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I've been using CrashPlan since 2014 to back up my ReadyNAS (about 9 TBytes used out of 20 TByte capacity). It's been great. Unlimited, continuous, encrypted, versioning backups running on the ReadyNAS itself (and hence independent of any workstation running or human intervention, except for original configuration) for about $4/month! The initial backup took a couple of months, but since then in regular usage, all data added is safe within the cloud within minutes, or at most a few hours.
Sadly, as all good things must come to an end, CrashPlan just emailed me that they are transitioning out of the retail market to focus on SMBs and hence are terminating the CrashPlan for Home plan I'd been using. They recommend switching either to Carbonite or upgrading to a CrashPlan Pro plan.
The latter alternative doesn't look terrible. After an initial year of even more discounted storage (only $2.50/month!), it'll cost $10/month. That's a steep hike, but worth it to me, if there are no better alternatives. Worse, for some technical reason, they can't transfer backups larger than 5 TByte to their new system, so I'd have to do another full backup, taking months and leaving the data partially unprotected during the process.
I haven't been following the market closely since I picked CrashPlan years ago. But given that I need to reupload everything anyway, I might as well hold another beauty contest.
So what are you guys using? Can anybody recommend an alternative that is superior to CrashPlan Pro?
The feature I cannot live without is continously running the backup process on the ReadyNAS rather than having to Windows workstation mount the NAS drives and perform the backups. (If that requires a bit of UN*X hacking, I can do it; CrashPlan on ReadyNAS required that anyway). Versioning is nice, but I guess I can live without it for a good price.
Is there anything that fits the bill for $10/month or less (for my amount of storage requirements which are not expected to change hugely)?
Sadly, from these responses and my other inquiries, it seems that CrashPlan, even at twice the old price, is still the only viable solution for my case. Everything else either--and there are lots of other options--doesn't run under Linux or has a monthly cost for my use case that is an order of magnitude or more higher than even CrashPlan Pro.
The closest, widely-discussed alternative is BackBlaze. Unfortunately, their personal plan which is unlimited, inexpensive, and seems generally good, does not run under Linux. They do have a well-regarded B2 Cloud Storage plan which has multiple clients which might run om ReadyNAS, but it has a metered cost that would be much more expensive than CrashPlan Pro. The implication of discussions by the Backblaze CEO is that they have no plans to change either.
So when my CrashPlan Home plan expires at the end of the year, I plan to transition to CrashPlan Pro/SMB.
But if somebody comes up with something better (ideally before then!), please do respond here.
Netgear does not have official list of 3rd party Cloud backup service. However you may check Readynas Vault and Amazon, Readynas is a local storage device it will act as the source and any 3rd party Cloud service can be a destination. You may check online for list and reviews Cloud Backup service available on the market right now.
I think OP meant to get helpful responses from those with experience using such services. Naturally, this topic has been coming up from a lot of corners lately. This is a disruptive change that may not benefit them much in the end, IMO.
That said, I've seen Backblaze coming up on a LOT of lists lately and I can't say it's done badly. It's certainly cheaper than AWS -- $5/TB/month on their "NAS" plan, cheaper if you use the $5/computer/month plan and don't do full backup. One issue, however, is getting it working properly on the NAS. I notice that both QNAP and Synology have official integrations with Backblaze, but Netgear isn't listed.
I remember looking and trying ReadyCLOUD a while back but I think it came up simply being too small/expensive to really back up a whole NAS. At the rates some charge, it would be far cheaper just to have another NAS you located someplace else (after first full backup). Perhaps ReadyDR is meant to take that mantle up.
With so many options available, one would think it'd be easier to choose one than this... but...
The feature I cannot live without is continously running the backup process on the ReadyNAS rather than having to Windows workstation mount the NAS drives and perform the backups.
This might be challenging with Crashplan - it depends the unsupported "headless install" continuing to work.
I migrated to the small business version of crashplan today and all seemed well but the readynas was still running home edition. It would not update so I did it manually and now it does not work at all. The server starts but stops. Tried endless fixes but no joy. Crashplan no longer support ARM processors so no help coming from them. It was initially a Java issue but I fixed that but now it's something else I have no idea!
Sadly, from these responses and my other inquiries, it seems that CrashPlan, even at twice the old price, is still the only viable solution for my case. Everything else either--and there are lots of other options--doesn't run under Linux or has a monthly cost for my use case that is an order of magnitude or more higher than even CrashPlan Pro.
