Backup, and you wouldn’t suffer. Write this on a post-it on your desk. Maybe back up the post-it too! While there are several free/paid options for backup software on the computer and online backup services, CrashPlan provides both.
While CrashPlan is a popular online backup service, not many non-subscribers know that it also offers a free backup application, the use of which doesn’t necessarily require you to sign up for the online backup service.
CrashPlan is FREE for personal use and automatically backs up your computers daily. You can back up to your own drives and other computers for free. CrashPlan works well on PCs, Macs, Linux, and Solaris and lets you back up PC to Mac, Mac to PC, Mac to Linux or any combination.
Quick Steps:
- Download and install CrashPlan
- Create your CrashPlan account
- Start backing up to your backup destinations
Features:
With CrashPlan you can back up to any internal or external hard drive, a friend’s computer or another computer you own, and also opt to sign up for CrashPlan Central, their paid online backup service.
CrashPlan is an efficient backup solution as it reduces file size by using advanced compression technology. It identifies duplicate files and parts of files and stores them only once. When files change, only the new information is backed up. Once your files are backed up, CrashPlan continuously checks that your files are 100% healthy and ready to restore when you need them. If it finds any problems, CrashPlan fixes them. CrashPlan constantly flags changes for backup and then backs them up once a day.
With CrashPlan, you can also restore previous versions of files. You can restore previous versions exactly how they looked at a particular time of day. You control how many previous versions to retain — from 1 to unlimited. CrashPlan also prioritizes backups to minimize the time needed to backup. For example, small new files are given priority over old, big files. Local backup is given priority over backing up to online destinations.
There is also a built-in search feature to locate files to restore. Your files are encrypted and compressed before they are transmitted to another destination. Encryption protects your files (and privacy) by preventing others from knowing anything about your data.
Check out CrashPlan Free here.
System Requirements: 1GHZ+ CPU, 1GB+ memory, 50MB+ free drive space (for XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008/2003)
What is your preferred backup application? Does local backup suffice? Are paid applications better than the freeware alternatives? Share your thoughts as comments to this post.
