It’s a new year, and I am using a new online backup solution. This time, it’s CrashPlan. So far, so good… but the year is still young.

I’ve tried a handful of different companies, from Amazon S3, Carbonite, Mozy, JungleDisk, to my MobileMe account via iDisk. So far, CrashPlan is the only one with zero issues. All the others I mentioned had some limitation. CrashPlan is also the most widely available, having versions for use with MacOS, Windows, Linux, and even the Solaris operating system. It’s FREE to try and definitely worth it. It’s only $54.00/year for unlimited storage, which makes it the cheapest service out there.

What sets CrashPlan apart from the others is that you can choose to backup to a local device, such as a USB drive, or allow a friend to backup to your computer via the internet. Both these options are included in the FREE version and you don’t even have to pay for the service if you wish to backup in this manner. I use SuperDuper! for my local backups and there is no other software out there as good as that for me.

CrashPlan has a small footprint and doesn’t need to be running for backups to occur. It takes up almost no system resources, unlike Carbonite did. I haven’t noticed any computer slowdown on account of crash plan. I haven’t really used it to restore much, except a couple test items, which worked perfectly. Once I use it more, I’m sure I’ll come on here and have more to say.

So for now, if you need online backup, I think CrashPlan is the choice for you.