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PROS:
CONS:
CrashPlan came in second on our list of the best online backup services thanks to its great performance results and an affordable price. With the Family plan subscription you can back up an unlimited amount of data from 10 different PC. CrashPlan uses the state of the art 448-bit Blowfish encryption to make sure your data is completely safe.
CrashPlan is a well-known name in the online data backup industry. This year, CrashPlan is celebrating its 10th anniversary since it was first created by the American software company Code 42. To compile our list of the top ten online backup services, we broke down the prices of different services to the costs per PC for 1TB of data storage for a family that has five computers, a smaller family that uses three PCs, and an individual user. The CrashPlan Family service package offers unlimited storage for up to 10 computers. The desktop app is also very well designed and easy to use.
Value for money
CrashPlan offers three equally amazing subscriptions: individual, family and business. Since we’re mostly focused on services that work best for family usage, we looked at the CrashPlan Family option a little bit closer. Unlimited storage for up to 10 computers in your household comes with a price tag of $149.99 per year. At a slightly higher cost, CrashPlan gives you the option of month-to-month payment instead of a traditional annual subscription.
CrashPlan was graded with a B- when it came to affordability by larger families. For a family with more than five computers, it would cost about $30 per computer. It’s also important to note that with the Family plan you can cover 10 PCs and use unlimited storage space. For a smaller family, CrashPlan is a pricy solution at $50 per PC so it received a C- which is below the industry average. If you’re an individual user and have no need in connecting more than one PC, then CrashPlan is the perfect solution at just $59.99 per year.
Price: $149.99
Backup
With a B+ on our backup speed test, CrashPlan ranked among the fastest services we evaluated. During testing we ran several backup tests at different times during the day as well as weekends to see how fast the service is during the busiest hours of the week. The results showed that it would take an average of about 10 days to back up 1TB of data. With the average result in the industry being 21 days, CrashPlan showed great speed. The app is really easy to use and it has one of the intuitive interfaces we have tested. Since there are no complicated shortcuts or demanding symbols to decipher, the app is suitable for novice users.
Aside from its many amazing features, CrashPlan seems to be missing a device syncing feature which most other top tier services offer. This specific option gives you the convenience of connecting multiple PCs and syncing files across them. It’s a great feature to have since it means you can move freely and pick up where you left of, from one computer to another, without the use of an external drive.
Restoration
To test CrashPlan’s restoration speed we ran multiple restore sets at different times during the day and during the busiest hours over the weekend. With an aim at finding the average MB/min rate, we came to the result that it would take about 14 days for 1TB of data to be restored from CrashPlan’s servers. Even though the leader in the category finished the job in little more than two days, the industry average for file restoration is over 15 days and it shows CrashPlan performed great. The results largely depend on the bandwidth of your network, so your experience might be different than ours.
Starting the file restoration process is very easy since all it takes is just a few clicks on the main control window. Once you start the operation, you can always pause it if you’d like to free up some network bandwidth in case you want to download/upload something else. The app allows you to save as many versions of a certain file as you wish, which is very useful if you need to go back a step or two. Comparably to the IDrive Express feature, CrashPlan also has a door-to-door recovery service that brings you a physical copy of your data so you can restore it faster.
Security
CrashPlan deserved its perfect protection score since it exclusively uses the 448-bit Blowfish encryption –the highest encryption level in the category. For added security, your data is encrypted before it leaves your PC and the files are uploaded. Like other top ranking online backup services, CrashPlan also offers the option of creating a unique encryption key that blocks access to everyone but yourself. Despite the perfect encrypted protection, the developers at CrashPlan decided to exclude the two-step verification when you’re logging into your account. This additional safety level is designed to make it harder for hackers to enter your account using stolen data.
CrashPlan is great for individual users as well as larger families since it allows unlimited storage for up to 10 PCs. The service did great on all tests, with an outstanding protection result with the 448-bit Blowfish encryption. It proved to be faster than the industry average, but it was still much slower than the top service in the category.
Email: You can submit a form to be contacted via email through this link: support.crashplan.com/Support
Phone number: calling from within the USA: 888-314-8842, calling from outside of the USA: +1 612-333-4242, option 1
Website: www.crashplan.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/crashplan
There are many ways you can get help with your product on CrashPlan’s website. If you’d like to look for the answers yourself, the site offers an extensive knowledgebase and a FAQ section. On the support forum you can exchange opinions or look for advice from other users. To contact a customer support agent you can call, email or use the live chat option.
Our editorial staff evaluates products and services independently, but Best Review Guide may earn money when you click on links. Read our advertising disclosure.
By: Tamara | Last updated June 5, 2017 
