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CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

blog.code42.com

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Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#241

Post by berdario »

extra88 wrote: post #216
berdario wrote: post #204

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 avoi…

Just googling "inotify linux backup," I found my way to this post about inotify not being recursive [0], doesn't that limit its usefulness for triggering backups of an entire drive? For Linux and the relatively small amount of storage you require, you're very likely going to be looking for client software independent of backup storage medium, not a service that provides a client. 130GB would be about $3/month on AWS…

Yes, from my understanding you have to watch on inotify every single file on your system (watching / is not enough), which causes a considerable increase in memory usage for the kernel (like, more than 500MB on my laptop), along with forcing you to increase fs.inotify.max_user_watches

Not ideal, but you only need to do it once and I already have it set up in my ansible playbook:

https://github.com/berdario/dotfiles/blob/5c999113d9ce993f01...

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#242

Post by larrybud »

zippergz wrote: post #93
ValentineC wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some folks at r/DataHoarder recommend Duplicati: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/6vbcok/crashpl...

I'm pretty sure that whatever solution the r/datahoarder people go for is exactly the one I DON'T want to choose. Those are the exact people who make attractive pricing unsustainable.

Duplicati is backup software only; you bring-your-own-(local or cloud)-storage.

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#243

Post by rrauenza »

brianwski wrote: post #192
rrauenza wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want a simple, predictable flat fee, not a pricing guide ... https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217667478-Under...

There is a calculator on this web page: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html (Scroll down to "B2 Cost Calculator") If you type in the size of your hard drive, that will be the "predictable bill" you will get each day.

That is pretty awesome (but I'd still rather have a fixed fee).

Also -- how do I know my 3rd party B2 backup system isn't going to cause me extra charges from using API's inefficiently?

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#244

Post by 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/ [2] https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#245

Post by domador »

brianwski wrote: post #201
SpikeDad wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thi is a nice ego boost for you but I wish you had answered some of the questions that folks have posted. What good is a backup tool if you a) can't restore using the native tool and b) you can't restore files from more than 30 days.

> What good is a backup tool if you a) can't restore using the native tool I am so confused by your question? With Backblaze, you can get 100% of you data back in two ways: 1) you can get a free external USB hard drive sent to you with all your data on it, or 2) You can prepare a free ZIP file with all your data and download it. We provide a restartable native bzdownloader to help you download the recovered files. >…

Without some form of versioning, there's always the risk that the only backed-up copy of a file is a corrupted, useless version. This is the best summary of everything else I've said here.

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#246

Post by 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.

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#247

Post by rrauenza »

brianwski wrote: post #222
domador wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing that fascinating insider insight regarding non-zero-sum competition and advertising! This whole CrashPlan Home episode deepens my skepticism about services that claim to offer an unlimited amount of a physical resource (atoms on a hard drive, in this case) for a fixed price. Code42 has mentioned certain reasons for exiting the home user market, but I wonder if an unmentioned reason is the cost of p…

> Is the cost of disk space the reason why BackBlaze expunges files deleted on a backed-up computer fromthe backup on your servers after 30 days? The original reason was to prevent customers who owned a single 1 TByte hard drive from filling it with content, backing it up to Backblaze, writing down the date, then emptying the hard drive and filling it with DIFFERENT content, backing up to Backblaze, writing down the…

Maybe you could also furiously debate the Linux client while you're at it :)

(I can better understand the policy now as well -- keep people from using as primary offline storage.)

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#248

Post by hendersoon »

mioelnir wrote: post #179

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.

Backblaze supports a user-provided passphrase, which is used to encrypt your private key. That provides E2E security. It isn't used by default, though.

https://www.backblaze.com/backup-encryption.html

Re: CrashPlan is exiting the consumer market

#250

Post by eli »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #95
eli wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 photograp…

> Even the services like Amazon Glacier or Backblaze's B2 start becoming way more expensive once you pass the terabyte mark or so.

Yes, this is my point! It's expensive to store a terabyte in the cloud. There is currently no way around that. Crashplan was probably losing money on customers who had multiple TBs in the cloud.

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