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CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

blog.code42.com

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Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#61

Post by zippergz »

archagon wrote: post #8

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 oft…

I switched from Backblaze to Crashplan a few years ago, and I've been MUCH happier with Crashplan. The biggest issue is that, at least on Mac, Backblaze noticeably slowed down the machines (multiple machines, not just a problem on one), while Crashplan didn't. Any backup software that makes my computer feel slow, creates regular beachballs, etc. is not something I'm going to pay for. Then the nail in the coffin for them was when I very carefully followed their instructions for migrating to a new computer, and yet it STILL insisted on starting from zero and backing up everything again. I figured if I had to backup from scratch anyway, I might as well do a trial run of something else, and I haven't looked back since.

So, this news makes me very sad, but there's no way I'm returning to Backblaze...

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#62

Post by SyneRyder »

joelrunyon wrote: post #55

> 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?

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...]

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#63

Post by brianwski »

jacquesm wrote: post #49
brianwski wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I work at Backblaze. For Linux, Backblaze offers "B2 Object Storage". You can choose all sorts of Linux 3rd party clients! The billing is different -> half of 1 penny per GByte per month. This is cheaper for less than a Terabyte, and can be a bit more expensive for more than a Terabyte. Check the "integrations" page for pictures of a penguin: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/integrations.html Among others, Cl…

B2 is not a replacement for the backup service, though possibly it could be hacked to serve as one. How about releasing a backblaze protocol spec or the client source code? That way us Linux fans can roll our own.

> How about releasing a backblaze protocol spec...

That is all described here: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/

Now the Mac & Windows Backblaze backup client uses those protocols, but for full disclosure ALSO still uses one or two additional old legacy protocols. But our intention is to move entirely over to using the new B2 protocols, and if it is not possible we plan to extend the B2 protocols to make it possible.

One example is that the Macintosh Backblaze backup client has available the ability to push up to 1,000 individual small files in a single protocol request. (The individual setup and tear down of HTTPS for 1 or 2 or 3 byte files hurts performance.) So we'll be adding that to the "official" B2 protocols.

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#64

Post by [deleted] »

5_minutes wrote: post #33

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, y…

[deleted]

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#65

Post by 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.

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#66

Post by jacquesm »

brianwski wrote: post #63
jacquesm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B2 is not a replacement for the backup service, though possibly it could be hacked to serve as one. How about releasing a backblaze protocol spec or the client source code? That way us Linux fans can roll our own.

> How about releasing a backblaze protocol spec... That is all described here: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/ Now the Mac & Windows Backblaze backup client uses those protocols, but for full disclosure ALSO still uses one or two additional old legacy protocols. But our intention is to move entirely over to using the new B2 protocols, and if it is not possible we plan to extend the B2 protocols to make it possible…

Cool, thank you!

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#67

Post by archagon »

5_minutes wrote: post #59
archagon wrote: post #8

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 oft…

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.

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.

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#68

Post by 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.

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#69

Post by ajmurmann »

rrauenza wrote: post #9
ishbits wrote: post #3

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.

Me too. They suggest Carbonite, but it doesn't have a Linux client.

I used to have Carbonite for my wife's iMac. It was a little slow to backup but worked on till we actually needed to recover all data after a HD failure. Since then I couldn't dislike Carbonite more than I do. The first ten minutes of the recovery process the disclose was fast. Then it continuously slowed down. Of course customer support blamed it on our connection which was complete BS. I then started downloading the files were needed most through their web UI which was not bottlenecked on their end. However, there seemed to be done restriction on their end on how many files you can download at once. The limit seemed to be around 100 files. If you download too many you will see a spinner minutes and then download a empty tgz. It was incredibly painful and tedious. We have up on most files. The entire idea of unlimited space is obviously not viable and something gotta give. Apparently in Carbonite's case it's the download bandwidth. Should have seen this coming.

I can't dissuade against Carbonite strong enough.

We now have a NAS and back up truely important data to S3 and iCloud.

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#70

Post by tomduncalf »

5_minutes wrote: post #33

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, y…

WTF. This sucks, my main use case for Crashplan is downloading files that I long ago deleted (or left on an old machine), or downloading stuff from old external hard drives (which Backblaze also doesn't support). I might just suck it up and pay the small business price.
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