CrashPlan® provides secure, scalable, and straightforward endpoint data backup, to help organizations recover from any worst-case scenario, whether it is a disaster, simple human error, a stolen laptop, ransomware, or an as-of-yet-undiscovered calamity.
$2.99
per month
Dropbox
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox is a cloud storage solution, equipped with features that help users to save time, improve productivity, and collaborate with others. Users can edit PDFs, share videos, sign documents, and collaborate with stakeholders without leaving Dropbox.
I have only evaluated local backup/network storage products and Dropbox. CrashPlan is far and away superior to these. It's more reliable. It scales easily, and the management doesn't kill you. Neither do the finance folks for that matter!
I formerly used SOS Online Backup. It was a very similar system, originally offering unlimited backups at a price similar to Code42. After more than a year of backups, SOS informed me that they'd be reducing my storage from unlimited to 2tb, and, increasing my monthly rate by …
We looked at file sync solutions that require an end user to move data independently, and two major things stuck out:
1. The human error factor was high. You cannot trust people to move files, even if they are important or they've agreed to move them on a certain schedule, and …
Prior to CrashPlan we did not have any centrally deployed or managed backup solution with which to compare. Much of our backups were being completed on a per user basis and were therefore unreliable.
These were the default ad hoc backup systems used before we implemented CrashPlan. While each can be made somewhat reliable, depending on user habits and practices, none provide true continuous versioned backup, none allow a single administrative overview, and only Time Machine …
If you don't need the old computer (Crashplan backs up only user files by default anyway) you may want to go with a synchronization system. Having the file both online and synched on multiple computers makes it easy to work on. No matter when or where, you can work on your …
We selected Crashplan because it was cross platform and the most cost effective solution at the time. The closest contender was LiveBackup but after evaluating the two side by side, Crashplan was the clear winner due to the ease of use for the end users and administrators.
Assistant Director of Development & Alumni Services
Chose Dropbox
I prefer Dropbox to Box. It's more familiar, and the interface is more elegant. With Dropbox I know where things are and how it is going to function. With Box, not so much. For my personal use, I also use Dropbox and like that I am again in that familiar universal workspace.
Individuals (SOHO), families and SMBs, who have a tight budget for offsite critical company data backup are well suited to this product. Especially if you want your data to be hosted locally (Australia in our case). Larger companies, with higher requirements and budgets would be better served elsewhere. Especially when you consider the poor technical support. Although, to be fair, their poor support may just be issues with their Pro/SMB products, as opposed to their enterprise products. However, if that is the case it's a pretty poor show/indicator still.
Dropbox is well-suited for file sharing within our organization. We have employees who do not work out of a traditional office and need to access files from a variety of locations: at home, in client meetings, and while traveling. Dropbox allows us to continue to work from anywhere and collaborate with each other by sharing our files.
Code42 is the most affordable backup system offering unlimited storage that I could find. I came from SOS Online Backup, which I ultimately decided to drop after my monthly rate for their unlimited plan increased by 20x.
With Code42's unlimited storage option, I don't have to worry about the fact that my backups are significant in space. As a photographer with thousands of images at stake, I need to run large backups often.
Code42 runs continuously and silently in the background of my desktop computer. It is truly "set and go", so I don't have to think about it when I'm away. It runs until the designated drive has been fully backed up to my cloud storage. It will then automatically email me once the backup is complete (or, it will email me if it encounters any errors).
Customer service is above par. Anytime I need help, a chat agent is available (chat is my communication preference), they are always friendly, and go above and beyond to resolve my needs.
Dropbox's real-time collaboration features, including simultaneous editing and commenting, have revolutionized the way our teams work together.
On multiple occasions, we've accidentally overwritten important documents or needed to retrieve deleted files. With Dropbox, we can easily revert to previous versions or recover deleted files, preventing data loss and minimizing disruptions.
Dropbox excels in making file sharing a breeze. With just a few clicks, we can generate shareable links or invite colleagues to shared folders.
The CrashPlan program installed on your computer is Java-based vs. a native application. While this makes development for CrashPlan easier, there are a lot of drawbacks to Java programs including more resources usage, less stability, and overall more clunky interface.
