three ways, which is based on your security settings:

-Standard: Secured with a salted and hashed version of your account password

-Archive key password: Secured with a salted and hashed version of your archive key password

-Custom key: Encryption key is replaced by a custom key that is never escrowed on a authority server"

~~~
IdontRememberIt
Yes. The custom key is a must have for my situation (legal requirements).

------
tribby
I can only imagine that they are not doing this to "put the customer first"
but rather because they offered unlimited storage with a linux client. that
made it a popular choice with the data-hoarding/seedbox/plex server crowds.
100TB for $13/mo doesn't scale.

yet another product that has folded because its users understood "unlimited"
to mean "unlimited." good riddance to these unethical companies, I hope their
business offering fails.

~~~
DINKDINK
>yet another product that has folded because its users understood "unlimited"
to mean "unlimited." good riddance to these unethical companies,

What did CrashPlan do that was unethical? Seems like they kept their word and
let users backup an unlimited amount. Contrast that with AT&T who capped so-
called unlimited plans. CrashPlan found that it was untenable and shuttered
it. Their honoring their contracts that they sold to customers. No bait-and-
switch.

------
bluedino
Oh the irony. At my last job, we setup 3-4 salesperson's laptops on a
CrashPlan consumer account. Once we hit the storage limit, we'd buy another
account, and then add a couple more laptops to it. It was marginally cheaper
than buying the small business plan and WAY less of a headache.

It was such a shortsighted way of setting things up and a pain to administer.
We're talking $10/month for salespeople that are paid 6 digit salaries.

They're going to have to migrate now.

~~~
rrauenza
I considered doing that for a small non profit -- but realized I really didn't
want the employees to be able to restore/see each other's data.

The business plan has isolated accounts.

------
pizzetta
Too bad Druva does not offer a home product.

I believe C42 allows reselling of their product. So, someone could buy in bulk
from C42 and turn around and offer the same product to end users (at some
markup). The issue would be moving the data from on "server" to the other.
However, I think C42 offers tools to migrate data --not sure if individual one
offs at a time is doable since you don't have access to their back end.

------
gjjrfcbugxbhf
Is there any open source cross platform solution that

1\. encrypts stuff on the client machine 2\. has a pluggable backend - i.e.
can push to one (or several of) e.g. S3, equivalent commodity cloud offerings,
an NFS server or an arbitrary server 3\. Rotates backups 4\. Depuplicates
(does this conflict with clientside encryption?) 5\. "Just works" (I'm happy
with a config file)

~~~
pjc50
Have a look at [https://syncthing.net/](https://syncthing.net/) and see if
it's suitable.

~~~
gjjrfcbugxbhf
This solves a different problem... Looks good for syncing files though.

------
rietta
This sucks! I do not know of a comparable service to recommend to friends and
family. The business plan is more expensive than Backblaze. This is a true
blow to those of us who run Linux at home as the dearth of go-to cloud backup
services is profoundly frustrating. Guess its back to the bad old days of
rsyncing to a mirror at a friend's house.

------
viraptor
Will be interesting to see who's able to pick up the customers. Also, will
backblaze provide some nice offer for migration, or will they try to delay /
spread the influx. I wouldn't expect them to know about this coming up / have
enough spare capacity. Then again, it's only home accounts, so may not be that
much summed up.

~~~
brianwski
Disclosure: I work at Backblaze

> I wouldn't expect them to know about this coming up / have enough spare
> capacity.

Backblaze ALWAYS has to have extra capacity for "bumpy" customer growth. We
have three types of extra capacity:

1) Deployed, spinning drives accepting customer data live but not yet filled.
This "live buffer" is usually 60 days or more, right now it is about 90 days
(of "normal load"). Right now Backblaze's storage is growing by about 2
Petabytes per month, so we have 6+ Petabytes spinning awaiting new customers.

2) An entire month of hard drives sitting on the "loading dock" (these can be
deployed and accepting customer data in maybe 24 hours in a complete panic).
This is about 2 Petabytes.

3) The "contract to purchase 3 months of drives and parts" at a pre-
established price from our suppliers. Under most circumstances we can
accelerate orders and get drives accepting data within two weeks. This is
another 6 Petabytes.

If the burn rate approaches ANYWHERE NEAR that high we'll scramble and do
better than that to accept the customers.

