The Quest for the Best CrashPlan Alternative: A Mac Expert‘s Guide

If you‘re one of the many Mac users who relied on CrashPlan‘s consumer service to keep your data safe, you‘ve likely been researching alternatives since their unfortunate exit from the home backup market. As a cloud backup expert and Mac enthusiast myself, I know how frustrating it can be to have to unexpectedly switch services, especially when it comes to something as critical as protecting your irreplaceable digital files.

In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll share my perspective on why CrashPlan abandoned the consumer market, break down the key features that made it so beloved by Mac users, and provide an in-depth look at the top alternatives available today. Whether you‘re a freelancer backing up a single MacBook or a household with multiple Macs, iPhones and iPads to protect, by the end of this article you‘ll have all the information you need to choose the best CrashPlan replacement with confidence.

The Rise and Fall of CrashPlan for Home

Launched in 2007, CrashPlan quickly gained a loyal following among Mac users for its robust feature set, elegant client software, and simple unlimited pricing model. At its peak, the service was protecting petabytes of consumer data across millions of devices globally.

CrashPlan‘s success was driven by several key factors:

1. Truly unlimited backup – For a single affordable monthly fee, you could back up as much data as you wanted from a single computer. No tiered pricing or having to worry about storage caps.

2. Elegant, native Mac client – CrashPlan‘s backup engine was written in Java for cross-platform support, but the Mac app was fully native and looked right at home on OS X. Setup was simple and backup policies were highly configurable.

3. Peer-to-peer backup included – In addition to backing up to the cloud, you could also send your data to local hard drives or offsite to friends and family, all managed within the same app.

4. Extensive version history – By default, CrashPlan kept unlimited file versions, allowing you to go back in time and recover previous copies of your files.

5. Seed and restore drive options – For users with large backup sets, CrashPlan offered an option to seed your initial backup by sending in a hard drive. You could also have a drive shipped to you for faster restores.

So why did Code42, the company behind CrashPlan, decide to abruptly exit the consumer market in 2017? Simply put, the economics were no longer working in their favor. The cloud storage and computing requirements to run a massively scalable backup service like CrashPlan are enormous and grow exponentially as more users sign up and data storage needs expand. At the same time, providing quality user support is extremely costly and difficult to scale.

While we don‘t know CrashPlan‘s churn and average revenue per user numbers, what likely happened is they were losing money on a significant portion of their heaviest home users – people backing up terabytes of data while paying the same flat rate as everyone else. Meanwhile, enterprise IT customers were willing to pay substantially more per month for advanced user management, compliance and security features. Focusing solely on their more profitable business segments was likely the only path forward.

Regardless of the reasons, CrashPlan‘s departure left a major void in the Mac backup market. Thankfully, several providers have stepped up to fill the gap in the years since. Let‘s take a look at the top contenders.

By the Numbers: Cloud Backup Adoption and Market Growth

Before diving into the top CrashPlan alternatives, I think it‘s worth zooming out and looking at cloud backup adoption trends and the overall market landscape. A few key data points:

• Cloud backup has gone mainstream: According to a recent Market Research Future report, the global cloud backup market is expected to grow at 24% CAGR to reach $42 billion by 2027, up from $17 billion in 2020.

• More data is moving to the cloud than ever before: 50 zettabytes (1 ZB = 1 trillion gigabytes) of data will be stored in the cloud by 2025, equal to 50% of all data worldwide, per Cybercrime Magazine.

• Backup is a top cloud use case: In a 2021 O‘Reilly survey of cloud adoption, backup and disaster recovery was the #2 most common cloud use case for organizations at 44%, second only to web and mobile app hosting.

• Mac cloud backup is big business: Of the leading cloud backup providers, Backblaze, iDrive, and Acronis have a combined 10,000+ PB (10 billion GB) of data stored from both Mac and Windows users.

Clearly, cloud backup is here to stay and demand is only increasing as Mac users generate and store more data across their devices. With this context in mind, let‘s take a closer look at the top CrashPlan alternatives for Mac users in 2025.

Option 1: Backblaze – Unlimited Backup for Mac

For Mac users looking for a true CrashPlan replacement with unlimited backup storage, Backblaze is my top pick. At just $70 per year per computer, it‘s less than half the cost of CrashPlan‘s old consumer plan, with zero risks of the rug being pulled out from under you down the road.

Backblaze was founded in 2007 by ex-Apple engineers and it shows in the thought and care put into their native Mac client. The app is lightweight, stays out of your way, and makes backup dead simple – just install it and Backblaze immediately starts backing up your entire hard drive, user directories, and any connected USB drives automatically. It‘s truly the definition of "set it and forget it" for backup.

Other key benefits of Backblaze for Mac users include:

• Unthrottled, automatic backups – Backblaze backs up your Mac continuously in the background, getting files offsite as fast as your bandwidth allows. Unlimited data means you never have to worry about your backups not fitting under a storage cap.

• Support for both Intel and M1/M2 Macs – As Apple transitions the Mac lineup to its own custom silicon, Backblaze‘s client is fully updated and optimized for both architectures. The app runs natively on M1/M2 with blazing fast performance.

• Mac-friendly personal features – Backblaze was thoughtfully designed with Mac users in mind, with support for features like iCloud, FileVault encryption, HFS+/APFS formatting, and Time Machine local backup.

• Flexible file retention policies – If you accidentally delete a file from your Mac, Backblaze will keep it backed up in the cloud for 30 days by default. Need longer protection? You can upgrade to one year or indefinite retention for a small additional cost.

