CrashPlan Review

Plans & Pricing

Pricing for CrashPlan for Small Business is a simple $10 per device per month for unlimited storage. Code42 is a more expansive version of CrashPlan that's meant for enterprise size companies that need more than 200 user profiles. Enterprise pricing for Code 42 is determined by quote, depending on your company's needs and desired features.

Features

CrashPlan for Small Business provides unlimited backup without restrictions to file types. Account management is simple, with a simplified billing structure that charges you one flat rate for every computer that you need backed up. For added security you can also set up a hybrid system where your files are synced to the cloud and local devices of your choosing.

CrashPlan's data backup runs continuously and unobtrusively in the background, freeing you of the need to monitor progress. With that in mind, you might expect the service to offer a somewhat limited control platform, but CrashPlan's desktop application is among the most user friendly and intuitive available. CrashPlan for Small Business has an online administration console that gives you the option of logging in to your control panel through any web browser. From here you can control bandwidth, permissions and backup status.

Access to your business files from remote locations is made possible through the CrashPlan app, which is available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone platforms. Although the app doesn't facilitate mobile phone sync or streaming media file access, it does allow you to access and download files from your cloud storage space directly to your mobile device. Once downloaded, files can be emailed to recipients as attachments. You can change files you've downloaded within other apps that support the file type, but any changes made to those files will not be reflected across other connected devices. The CrashPlan mobile app also does not allow you to operate administrative controls.

The ability to keep your business data out of reach of prying hands is of paramount importance. It's vital to ensure that sufficient security exists not only within the infrastructure of the data center where your information is stored, but also during upload, when it's most vulnerable. For this reason, CrashPlan uses a 256-bit AES data encryption.

Whether you need assistance administering user permissions or have experienced a catastrophic loss of data, there are several avenues for you to get the technical support you need: email, live chat and telephone support. If live support is not available, you can also find information in CrashPlan's FAQs and online knowledgebase – although the information can be difficult to find at times.

Drawbacks

CrashPlan for Small Business is solely a backup solution, and not a cloud storage system that can be used to transfer files or collaborate with co-workers. The platform creates images of your computers and servers for restoration, so you can use it to restore existing files, but not store new ones. There's a mobile app to oversee the backup system, but you can't back up the device itself.