Things often change quickly in the tech world, and this week proved to be no exception. In a previous series of articles, I went into detail on how to protect your digital assets, which included making cloud backups. At the time, I favored Backblaze but had some good things to say about CrashPlan too. Well… maybe that was a moot point.
What happened to CrashPlan?
CrashPlan announced (read the announcement here) that they are exiting the consumer backup market. As of August 22, 2017, they will not accept any new subscriptions or renew existing subscriptions, effectively sunsetting the entire program by October 23, 2018. They have chosen to focus on the enterprise market, which leaves most home users out in the cold. If you’re a current user, it is time to consider what service you’re going to use going forward. The good news is that you probably still have a little time, but check your renewal date now!
Alternatives
The good news is that I still stand by my #1 choice for cloud backups, which is Backblaze and I can give you another reason why that is the case.
Recently, my wife got a new laptop and I was tasked with the job of migrating her data from an older MacBook Pro to the new machine – a MacBook. No problem, right? Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal, but her tired MacBook Pro decided that the old spinning hard drive had read one too many files and it failed mid-copy. Naturally I was very nervous about this. Yes, I know I had backups, but that feeling you get when you might lose important information is terrible.
I quickly spun up the local backup copy from Time Machine and realized that, for whatever reason (I don’t usually use her laptop), we didn’t have super recent backups for this machine. The last restore point wasn’t too far back, but given the choice, I didn’t want to lose a thing. I logged in to Backblaze to find that her backups were perfectly up-to-date and included every single file she needed.
The backup set wasn’t what I’d call huge, but it still weighed in around 85GB. I figured this was a great time to try the download option, so I clicked a few buttons to select all of her data in the console, and then clicked the button saying I’d like one big .zip file to be created so I could download it.
I got the email that the download was ready about an hour later, so, on the new laptop, I started the download. The speed was pretty good – the download still took a couple of hours and didn’t come close to maxing out our connection, but the data was reliably transferred to my wife’s new laptop where I was able to simply open the .zip file and move it where it needed to go. Yes, I know that other backup programs can do that, but this process was smooth and simple, just like backing up the data in the first place.
Time to take the plunge
If you still don’t have a cloud backup solution in addition to your local copies, now is a great time to consider getting one. I follow a lot of photography forums because it is a hobby of mine, and I recently read a story of a photographer losing years’ worth of work because his primary storage (a RAID array) failed. He had also been backing up to DVD/Blu-Ray and upon checking those backups, he found that most of the media was no longer readable.
I absolutely hate reading stories like that, which is why a simple cloud backup solution in addition to your regular routine can possibly save the day in case you have some equipment fail on you. If you don’t have the upload bandwidth available on your internet connection, I know that limits your options, but you might be surprised to find out what you can back up if you leave it running in the background of your computer.
OK, OK… enough preaching by me. If you do decide to sign up for Backblaze, consider using my link to do so. It helps to support this site and my family, and remember, you get a free month with them when you use my link. But even if you don’t want to use my link – sign up to protect your information! I always love to hear about your digital backup strategies, so feel free to let me know what works for you. Have a great day!