User:STEMinfo/CrashPlan

CrashPlan is cloud backup and recovery software for small businesses. CrashPlan backs up data to remote servers or hard drives. It is available on Mac, Windows and Linux. As of 2018, backup to other computers is no longer supported.

Initial backups may take several hours via LAN or days over the internet, depending on the amount of data and bandwidth available, but afterwards, continuous and incremental backups are conducted without user intervention.

Around 2012, there used to be a paid option for seed loading, in which a hard drive was sent to the user, so a faster local backup could be performed to the drive and it could be shipped back to Code42 for initial backup. However this Seeded Backup service was no longer offered in 2016; neither was the corresponding Restore-to-Door service, which would allow a hard drive containing extensive restore data from backups to be shipped back to the user faster than an over-the-Internet download.

With CrashPlan, data is encrypted, password-protected and stored in a proprietary format. There is also an option for a more secure private key. Corporate users in 2012 that had CrashPlan PROe back up to private servers instead of Code42's data centers in four out of five cases. In 2012, the software had an option to create a private on-site backup server.

In a comparative review published in 2015 in The Wall Street Journal, Geoffrey Fowler observed CrashPlan was his favorite out of the four services evaluated. He observed it lacked "fine print", whereas some of the other services charged additional fees for basic features or weren't really unlimited. PC Magazine in 2017 gave CrashPlan 4.5 out of 5 stars and awarded it Editor's Choice. The review praised it for its user interface, local backup options, and security features, but said its mobile and explorer-based features were "limited."

A 2012 product review on MacWorld gave CrashPlan a rating of 4.5 out of 5, and Gartner, in 2012, gave the enterprise version, CrashPlan PROe, an "excellent" rating. All Things Digital praised CrashPlan for its operating system support and configuration options. Also in 2012, Ars Technica said CrashPlan had better features and pricing options than its competitors.