Today CrashPlan, my current online backup provider, announced on Facebook of all places, that they threw in the towel, and will no longer provide service to home users. The backlash was heated, and I found the CEO’s video message on the blog post rather condescending.
I’ve been a long time user of online backup providers, and many have thrown in the towel, especially when free file sync from Google and Microsoft offers ever expanding capabilities and more and more free storage. Eventually even the cheapest backup storage implementation becomes expensive, when compared to a cloud provider, and not profitable as a primary business.
I’ve been using CrashPlan’s unlimited home plan for quite some time now, they were one of a few, today none, that were reasonably priced, allowed unlimited storage, and supported server class OS’s. But, I could sense the writing was on the wall; they split the home and business Facebook account, they split the website, the home support site has not seen activity in ages, they made major improvements to the enterprise backup agent, switching to a much leaner and faster C++ agent, while the home agent remained the old Java app with its many shortcomings, and there were some vague rumors on the street of a home business selloff attempt.
The transition offered a free switch to the small business plan, for the remaining duration of the home subscription, plus 3 months, and then a 75% discount on next year’s plan. For my account, this means free CrashPlan Pro until 12 June 2018, then $2.50 per month until 12 June 2019, and then $10.00 per month.
I’ve switched to the Pro plan, as they promised the agent updated itself, going from the old Java to the new C++ agent, the already backed up data was retained without needing to backup again, and all seems well, for now…
Pieter Viljoen's Blog 
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