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Interview with CrashPlan

Data for life” is the slogan that shines on Code42’s homepage, the company behind CrashPlan. With its unique and much appraised three destination backup concept, Code42 doesn’t just want to help you take online backups – it really assists in securing your data for life. Company names like Zynga, P&G, and Intuit are proudly listed as business customers relying on CrashPlan for their data backups, and this very same reliable service is affordably available for home users and small businesses. This also makes that Code42 is very careful in protecting your data and making its upcoming new version of CrashPlan fully waterproof. All of this convinced us to rank CrashPlan as the number two online backup service here on Best Reviews.

In this interview, communications manager Adam Best walks us through CrashPlan and its set of features, upcoming novelties from Code42 and reveals something about the super hero activity going on within the company.

Can you introduce yourself and tell us more about what you do at Code42?

I’m Adam Best, and I manage Code42’s online presence and community affairs.

Why should we choose CrashPlan and not another online backup provider?

First: any backup is better than no backup! Having said that, there are some really cool features that are unique to CrashPlan. I think the most striking is that our software exclusively offers Triple Destination backup: to a local external hard disk, to a trusted friend’s computer and to our cloud. Plus, we only charge for our cloud. So you can have local and offsite backup absolutely free. No other backup service offers this.

Need more? We don’t charge extra to automatically back up videos on a Mac. Also, we support (and love) Linux. Another bonus: CrashPlan never deletes deleted files unless you specifically and deliberately reach into your backup selection and deselect a file. So you can always get your data back, even years later.

Is storage in CrashPlan Central truly unlimited? Which conditions apply?

Absolutely unlimited.

We exclude some system folders and application files by default, but you can add them to your backup selection if you wish.

Can you tell us a bit more about the backup sets feature in your service?

Sure; it’s a really cool feature! Basically, you can designate what data backs up to which destination, when, and with what settings (frequency, version retention, network bandwidth, etc.) For example, you might wish to backup financial documents to our cloud right away, so you can get them from anywhere, back up photos to a family member’s computer at night, and your videos to a local XHD for speed and convenience.

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Is there a difference between your smart backup feature and what others generally call file syncing?

Good question. Sync is very different from backup. First of all, sync doesn’t protect you from accidental file deletions. Also, sync won’t automatically preserve previous versions of a file; you have to manually duplicate and rename a file, taking up more room. Speaking of which, compare the price for unlimited online sync storage vs. CrashPlan online backup.

How come your service is able to cater to home users, students, business and enterprise users?

This is probably the defining characteristic of Code42. Our commitment to meeting consumer demands drives the innovations that enable our success in the enterprise. Think about it: the ideal consumer solution is one that costs them nothing, right? We all want as much as possible, for as little as possible. This is an incredible pressure cooker that forces us to provide value in a highly competitive space. The lessons we learn there from solving consumer backup pain give us the edge in platform adoption at the enterprise level. Professional SysAdmins know that our solutions won’t give them more support headaches, because we’ve already put the end user’s concerns first in our minds.

Will Mad Maxine truly come to haunt all students if they don’t back up?

Are you kidding me? Look at her. LOOK. AT. HER. She will straight-up end you, man. Cold eyes….

Which other computer security advice do you have for us, other than using online backups of course?

I think besides continuously updated, automatic backups to multiple destinations, you have to look at password discipline. Make them complex, don’t repeat them across logins, and change them often. There are several good tools on the market to assist.

Can you shed some light on what’s in the pipeline at Code42?

We are terribly excited for the next version of CrashPlan! Our product team has allowed us some peeks at the new interface and engine; it’s just amazing. Elegant, fast and intuitive. Obviously, there’s a lot of QA involved, since we’re responsible for critical data at Fortune 500 companies. There’s no margin of error when data security is your business model, so we won’t rush through this very important development process. But it’ll be worth the wait, I promise.

What is working at Code42 like?

It’s pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted in a career, honestly. I’m surrounded by brilliant minds, which forces me to raise my game to keep up. I work on products that solve real problems for real people. Some of the data rescue stories I get, I have to reach for a tissue. I go to bed every night knowing what I did that day made a difference to another human being. And I get paid to do it. Life doesn’t get much better than that, IMO.

Anything else you’d like to share with us?

I’d been at Code42 for less than a week. I came back to my office from lunch, and overheard a very earnest discussion next door regarding who would win in a fight: Iron Man or The Hulk. I knew I was home.

Big thanks to Adam and the other members of the Code42 team for making this interview happen. If you’re a Code42 customer, go ahead and share your experiences with this backup service in your user review of CrashPlan.


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