<EDIT #2 - This deal starts tonight at 10pm GMT +10 (Brisbane) / 11pm Sydney - aka Friday, Nov. 23 at 6:00AM CST>
CrashPlan is backup software which allows storing backups locally as well as on remote computers (e.g. friends). Additionally, a paid service is offered to store backups online.
After the year, the rates hike back up; but likely there will be some other deal.
They have Australia data-centres too.
CrashPlan allows you to maintain your own encryption key.
How the Sale works -
On Friday, Nov. 23 at 6:00AM CST, CrashPlan 1-year plans will be FREE. Every two hours after that, the price will steadily increase until Monday Nov. 26, 2:00PM CST, when your purchase will be discounted 42%. The discount will remain at 42% until the sale ends, 11:59PM CST Monday.
It appears to me that the price is for the year, not per month
Seems I was also a little slow…..
Standard price for Unlimited is $7.70 per month. Currently discounted to $4.20 per month…
Just tried placing an order, and when it shows up in my cart the price was $63. US only?
Nope, it's available worldwide as per the FAQ.
it's not time yet
Local backups are not all that clever. The point of a backup is to be able to recover it if your system dies on you. And I definitely don't want my stuff backed up onto a friend's machine.
That leaves online, which again I'm not sure I want to do, in case my account gets hacked, password stolen or something. Don't want other people accessing my data. And you also have to pay monthly for this service.
So I just do the sensible thing and backup to an external HDD, and sync the back up every few weeks. It also doesn't cost anything (there is freeware sync software, but you don't need to sync either if you're willing to manually update the backups) other than an ext HDD which you probably have lots of by now if you visit OzB.
An external hard drive doesn't guard against fire, theft etc. You would also need to be rotating them to offsite locations to have secure data.
That's if you're hardcore, like a business. For the typical home user, it's a bit excessive. I don't keep my ext HDDs lying near my PC, so if it blew up or a power surge fried it, it's somewhere else.
The thief is not going to take my ext HDDs because they aren't in obvious places. They'll nick the PC, but the HDDs aren't lying around in plain sight.
If my house was on fire or an earthquake struck me area, I'm not protected, but then again, when that happens I think I have bigger problems.
I don't think you should be discouraging people from adopting a sensible an easy to use backup solution. If what you do works for you, then so be it.
Keeping backups offsite makes sense for everyone — not just businesses.
Not discouraging anyone from doing anything sensible. But I wouldn't call a local backup on the same HDD 'sensible'. Or backing it up to a friend's PC.
Serious businesses have their own off site premises where data and files are transferred to and stored. That's probably beyond the budget of the typical home user.
Who is suggesting keeping backups on the same hard drive as the source data?
CrashPlan offers every home user the ability to store their backups off-site. It's not overkill and it's not "beyond the budget of the typical home user", esepecially considering that under this deal they could have done it for free.
Further, CrashPlan allows you to backup to friends and family (if they have the space) even after the paid subscription expires. That is, for free.
Why wouldn't you call backing up to a friend's PC sensible? The friend can't see your data — it's all encrypted.
Are you simply trolling?
According to their tweet(https://twitter.com/crashplan/status/271767614248865792), they did have some technical issue and the sale has not started yet. The price should be for the first year not per month.
The website shows it has started (?)
Wow. Hope their software is less buggy and more intuitive than their webstore.
Click on 'buy now' and it refreshes you back onto the same page…until you notice the cart up on the top left. And it suggests the sale has started, but the price shows up as $63 in the cart against the $10.08 on the button.
Will try again at 11pm I guess.
Amazing - it worked. Unlimited family subs at $0. Gives me a year to try it for free.
Works now. $0 total cost.
Yep, $0 for 12 months for me too - thanks OP
Snagged a free 1Yr. Hopefully I get to keep it!
I used a VPN so when it reverts it will only be US$49.99/y vs $63/y if you register with an AU IP address (or US$119.99 VS $150 for the family plan).
I love how everyone regards Aussies as free money.
It makes sense for locally sold goods to be more expensive than imports, but I'm not sure why digital software / online services should cost more for an Aussie. You're getting the same thing, and it costs them the same. They cut the middle man, so all the distribution channels that are asking for a cut are out of the equation. They're only charging us more because they can.
VPN ftw.
I agree that a lot of things cost more (ie. double or more) here than what they should. However the reason for Crashplan's Oz servers costing more is because it costs more to run here. Primarily bandwidth, but power, data centre space, staff, and just about everything else. I don't think it's a case of crashplan screwing us for more expensive Oz servers, but largely their whole supply chain.
Having said that, I use their US servers and will continue to do so. IMHO you should be able to choose, rather than being devious at signup/renewal with overseas proxies or VPNs etc.
Great deal BTW, wish I could use it to extend my existing plan.
Got booted out a few times with server overload but It worked - got a free 1 yr.
Now all of us OzBargainers can also start backing up to each other :)
Give me your documents folder for safe keeping please.
Sure, it's encrypted. Go for your life :)
96% - 7.20 for the family plan now
ignore the price on the first page, that's the usual monthly price. You need to go select a plan then check the cart and the correct price will show. currently $5.88 & $12.60 using the Australian prices (93% off) 9:30am ESDT.
No, thats the right price. I bought it :)
7.20 for a year is still a fantastic price
Currently its up to $7.56 and $16.20
My bad I missed you saying "family plan".
The single was always showing $7.20 a month until you added it to the cart.
Looks like they have fixed this now.
Will never EVER support this company for specifically targeting Australians for price gouging. Do not deserve our business at ALL.
Impressive. :D I still prefer encrypting individual files and putting them on my own server but great for normal files with low confidential importance.