Popular Backup Solution CrashPlan Discontinuing Personal Subscriptions

Code42, the company behind the popular cloud backup solution CrashPlan, today announced that it is sunsetting its CrashPlan for Home subscription options in the near future. Starting today, Code42 will no longer offer or renew CrashPlan for Home subscriptions.

In a video message, Code42 CEO Joe Payne said the company is ending its personal subscription options to focus solely on the business and organization market.

For existing Home customers, Code42 suggests they purchase a CrashPlan for Small Business plan or switch over to Carbonite, another backup service.

Customers who choose to use CrashPlan for Small Business can transfer their data within minutes. A Small Business plan is priced at $10 per month per device for unlimited upload space, but current CrashPlan for Home subscribers can get a 75 percent discount for the next 12 months. Code42 is allowing users to migrate cloud backups that are 5TB or smaller.

Customers who choose Carbonite can get 50 percent off of select Carbonite plans. Carbonite pricing starts at $60 per year for unlimited storage on a single device.

Current CrashPlan for Home subscribers can continue using CrashPlan until their subscriptions expire, but once that happens, they will need to choose a new backup solution. CrashPlan subscriptions are non-refundable, so customers will want to wait for their subscriptions to end before transferring to a new plan or service.

Code42 is earmarking October 22, 2018 as the end-of-support date for CrashPlan Home, with the company planning to honor all subscriptions until that date. Subscribers who have subscriptions that extend beyond October 22, 2018 will see their accounts upgraded to a CrashPlan for Small Business account with Code42 promising to send along additional information on the upgrade process before the service is discontinued.

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jhfenton

30 months ago

My CrashPlan subscription is good through March 31, 2018, so I have a few months to figure out where to move my 9TB of data. (We have a 1G fiber connection, so backing it all up to a new source shouldn't take more than a few days to a few weeks, depending on the service's upload speed.)

I have to think this spells the death knell for CrashPlan, though. They say they're doing it to focus on enterprise customers, but what enterprise would trust CrashPlan after they exit the consumer market in such an inglorious fashion.

They could have doubled the pricing or achieved the same thing through tiered pricing, and I would have stayed put out of inertia (and the knowledge that I'm backing up a ton of data). But they chose to quit. Once a quitter, always a quitter.

Rating: 10 Votes

belvdr

30 months ago

I use real hard drives (private/always available) and a fire proof safe. Got Carbon Copy Cloner? :cool:

Depends on the safe. I am a former firefighter and saw many safes that couldn't protect the contents because the fire burned for so long.

Rating: 6 Votes

Trebuin

30 months ago

I do the same, but I also use an offsite backup. Offsite backups are crucial.

The day I realized I had a problem with on site backups: seeing houses in my neighborhood float away during a flood

Rating: 6 Votes

bwintx

30 months ago

OK, so anyone have recommendations for a replacement? Given they just dropped service on me I'm not going to give my business to their other offerings. I don't know anything about carbonite, are they a good service? I'd like a solution where I alone control the encryption key, preferably has support for Linux or even dedicated apps for NAS devices, version control, and preferably unlimited space. Anyone have ideas?

I chose a combination of Arq software and Backblaze's B2 service, based on the following extremely informative MacRumors thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/arq.2017935/

Rating: 3 Votes

netnothing

30 months ago

Yes they did auto update which was nice. The main niggle with the business services is that they’ve dropped the computer-to-computer backup option. Gutted.

Thanks for the info. I didn't use the computer-to-computer option.

Do you know if they have an iOS app for Crashplan for Small Business? When I started the upgrade, it initially had both my iPad and iPhone listed - because I have the Crashplan app on both to be able to get a file if needed. What's weird is in their calculator, they wanted to include those in the future pricing?!? Not sure why since they don't backup data?
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Isn't that what they kind of did - double the pricing? For everything except the family plans - you are going from $60/yr to $120/yr in the Small Business option.

And they are giving you that Small Biz plan for the remainder of your current term - and then giving you 12 months after that for $2.50 per month.

Seems to me, with a single backup, that's a decent deal for now (to not have to re-upload everything again).

Rating: 3 Votes

Pipper99

30 months ago

Backblaze has worked very well for me. A number Mac tech podcasts have been recommending it like ATP and Gruber's podcast.

Rating: 3 Votes

CarlJ

30 months ago

The fact that Arq had a bug that could have potentially deleted your whole backup is a little bit of a red flag for me. Do you have Arq? If so, what are your thoughts on that bug?

Yes, I have Arq. I've been using it quite happily/successfully for just under six years, including recovering some files from it. Yes, the bug could possibly have deleted my backups. It didn't. Bugs happen. The developer fixed it and had been pretty up-front about everything. And, to be clear, if it deleted my whole backup, most of what I would have lost is time/bandwidth spent uploading - my primary backups are to Time Machine, in-house (having only one form of backup is foolish, as they say, "Two is one and one is none"). Arq is there in case the house gets hit by a meteor.

The big win for Arq (aside from it being time-tested) is that it's a backend-agnostic backup tool (that encrypts with your chosen key before it leaves your machine). The developer is motivated to make a great backup tool, period; he's not selling anyone's backup service, so he isn't imposing limits (e.g. "no backups of external drives", rate limiting, etc.) that are in the favor of someone selling a "complete solution" rather than in the customer's favor (in the "complete solution" scenario, the CEO is balancing desirability of the product against how much storage/bandwidth each customer uses and how much money they get from each customer - this can lead to decisions that are better for the company's bottom line at the expense of the user).

Rating: 3 Votes

Smigit

30 months ago

If you have over 5TB you still get the deal, but your backups are erased and you start over.

I was concerned I'd hit the 5TB but apparently not. That said one friend had a potentially decent suggestion for those that are only a bit over 5TB and that is to exclude whatever files you can to get you under 5TB, ideally concentrating on the less important stuff or things you have backed up elsewhere. Migrate over and then re-include it in the backup.

Not ideal but if the above works it still saves 5TB worth of uploads and likely a lot of time.

Anyway I'm disapointed with the news but I'll switch to Pro and take the 75% off. I have four devices currently so the $10 a month is roughly equivalent to my family plan anyway. I didn't use local backups.

Prior to the 18 month mark I'll reconsider the options on the market and weigh up the costs of something self managed or see what Backblaze etc are doing. Right now the family plan and discounted rates still makes Crashplan the best option for me based on the volume of data I have and I feel no urgency to jump given pricing and offerings elsewhere will change with time.

Rating: 3 Votes

Weaselboy

30 months ago

30GB isn't even close enough for me. I need about 1TB for photoshoots etc.

Arq has some price comparison info here ('https://www.arqbackup.com/documentation/pages/strategy.html') that might help you decide.

Rating: 3 Votes

cuestakid

30 months ago

So I did a long chat session with them today. I wanted to add a couple things.

Good
1. Later in 2018 annual payments will be possible
2. They claim migration is simple and takes less than 5 min
3. The same general principles of unlimited retention remains. Adding external drives does not add to your machine total.
5. Mobile devices do not count to the total amount of machines
6.

Bad
1. The migration can only do 5TB.Unclear if you have more what your options are.
2. We still have the weak M-F type hours and support (ie no weekend or after hours)
3. When you must start paying the monthly seems to depend on your subscription
4. Client may still be the lousy java based one.

Bottom line-

I suggest every customer do a web chat with them on their site and see what your exact situation is.

Just some thoughts based on my web chat with them

Rating: 3 Votes

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