Cloud storage is increasingly relevant to individuals and businesses alike as storage sizes increase and data becomes increasingly sensitive. The threat of disaster wiping out all of your data can be devastating to a lot of people. Choosing the correct plan for you or your business from the sea of choices, however, can be quite challenging. So in this CrashPlan vs Backblaze article, we’ll take a look at two prominent cloud backup services and compare them on several factors like price and features.
CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Overview
CrashPlan Overview
A large name in the cloud storage industry, CrashPlan has been around for quite some time. During the last year, CrashPlan has only focused on a powerful backup solution designed for small businesses and organizations with up to 199 employees. CrashPlan currently focuses only on continuous, automatic backup to the cloud to protect small business data.
As of August 22, 2017, the company started to discontinue the CrashPlan for Home subscriptions, and starting October 23, 2018, the CrashPlan for Home will no longer be available for use. Existing customers of the CrashPlan for Home Plan should check out the company’s official website for more information on the next steps to take.
Related: Crashplan Cloud Storage Service Review
Backblaze Overview
Backblaze is an award-winning cloud backup solution. But despite their awards, they are still relatively unknown compared to behemoths like Carbonite or CrashPlan. That being said, what they do have to offer is at least superficially on par with what all the other backup providers offer as well.
In function, Backblaze is very similar to CrashPlan, even in terms of its software. Like CrashPlan, Backblaze also offers unlimited storage in their plan. Yes, a single plan. The company offers both personal and business backup, as well as B2 cloud storage. They do offer some convenient and cool features though that may sway some to their side. It’s truly in the details that you can see how these two diverge.
Learn more: Backblaze Cloud Storage Service Review
CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Prices & Features
CrashPlan Pricing Plans
|
Plan |
Price | Storage Allotment |
|
CrashPlan for Small Business |
$10 per month, per device | Unlimited |
Backblaze Pricing Plans
|
Plan |
Price | Storage Allotment |
|
Personal Backup |
$5/month | Unlimited |
| Business Backup | $50/yr/computer |
Unlimited |
| B2 Backup | $0.005/GB/Month |
The first 10 GB of storage is free. |
If you were to look at it simply from a price per GB standpoint for an individual user, the plans are fairly equal. For families though, Backblaze wins the Backblaze vs CrashPlan battle, as CrashPlan does no longer offer family plans.
For business users, Backblaze again takes the crown, as they offer lower prices than CrashPlan. Backblaze also offers B2 cloud storage at 1/4 the price.
CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Security
The security features of Backblaze and CrashPlan are quite a bit different. Backblaze offers SSL transfer encryption and 256-bit AES encryption for files stored on their servers. This is pretty much the industry standard at this point. They do, however, offer a personal key option which further secures your data and is not offered by some competitors.
CrashPlan offers a more secure 448-bit encryption system with a private key option also available. Their data centers are also extremely well guarded by men and machines, with military standards in place to keep the physical servers and drives away from unwanted intruders. CrashPlan has clearly made security a prime focus. Thus, the paranoid can rest easy knowing their data is in good hands.
CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Additional Features
CrashPlan does what it does, and that’s about it. The service excels at backing up your data and making it easily accessible and restorable, but aside from that, there aren’t many bells and whistles. There is also deleted file recovery and options to keep multiple file versions going all the way back to when the file was first uploaded if you get into the settings and tweak it a little. It’s also very much set it and forget it, with easy-to-use software and backups running automatically once set up.
Backblaze is very similar in this regard. They don’t have file integrations or sharing, much like CrashPlan, and they have a mobile app. Backblaze, however, does have the ability to order your backups restored to a flash drive or external hard drive and shipped to you. This can be useful in certain situations, but for the cost, it would be cheaper to buy your own drive and download the data there instead. Backblaze also suffers the unfortunate “feature” of incredibly slow upload speeds, which would be a massive problem for those with a lot of data or those who access their data often.
CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Pros & Cons
CrashPlan Pros & Cons
Pros
- Fast data transfer;
- Extremely secure;
- Set it and forget it capability;
Cons
- No real exciting extra features;
Backblaze Pros & Cons
Pros
- Unlimited storage;
- Ability to order physical backup copies;
- Personal key option;
Cons
- Slow;
Verdict
Backblaze, while admittedly very similar to CrashPlan in features, takes the cake for personal users. Due to the blazing fast upload speed and more attention to security CrashPlan is a clear winner. Backblaze’s turtle speeds and lower security do not command the high price you would have to pay to secure multiple computers with it. For business users, Backblaze offers lower prices than CrashPlan. Thank you for reading our Backblaze vs CrashPlan comparison! Please share your thoughts on any of these companies in the comment section below!
You made a couple mistakes in your article.
Crashplan does use a 448-bit encryption for consumers, but it’s Blowfish, not AES. AES is widely regarded as much more secure than Blowfish, even when comparing AES256 to Blowfish448.
Crashplan also allows users to use their own security keys
The point of ordering a hard drive with your days already on our is for restoring very large backups; it takes a while to download 1TB+ backups, and not everyone has the unlimited bandwidth from their ISP to do it.
Crashplan’s software is written in Java. This means it’s one program for all platforms, but it also means it can be bogged down by large backups, and in fact, needs additional memory allocated to it if you exceed 1TB. Some mount also view Java as a security risk.
Comparatively, Backblaze uses individual apps, programed in C-Language. While I can’t speak from experience, this should at least keep the performance higher on the client machine.