If it really looks like we cannot handle the load, we have a setting that says
"Members Only" that no longer allows new customers to sign up, but allows all
existing members to continue backing up and doing restores. Once a customer is
paying Backblaze we must honor our contract with that customer.

~~~
tomjen3
Any chance you could add the ability to store files for more than 30 days? I
doubt that it is actually that much data, but I don't want to come to my
computer to see that some ransomeware has been encrypting my files for 90 days
and now demands to be paid.

~~~
brianwski
Based on the enormous amount of feedback we have received today, we are
actively talking about increasing it. It was an arbitrary business decision,
it is as easy to change as a constant in the source code.

If Backblaze can afford it, we will definitely be changing it soon.

~~~
geostyx
If you can't afford it, let me pay extra for this feature.

------
org3432
I'd like to see more mature solutions that store all my data in the cloud,
revision it there, and just use my local hard disk as a workspace cache
instead. I suspect that's one of the reasons CrashPlan is exiting too, they
can't backup iCloud Document folders on Mac, and likely OneDrive either, so
the writing is on the wall.

------
mioelnir
Looks like neither Backblaze nor Carbonite support E2E encrypted backups where
I do not have to send the password to the cloud, or the private key is in fact
generated inside the cloud.

Which means I have to really scramble to find something else that is
compatible with computer-illiterate family. Geez, not what I needed.

~~~
sreitshamer
(Disclosure: I work for Arq Backup)

Arq encrypts the backups before transmitting them, and the encryption key you
choose never leaves your computer.

~~~
porker
Is there a way to share the encryption key between computers (manually set the
key)? See my aside @
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15075063](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15075063)
for why

------
jwillmer
Really disappointed in CrashPlan. Giving the customers 3 months before the
backups are worthless is not cool!

~~~
Ragewind
In the email I have received they state that their service continues until
October 22nd in 2018, so that's more than one year left. I'm on a free
account, so it has got nothing to do with a running subscription.

~~~
ValentineC
> _I 'm on a free account, so it has got nothing to do with a running
> subscription._

This sounds like something that was mostly missed by the comments here — does
that mean that people who _only_ utilised their peer-to-peer backup system
need to find another solution too, because their software needs to phone home
to work?

Relying on user accounts and "backup codes" [1] stored on CrashPlan's servers
sounds like a scary additional point of failure.

Well, one more thing to add to my list of criteria for backup software: that
it'll keep running, for the most part, without having to log into an account
somewhere.

[1]
[https://support.crashplan.com/Backup/Backing_Up_To_A_Friends...](https://support.crashplan.com/Backup/Backing_Up_To_A_Friends_Computer)

~~~
Ragewind
You are right, for home usage I'm completely relying on the peer-to-peer
backup system to have some kind of "distributed" backup where every machine is
backed up to another machine and to an external drive. If I wanted I could
even add an offsite location as well.

In combination with file watching and storage of multiple versions per file
this makes a pretty unique feature set which makes it hard for me to find a
replacement.

They stated a few times that the free version will also only work until that
deadline. I assume the client is not going to work anymore after that.

I'd prefer they released an offline (home network) version which I would
gladly pay for.

------
mathw
Well I had only just finished my first CrashPlan backup set, so thanks a lot
Code 42.

The software's horrendous on Linux anyway, it just seemed like my best option.

Now what?

Guess I'll have to write my own. Unless someone's got something supporting
cloud backup that's better than Duplicity that I've not heard of.

------
joelrunyon
> We will honor all of our existing agreements with consumers, but we will no
> longer renew any consumer subscriptions, nor will we sign up any new
> consumers for Crashplan for Home.

Does that mean they will honor the next month and that's it - or they're
completely done?

~~~
SyneRyder
From the email, it looks like your current agreement + 60 days free
subscription extension. So if you're on monthly billing, you've got about 60 -
90 days.

[They renewed my annual plan just 9 days ago...]

~~~
jschulenklopper
> So if you're on monthly billing, you've got about 60 - 90 days.

I got such a mail, mentioning:

"We will honor your existing CrashPlan for Home subscription, keeping your
data safe, as always, until your current subscription expires.

To allow you time to transition to a new backup solution, we've extended your
subscription (at no cost to you) by 60 days. Your new subscription expiration
date is 09/13/2017."

There's no way I can fit 60 days between today and Sep. 13. I was about to ask
about this, only to discover that their mail came from a noreply@ address...

~~~
duebbert
Same here! Received email today (22 Aug) saying: "we've extended your
subscription (at no cost to you) by 60 days. Your new subscription expiration
date is 09/14/2017."

That's not 60 days from today (or from the end of my monthly subscription)!!!

