Backing up your computer — which program is the best? BackBlaze, SpiderOak or CrashPlan?
Correct answer: None of the above.
All of the companies that purport to backup your files have major problems. Depending on your use case they may not work for you. None of the reviews I’ve read have mentioned these real world issues.
The Industry
First, realize that the cloud backup industry is very, very crowded. There is a lot of competition and most of the players have gone for more and more options in order to market themselves as a leader in X, Y, or Z. Regardless, when looking for a backup provider realize that the margins are likely to be quite thin. Don’t expect to get personalized service. These are companies that want to scale.
The players
BackBlaze is a $5 / month service that purports to backup your computer. They also allow unlimited data. The feature I liked the most was the promise that you could get a physical USB or hard drive mailed to your home with your data.
All of these features come at a price. First, support is off on the weekends so if your computer crashes and you need special support, wait until Monday.
BackBlaze is simple but that can also work against you. The moment you try to do something slightly outside the norm you find that you can’t. BackBlaze won’t backup your applications (even though their comparison chart with other products implies that they backup everything. It must dramatically lower costs not to backup applications.) However, this leaves users hanging if they don’t properly save their install files and license keys.
More generally, the lack of features can be frustrating. I recently tried to buy a subscription but I couldn’t because BackBlaze believed I was backing up multiple computers. In fact, I had to reinstall the trial application a few times and each reinstall appears as an image. There’s no way I, as a mere user, can delete these extra images. Instead, when I went to purchase BackBlaze wanted to charge me $200 to backup my single computer. My trial period happens to end on a Sunday and the support staff are off for the weekend… This inflexibility gives me some reason to worry in case I need help with something out of the ordinary.
UPDATE: After more than a year, I can no longer recommend BackBlaze. The service regularly caused my (older) macbook pro to grind to a halt. Moreover, I found the user configurations to be full of annoying “dark patterns”. Dark patterns are elements of user interface design that are deliberately made to force you to do something that is not in your interests. In this case, BackBlaze makes it so that you always need to have up-to-date billing information in place if you want to continue to have your computer backed up.
In my case, I had already decided that the level of service and the buggy software were enough. I got snagged by the auto-renewal feature so I ended up paying for an extra year I didn’t want. I have no time to look for alternatives so I decided that I’d instead wait until my subscription wound down and look for replacement at my leisure. In the meantime, I didn’t want my up to date credit card in place in case time slipped by and I got charged again. Apparently, BackBlaze has decided that DESPITE THE FACT I’VE ALREADY PAID I have to keep an active card on file or they won’t back up my computer. No thank you. Not worth it.
I could go on about hassles, spam emails but this was the last straw. Buyer beware.
CrashPlan
I had CrashPlan for over four years on a family plan which they no longer offer. It gave my wife and I some peace of mind. However, by the end of those 4 years I started to wonder if I could get some older files I accidentally deleted.
Sure enough, CrashPlan had the files. But finding and getting them was such a pain! The experience made me realize I need to look further for a better solution. BackBlaze seems to have a better solution for restores and I wish CrashPlan would adopt it.
The other aspect about CrashPlan that worries me a little is their lack of redundancy.
SpiderOak
SpiderOak has a great software solution. The backup client runs in the background very nicely. It doesn’t overwhelm my CPU like CrashPlan (a java client) sometimes would. However, for me SpiderOak really fails in the support department.
When I purchased my SpiderOak account everything seemed to be going well. The service is twice as expensive as BackBlaze and CrashPlan but has better security. The software UI is also quite intuitive. The only problem was the support.
A couple of weeks into my subscription my client died. I’d try to restart it and it would die again. I looked into the problem and then I emailed support at SpiderOak. Then I waited.
Then I got an email from someone at SpiderOak saying that an ad campaign really paid off and they were signing up a lot of clients. They’d get back to me.
They never did.
I sent other emails. Sent my log files in. I was very, very polite. Over a week went by. Finally, I asked told them I’d really rather not work with them any more.
More time went by.
Finally, someone got back to me. They gave me instructions on how to cancel my account. They said they were sorry but they understood. Then they also told me how to fix my original problem.
I would have stayed with SpiderOak if they had done something, anything more than that. I realize margins are tight but surely they could have thought a little bit about how to give me some confidence in their support. Instead, I was left with the distinct impression that their support staff is either chronically understaffed, under qualified or just doesn’t give a damn. Either way, it made me realize that this was not a company I could count on if something really went wrong.
When I went to cancel my subscription they had a drop-down list of issues asking why I chose to leave. The quality of support was near the top. Obviously, I’m not the first if they felt they needed a place on the drop-down for this.
Summary
I would take SpiderOak if they had better support.
I would take BackBlaze if they had a little more flexibility and fewer dark patterns.
I would take CrashPlan (which has great support) if they had better software (or at least a more robust restore!)
