This week we learned that CrashPlan is getting out of the consumer backup business.

For years I’ve been reading emails from Mac Power Users listeners from both team CrashPlan and Team Backblaze. I started out using CrashPlan years ago but left it because there was some bug that kept spinning up a cache file that filled my hard drive. It took me hours to figure out CrashPlan was the culprit and when I tried to report the bug, nobody would respond to me, so I jumped ship to Backblaze.

I’ve now been with Backblaze for a few years and can report it’s been a great experience. The service is always running but stays more-or-less invisible. Backblaze also has a feature that will backup any attached storage (not network attached storage), and I’ve got multiple terabytes plugged into my iMac that are also backed up to the Backblaze servers.

If you’ve been a loyal CrashPlan user, there is nothing wrong with going over to Backblaze. If you want to role your own online backup, I know a lot of folks have done that with Amazon S3 storage and Arq. (Arq also works with Backblaze’s B2 storage, which I’m told is cheaper than S3.)

The one thing that is not an option is giving up on online backup. I’ve heard from so many listeners that had their bacon saved by one of these last-line-of-defense online backup solutions. Your data is worth $50/year for this kind of security. Spend it.