~~~
SyneRyder
I just checked my email again, and the subscription expiration they quoted me
on my annual subscription wasn't extended either (it's exactly the 12 months
I'd paid for). I assume it's a typo and that they mean it's that date + 60
days.

But you're right, I wouldn't rely on it though...

------
jonathanoliver
I would love to know of any other offerings that perform both P2P as well as
cloud-based backups.

~~~
ValentineC
Arq lets one back up to SFTP servers, so that's an alternative…?

------
davidjnelson
Crash plan is great for my windows computer since I can't use time machine on
it. I do have a giant spinning drive with windows history backups for non
catostrophic backup. As long as the transition is seamless, $10/mo seems fair.

------
CharlesW
The only reason I used CrashPlan is that, on my home network, anything I'd
want to back up is on my NAS. Are there alternative "consumer" solutions that
support that?

~~~
CWuestefeld
I use IDrive for this. It runs right on my Synology NAS, doing scheduled
backups of the data it contains. The pricing is pretty reasonable, too.

~~~
ValentineC
Heads-up for anyone considering IDrive — there's a "90% off" welcome promotion
for the first year that's not really obvious on their website:
[https://www.idrive.com/idrive/signup/el/welcome90](https://www.idrive.com/idrive/signup/el/welcome90)

------
brango
Looks like rclone might be the best alternative:
[https://github.com/ncw/rclone](https://github.com/ncw/rclone)

------
wilhil
Am I being thick, looking around their entire site and I can't see the price
anywhere.

Even the FAQ says to sign up to a trial, give your credit card info and then
you see the price...

~~~
ashmud
$10 per device per month [1].

[1] [https://www.crashplan.com/en-us/business/](https://www.crashplan.com/en-
us/business/)

------
Exuma
Bummer..... just got this email. Carbonite looks like trash, I'm not sure I
trust that. I will likely just pay $30/month.

------
t0mbstone
NoooooooOOoooo!!!

Crashplan is my favorite backup engine, and I have recommended it to so many
people! Don't leave me!!

------
SippinLean
Is there a difference between the Home and Small Business plans that justifies
doubling the price?

~~~
freehunter
Most likely the justification is that they're not making enough money from the
Home plan and instead of raising prices, they're cutting the lower plan.

Their actual list of feature differences [1] doesn't show much else in the way
of justification.

[1]
[https://support.code42.com/Administrator/Small_Business/Get_...](https://support.code42.com/Administrator/Small_Business/Get_started_with_CrashPlan_for_Small_Business/Compare_CrashPlan_for_Home_and_CrashPlan_for_Business)

------
daenz
Time to finish writing my own backup system. Crashplan filled that need for me
on linux.

~~~
viraptor
If you're looking for something for Linux only, you could use a generic backup
app like Borg instead. Stable and tested frontend with your choice of
backend(-s).

------
agotterer
The comments are littered with lots of complaints, but very little alternative
suggestions. Does anyone have any recommendations for a backup solution they
actually like? I like BackBlaze as a company, but like many of the other
commenters I have an issue with the 30 day deletion policy.

------
pnathan
ok.

::signs up for business account::

CrashPlan has worked great. Not moving away from a working technical solution
I already pay for. The delta between now and the new cost is pretty small;
maybe $5-7 / mo. _meh_

~~~
spilk
The big difference for me is that the old family plan supported 5 devices, the
business plans are all per-device. If I back up 5 computers with the business
plan this costs $600/year vs. $150/year.

------
reiichiroh
BackBlaze doesn't have any family plans from what I can find?

------
SimonPStevens
So much for the idea that paying for a product keeps it running.

~~~
X86BSD
I think you can charge for something and still go broke. Perhaps they grossly
under charged for storage? Or storage + employees + ...

Bad business are started all the time.

------
jacquesm
That's a good day for Tarsnap and BackBlaze.

------
lanbanger
"Put the customer first" by cutting the customer off.

Looking forward to seeing CrashPlan on the 2018 Startup Dead Pool.

------
atYevP
Yev from Backblaze -> Hey gang, been busy on Twitter, did I miss anything?

------
jimjimjim
bread and circuses --> food and video. these are the only consumer tech
industries that will survive.

everything else will eventually pivot to business/government.

