Backblaze or Crashplan online backup?

It’s no secret that reliable data backup is a pivotal aspect of any small business or individual computer user nowadays.

Luckily, online backup services have come a long way, matured with their standard features and have become affordable anymore. There are several online backup services we’ve tested over the years.

Here’s a quick comparison of major pros and cons of CrashPlan for Small Business (previously CrashPlan PRO) and Backblaze. Let’s cut to the chase.

CP CrashPlan for Small Business

Pros

• Retention and versioning. CrashPlan for Small Business  offers very generous file retention and versions policy. By default, it’s set to never remove deleted files from your backup set. Additionally, file versions can be backed up continuously (every 15min) or daily. This is crucial in case of data corruption, or malware infection i.e. file encryption caused by ransomware.

• Reporting. One can get daily backup reports as well as warning and critical alerts if backup doesn’t run as scheduled. CP will also run verification scans and will send notifications if there are problems. This is important, as one needs to know right away is there’s any problems with backup i.e. it hasn’t run for a few days to figure out the root cause(s).

• External drive backup.  If you tend to store data of one or multiple portable UBS drives you’re in luck. Once a drive is backed up, its data is there forever. That’s pretty cool.

Cons

• Unpredictable updates. As it had been noted before Code42 has a history of pushing automated UI/app updates surreptitiously that result with Crashplan client crashes and leave clutter behind that can give some admins serous agita.  At one point there were multiple versions of CP program for Windows available under Downloads section, but it was not clear which version was to be used. There hasn’t been a clear upgrade path for CP app.

• Performance. CP client tends to be a resource hog, especially for the older systems, even though there are settings to meter CPU usage.

• Restores. The primary way to restore your data is via web restore. Once you’ve made date and file selections CP generates a hyperlink to a ZIP file with your restore. Downloads of the restores tend to be incredibly slow anymore. If you need to restore a few TB of data you may be looking at days to complete. Apparently it’s because Code42 is throttling bandwidth on their end.

Backblaze

Pros

• Light weight client. Backblaze client has a small footprint when it comes to resources usage, it’s reliable and fast.

• Data Security. In addition to backup encryption to protect your data, Backblaze has introduced two-factor authentication. A 6-digit code can be sent to a mobile device during sign-in and Authenticator app for an extra layer of security. As we have learned from Heartbleed bug, encryption and passwords aren’t adequate to protect from unauthorized access to your data. Kudos to BB for implementing MFA feature.

• Price. The cost of unlimited data backup for one computer is $50/y or $5/m. That’s dirt cheap.

Cons

• Abysmal reporting. While the product targets individual users and it doesn’t come with many enterprise-level bells and whistles, reporting is undoubtedly lax. One can only opt in to receive weekly backup summary and that comes in very bare form. In today’s fast paced world, you need to know the status of your backup at all times, or at least daily.

• Data retention policy. This is a big one if you ever face a situation with file corruption or malware infection and need to go back in time. 30 day is as far back as you can go as of this writing (Jan 2019).

• External drive backup. Backblaze will automatically delete external drives backups if they are not attached to the main computer every 30 days. That’s pretty inconvenient.