The closest, widely-discussed alternative is BackBlaze. Unfortunately, their personal plan which is unlimited, inexpensive, and seems generally good, does not run under Linux. They do have a well-regarded B2 Cloud Storage plan which has multiple clients which might run om ReadyNAS, but it has a metered cost that would be much more expensive than CrashPlan Pro. The implication of discussions by the Backblaze CEO is that they have no plans to change either.
So when my CrashPlan Home plan expires at the end of the year, I plan to transition to CrashPlan Pro/SMB.
But if somebody comes up with something better (ideally before then!), please do respond here.
Just a heads up for anybody who is planning on migrating to Crashplan Pro (small business) and you have an ARM based readynas.
There are some parts of the JAVA libraries that install with crashplan that are x86 or AMD64 only. These before have been able to be replaced [libjtux.so & libmd5.so] by ARM compatible libraries. It seems now, however crashplan requires another one named libc42archive.so. This is, as you can see from the name, compiled by Code42 so I have not been able to find an ARM alternative. This means that, unless anybody else has found a fix for ARM based NAS, Crashplan is dead for me and everybody else with ARM based NAS.
Just in case people want to know what happens when you get to this point in the install - the program runs fine on the NAS, shows as active and runs without closing. When you try and log in to Crashplan from, in my case, the headless part you get a SYSTEM ERROR when trying to log in. The log in the nas drive shows
SEVERE: Service AuthorizedStorageService [FAILED] has failed in the STARTING state. java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Unable to load library 'c42archive': /usr/local/crashplan/libc42archive.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory at com.sun.jna.NativeLibrary.loadLibrary(NativeLibrary.java:164) at com.sun.jna.NativeLibrary.getInstance(NativeLibrary.java:237) at com.sun.jna.NativeLibrary.getInstance(NativeLibrary.java:200) at com.sun.jna.Native.register(Native.java:1016) at com.code42.archive.jna.Archive42JNA.<clinit>(Archive42JNA.java:17) at com.code42.archive.jna.ArchiveComparator.getV2VirtualTableComparator(ArchiveComparator.java:25) at com.code42.archive.MetadataLevelDB.getLevelDBOptions(MetadataLevelDB.java:39) at com.code42.archive.AbstractLevelDBFile.open(AbstractLevelDBFile.java:72) at com.code42.service.storage.AuthorizedStorageService.open(AuthorizedStorageService.java:126) at com.code42.service.storage.AuthorizedStorageService.startUp(AuthorizedStorageService.java:82) at com.google.common.util.concurrent.AbstractIdleService$2$1.run(AbstractIdleService.java:54) at com.google.common.util.concurrent.Callables$3.run(Callables.java:95) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Exception in thread "AuthorizedStorageService STARTING" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Unable to load library 'c42archive': /usr/local/crashplan/libc42archive.so: cann at com.sun.jna.NativeLibrary.loadLibrary(NativeLibrary.java:164) at com.sun.jna.NativeLibrary.getInstance(NativeLibrary.java:237) at com.sun.jna.NativeLibrary.getInstance(NativeLibrary.java:200) at com.sun.jna.Native.register(Native.java:1016) at com.code42.archive.jna.Archive42JNA.<clinit>(Archive42JNA.java:17) at com.code42.archive.jna.ArchiveComparator.getV2VirtualTableComparator(ArchiveComparator.java:25) at com.code42.archive.MetadataLevelDB.getLevelDBOptions(MetadataLevelDB.java:39) at com.code42.archive.AbstractLevelDBFile.open(AbstractLevelDBFile.java:72) at com.code42.service.storage.AuthorizedStorageService.open(AuthorizedStorageService.java:126) at com.code42.service.storage.AuthorizedStorageService.startUp(AuthorizedStorageService.java:82) at com.google.common.util.concurrent.AbstractIdleService$2$1.run(AbstractIdleService.java:54) at com.google.common.util.concurrent.Callables$3.run(Callables.java:95) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
If anybody has a solution I would love to have it, otherwise bye bye Crashplan.
I'll convert my existing subscription anyway, since that is free.
But I'll stop running it on the NAS itself - instead I'll run it on a PC with the NAS volume mounted. That's been on my "to-do" list for a while anyway.
I'm considering doing the same thing Stephen, but wasn't 110% sure if it was possible? The Home product does not allow you to backup a network drive, does the SMB product allow this? Or, when you say "mounted" do you mean mounted in a location under a physical hard drive letter?
I assume this would rehydrate the data; I think the dedupe is not account global but just client specific?
The thing I'm going to miss the most about CrashPlan Home is the computer-to-computer backup. I had my NAS as a secondary destination for some of my critical data.
The thing I'm going to miss the most about CrashPlan Home is the computer-to-computer backup. I had my NAS as a secondary destination for some of my critical data.
