If you are going paperless, having an effective and preferably automated backup system is absolutely crucial. I also recommend having your data backed up to at least two places – one local, and one offsite.
For years, I have used CrashPlan for my online backup, and have been reasonably happy with it. I haven’t experienced any big issues, but there have been some little things that have bugged me.
I read Katie Floyd’s recent post Yes, I really did switch to Backblaze, here’s why… with great interest, because I walked away from Macworld/iWorld with exactly the same thoughts[1] – I have been thinking of switching to Backblaze.
Some things that have bugged me about CrashPlan:
- There is no native Mac or Windows app. Their client uses Java, which can cause weirdness and resource issues.
- I haven’t done any testing on this like Katie has, but CrashPlan sure seems to take a lot of resources.
- I back up an external drive with CrashPlan, and it seems like sometimes it does weird things and appears to re-upload things from that drive from time to time. I’ve been told by their support that it is not actually re-uploading and only looks like it is, but I haven’t had time to dig into what is actually happening.
When I was at Macworld, I was able to talk to many people from Backblaze, including their CEO Gleb Budman, who was outside the booth. I was really impressed with their approach and their technology, and the fact that they have native Mac and Windows clients.
I haven’t gone as far as Katie to actually make the switch, but I am thinking about it. The main thing that has held me back is the thought of re-uploading everything makes me cry.
Any Backblaze users out there? How do you like it?
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More on my Macworld/iWorld 2014 trip here. ↩