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Crash Plan or Back Blaze or something else?

JuliettePerkins

JuliettePerkins

I eat, sleep, breathe Apple.
Joined
Dec 10, 2013
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It's time... I've got to do this whole back up thing.

I'm looking at a cloud based back up - so, tell me... Crash Plan, Back Blaze or something else? And, why?

Go! :D

(PS thanks in advance for your opinion and advice!)
 
I use Crash Plan because it will backup my EHD and won't delete it even if the EHD is disconnected for extended periods. IIRC, Back Blaze requires that it's connected periodically or you lose the backup.
 
I use back blaze. #1 the price. #2 is super easy to use #3 it'll back up any of my external hard drives. It will delete them, but only after 30 days of disconnect. And they will email you and let you know that you are backed up, and how long the ehd has been disconnected. If you are going to be gone a long time, they have instructions on how to not lose ehd data.

I also like that I can go online and see the file names of my backed up files, and download whatever.
 
I use Back Blaze as well. So far I haven't had to rely on it, but I've tried/tested going in and getting a backed up file, and it is really easy.
 
I use Back Blaze, too. I like being able to go online and see my files. I haven't tried downloading any though.
 
I have Back Blaze as well, mainly because I won a year's subscription in a contest. I will probably keep it beyond that, though.
 
FYI about Back Blaze:

"I use the service backblaze.com to back up my Mac. Well, I thought I did. Fortunately a friend hammered into me "if you haven't restored a file, you don't have backups", so I tried to restore one, and lo and behold it wasn't backed up.
It turns out that backblaze scans your machine slowly, looking for files that have been modified. It then schedules them to be sent off to their server. This has several problems.
1) If your machine is set to go to sleep after a while of inactivity, the scans stop. Backblaze doesn't alert you to this.
2) If you click their "backup now" button, all it does is transmit files it has already found to their server, and say "everything's backed up!". It doesn't start a new scan.
3) As best I can tell, there is no way to determine when it starts or completes a scan.
4) As best I can tell, there is no way to initiate a scan.
5) If you use a removable drive, there's no hint that it didn't have enough time to scan it and back it up before you disconnected it. In my case, I left it connected for four days, and it still wasn't backed up. This was with their throttle control set to full speed.
6) Upon complaining about this, I get hand-waving from them. Nobody there seems concerned.
All in all, I am underwhelmed."

^ From Reddit.

It's funny you posted this, I'm headed to Fry's this weekend for an external HD for photos and scrap stuffs. My power supply on my desktop bit the dust. It then dawned on me that that pc isn't backed up with an external drive and what would I do if my HD died on that machine?! Oops! I will prob sign up for Crash Plan after getting all that done. In theory, I want to use the online backup as a secondary precaution.

I did finally go between the phones and the two laptops and gather all the random photos and put them one one machine. Now to get the big pc working and everything moved to it. First world problems lol.
 
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I have restored files from back blaze with no problems. Actually, I 'restored' them to my mom's computer, not mine. I'm curious how old the reddit thread is, only because the service tells me in the window how much has been backed up, and how much is left. I can click on the settings and see what files are done, and what are waiting. If i want it to scan before it manually does, on a pc, I just have to hold alt and press restore, and it will search for any new files, including my ehd. But again, I'm on a pc, and haven't used it on a Mac.

The only problem I have with it is with my 3tb harddrive, I have to use the short cord. The long cord lets the ehd go to sleep. But I have that problem with everything, not just back blaze.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone, I went with Crash Plan :D and, with every passing second my stash is getting more and more safe <3
 
Yay Juliette - you will be happy with them. I have had a CrashPlan backup for over two years...and it has saved me on several occasions!
 
I still need to do this... I remember a few more scrappers out there suggesting other kinds too. I just keep forgetting about it...
 
renee82 said:
I still need to do this... I remember a few more scrappers out there suggesting other kinds too. I just keep forgetting about it...
Click to expand...

Just do it! You won't regret doing it, but you may regret not doing it.

Last night I accidentally saved over a template file. It was awesome to just 'restore' the file, no looking for the zip, or deleting everything and resaving. Sure, not a huge thing like a fire or hurricane or theft, but it was still nice to me.
 
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