My daughter's laptop is backed up to my Pro that way. I agree it was a nice feature.
Your idea of backing up my NAS from Windows client got me thinking.
I've been testing CloudBerry Desktop with BackBlaze B2 storage. So far it's working really well. It does block level backups (I assume this is dedupe). B2 storage is pretty cheap as well. $0.005/GB/month. I read that CloudBerry only let's you add one network share but so far that does not seem to be the case. Either way, I can point it at \\readynas\c and configure what I want to backup under that.
I might convert my CP plan to Small Business just because I can, and see how things go to compare.
So CloudBerry is ok, but unfortunately they have a data protection cap of 1TB. WTF?
Arq is another alternative that can connect to many cloud services and doesn't have such restrictions.
Stephen, is there any specific reason for your desire to backup your NAS from a Windows (or other) PC versus software installed right on the NAS itself? I'm trying to think of the pros and cons but not coming up with much other than resource utilization.
Im in the same boat. And I can't answer for the OP but for me, I don't want to run a PC constantly just so the backup software will connect to my NAS and push. My NAS currently just sits there in the background and uplaods to Crashplan. My daughters all have shared drived on their laptop that backup to the NAS and I know it gets pushed near real time whether I have my PC on or not.
People like us are really between the rock and a hard place. Because the cost does seem wuite a jump for us home users and I'm not convinced Crashplan Pro/Business will continue to work on my NAS.
Stephen, is there any specific reason for your desire to backup your NAS from a Windows (or other) PC versus software installed right on the NAS itself? I'm trying to think of the pros and cons but not coming up with much other than resource utilization.
I think it's more robust, and many applications are better supported on PCs anyway. Another aspect is that it simplifies equipment upgrades in the future.
In general, running a lot of applications on the NAS tends to make firmware updates fragile (and can hurt storage performance by tieing up resources).
Enterprises separate NAS from application servers, and I am aiming to do the same. My ideal server would be a small form factor PC with 10 gigabit ethernet.
This is a good point that dawned on me after my post lol. I manage backups for a fairly large organization, including backing up shares on multiple NetApp storage clusters. There is definitely no "backup agent" that gets installed on these. Instead we use a proxy machine (Windows Server).
For anyone curious, I migrated my Home plan to Small Business. I only had a few days plus the 60 to go anyway. The migration went suprisingly well and all my clients were upgraded, including my Pro 6 (running R4 firmware). I decided I may as well take advantage of CrashPlan and their deep discount on Small Business. In my particular case I was able to continue backing up everything I was before for about the same amount of money. However, I fully plan on spending the next year figuring out a longer term solution (before the 75% discount is up obviously).
Possible solutions are:
1) Continue as is and just reduce how many machines I am backing up (a few of them were family members, they may just have to accept they must take care of this on their own now with something like Backblaze).
2) Stay on CrashPlan Small Business and use my Windows desktop or server to backup the mounted NAS volume to reduce licensed machines.
3) Use an app like CloudBerry Backup or Arq Backup with Backblaze B2 as the storage. $0.005/GB/month is pretty damn cheap. At some point that cost is going to exceed the value of the CrashPlan Home plan. But given I was spending $25CAD/month (family plan) and was storing about 3TB of data I figure up to 5TB on B2 is worth it.
I understand there are people with much more to backup than this. This is just my personal take on my own situation.
On the topic of B2, one interesting thing I've been thinking about doing is using it as an archive. I can make room on my NAS by moving files I don't really need access to into a B2 bucket. They are still readily available to download if I really needed them. I realize this is not backup, but Backblaze must have multiple layers of redundancy.
In my eyes it's a way to expand my nearline NAS storage, with something not quite as available/"cool".
I finally opted for using RCLONE with B2. I get RCLONE to encrypt my data before sending it as the B2 cloud is not encrypted.
Only issues I came into are:
Readynas Duo V2 has limited RAM so needed to increase my Swap file to accomodate. All working well now.
Transactions - B2 transactions are higher on new version of Rclone to make it perform quicker. I am running at 1350 transactions a day for a 160Gb backup (you get more than this free per day)
No issues with the install. I have setup a Cron to run the sync process every evening. It checks the local files with the cloud and deletes or uploads as appropriate. B2 supports versions too so it keeps the deleted files as per your settings.
Thanks for this. But why B2? I don't like the idea of getting charged dynamically. What I liked about CP was that is was unlimited. I have 3T of data but it doesn't grow consistantly.
At half a cent per GB per month plus 10gb free it made sense for me. I only have 160gb to backup. It costs me 75cents a month. Can't beat that anywhere.