While this was also in the Pros category - CrashPlan is an extremely powerful and flexible program, which adds a great deal of complexity. Setting up CrashPlan isn't always a simple procedure, and depending on the complexity of your backup set, can take a while to tinker around with the settings to get everything to work properly.
The CrashPlan desktop program consists of a Java program front end, as well as a backend service - there are times when the backend service will crash, and the front end Java program will refuse to load. Typically, restarting the service or restarting the computer will resolve the issue, but sometimes more in-depth troubleshooting is required.
Perhaps one of the biggest downsides to CrashPlan is its price - at $10/month/computer CrashPlan is more than double the price of some existing backup services such as Backblaze (priced at $50/year/computer). To add salt to the wound, about a year and a half ago, CrashPlan discontinued their consumer options - which were very reasonably priced at $60/year for a single computer or a family plan priced at $150/year for up to 10 computers. When these options were discontinued, the cost of backing up with CrashPlan was effectively doubled for the same feature set.
Along with the previous example, CrashPlan had the option to back up to a remote machine on a different network with a free Crashplan account. This option was eliminated when the consumer line of services were discontinued.
While the backup service provided by CrashPlan are still first in class, the above two controversial changes have broken some trust between CrashPlan and its clients.
Change the name of the root folder, the "()" can cause problems sometimes with some tools trying to find paths inside of the root folder.
The upload queue becomes slow trying to upload files that have more than ~500mb of file size, even if I have 1 Gbit of speed, Dropbox gets stuck uploading single files with that rule.
Sometimes we can't move a shared folder from root location.
LAN sync seems not to be working in my experience.
Dropbox is a user-friendly, easy tool which requires little to no skill and they offer a free version with a good amount of storage available. There are other file sharing tools available however at a cost. Dropbox free version I have used for years and it serves every purpose I need.
[Its] functionality and usability are very good, however[,] on every computer that I have ever installed the app on, Dropbox assumes I want it to update the files every time I start the system up. That's not always true, but the app assumes it is. I can switch that function off, but I would rather that function default to "Off" and then I can decide to turn it on as needed.
Dropbox is really useful, you can access any file from anywhere and you can upload and even edit files online, but, sometimes it can be slow. Downloading, uploading, and syncing is a bit slow, it can take several minutes. Furthermore, the search engine for large amounts of data can be slow too and it is not powerful.
Friendly and knowledgeable support team available to assist with this product. Code 42 (formerly CrashPlan) offers unlimited storage options for reasonable costs, so you really can't go wrong with this product. They have been a reliable resource for our company, and I would recommend to others looking for an easy setup with unlimited storage.
Our experience with support has been limited which is a good thing. We haven't experienced any major issues with the service and most of our service interactions have been useability questions which we were able to find answers for within their knowledge base. For the few times we have reached out to support, the responses were on point, quick, and our issue was resolved in one interaction. I appreciate not being routed to a chatbot or offshored support.
I needed to stay current in improving my daily operations. Dropbox was suggested to me by a former colleague two-years ago and I've been using it just fine ever since.
Unitrends is our primary backup solution here at my place of employment, and I have no complaints. It does on-prem backups to a storage pool and with that, we chose not to also use Unitrends could storage as the cost was pretty high. Crashplan has a low cost and we were familiar with it. We found a great fit for Crashplan at a remote office with a web server, file share server, and a Domain Controller in addition to the Unitrends solution there. I also set up CrashPlan for a nonprofit org, as well as a Health foods store. I felt like I could stand behind the CrashPlan solution with my experience with it, in places like these where every dollar mattered.
Dropbox gives more visual control over the success of uploading. WeTransfer uploads and then sends a link to the recipient. If something goes wrong during the upload, there doesn't appear to be a way to begin again from the dropping point. With Dropbox, I can watch as it uploads. If I lose a connection, it will continue uploading where it left off when I get a new connection. This is vital in transferring large files. If WeTransfer offers that, I was never able to figure it out.
Tremendous cost savings as the amount of data you backup doesn't impact cost. One flat rate!
Implementation time was minimal and requires little to no maintenance. Since installation, I've not had to correct or fix any issues. It just works.
We opted to supplement Code42 with another solution that allowed us to backup data to a local repository due to the amount for data that changes in our firm.