• Locate a missing Mac – Backblaze can help you locate a lost or stolen Mac by capturing its location when it connects to perform a backup. An essential feature for remote workers constantly on the go.

In terms of raw feature set, Backblaze may come up slightly short compared to CrashPlan in a few areas, namely retention of file versions/deleted files and peer-to-peer backup options. However, what it lacks in bells and whistles, it more than makes up for in overall stability, performance, and ease of use, especially on Mac. For the vast majority of individual users, Backblaze checks all the boxes for reliable, automatic cloud backup at an unbeatable price.

Option 2: iDrive – Multi-Device Backup and Sync for Mac Users

For Mac-centric households with multiple computers and devices to keep protected, iDrive is hands down the best value in cloud backup. With a single iDrive plan, you can back up all your Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPads, and Android devices to a single account. Unlimited devices are included, with 5 TB of shared storage space for $79.50 per year ($20 for the first year).

iDrive‘s Mac backup client is robust and highly configurable. When setting up your backup, you can pick and choose specific files and folders to include, set your own schedules, and create multiple backup sets for different purposes. iDrive also supports local backup to an external drive in addition to their cloud service.

One of iDrive‘s standout features is its Sync functionality, which allows you to keep files in sync across all your linked devices. Any files you add to the Sync folder on one device are automatically copied to all other devices, similar to Dropbox. However, unlike Dropbox which requires files to be stored inside a single folder, iDrive allows you to keep your existing folder structure intact.

A few other notable iDrive features for Mac:

• Time Machine compatibility – In addition to backing up your files, iDrive can also back up your Time Machine snapshots to the cloud, allowing for full-fidelity Mac restores.

• True archiving and file versioning – iDrive keeps up to 30 previous versions of all files forever by default, ensuring you can recover anything from a single overwritten file to an entire hard drive from months or years ago.

• End-to-end encryption – All data is encrypted on your Mac before transmission and remains encrypted on iDrive‘s servers at all times. You can even set your own private key for ultimate security.

• Share files and folders with others – With iDrive‘s Share functionality, you can generate a link to any backed up file or folder to share with friends or coworkers, with optional password protection and expiration dates.

• Clone computer wizard – iDrive includes a handy utility to simplify migrating files from an old Mac to a new one. Just back up the old Mac to iDrive, then use the clone tool to automatically transfer everything to the new machine.

While iDrive doesn‘t offer completely unlimited backup like CrashPlan and Backblaze, even the entry-level 5 TB plan should be more than enough for the vast majority of users. To put it in perspective, 5 TB is enough space to store 250,000 RAW image files or 1.8 million 10 MP iPhone photos! If you do happen to need more space down the road, you can upgrade to 10 TB or 20 TB plans at any time.

Comparing the Alternatives: Pricing and Features

Now that we‘ve covered Backblaze and iDrive in depth, let‘s see how they stack up against other leading CrashPlan alternatives on key features and pricing for Mac users.

Provider	Backblaze	iDrive	Carbonite	SpiderOak	Acronis
Pricing (1 Year)	$70	$79.50	$83.99	$149	$89.99
Storage Limit	Unlimited	5 TB	Unlimited	2 TB	1 TB
Devices Supported	1	Unlimited	1	Unlimited	Unlimited
Mac Native Client	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Continuous Backup	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
Backup Scheduling	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
File Versioning	30 Days	Unlimited	30 Days	Unlimited	✅
Deleted File Retention	30 Days	∞	30 Days	∞	✅
External Drive Backup	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅
Local Backup	❌	✅	❌	❌	✅
Courier Data Recovery	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Free Trial	15 Days	10 GB	15 Days	21 Days	30 Days

As you can see, each provider takes a slightly different approach in terms of backup functionality and pricing model. For protecting a single Mac with lots of data, Backblaze is the clear winner on price and overall value. iDrive is the easy choice for those with multi-Mac households that need lots of configurability, while SpiderOak and Acronis trade off some user-friendliness for enhanced security and privacy features.

What About NAS Backup?

For Mac users who rely on network attached storage (NAS) devices to store large media collections and archives, finding a suitable CrashPlan alternative to back them up to the cloud can be tricky. Most consumer-grade NAS devices from Synology, QNAP and others don‘t include out-of-the-box support for popular cloud backup services, instead pushing users towards their own first-party cloud offerings.

One DIY option is to use a cloud storage service like Backblaze B2 or Amazon S3 as the backup target and manually configure your NAS to send data there on a schedule. While this gives you lots of flexibility, it can be complex to set up and maintain, and you‘ll need to monitor your storage usage closely to avoid overage charges.

For a simpler turnkey solution, consider a dedicated third-party NAS cloud backup tool like Hybrid Backup Sync from Synology or HBS 3 from QNAP. These utilities are designed to efficiently back up your NAS data to popular cloud storage providers, with support for real-time sync, point-in-time recovery, and client-side encryption.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, while no single service can perfectly replicate every feature CrashPlan offered, the good news for Mac users is that there are several exceptional alternatives available in 2025. For most individual users, Backblaze offers unbeatable value and covers all the essentials in an elegant, Mac-first package. Those with larger households will appreciate iDrive‘s flexibility and multi-device support at a compelling price point.

Regardless of which provider you choose, the important thing is ensuring all your precious photos, videos, and documents are being continuously backed up both locally and to the cloud. Even the most meticulously maintained Mac is always one failed hard drive or glass of spilled coffee away from catastrophe. Having a reliable offsite backup is the only way to truly safeguard your irreplaceable data.

If this guide helped you find the right CrashPlan alternative for your needs, I‘d love to hear about it. Feel free to reach out and share your experience, or let me know if there are any other Mac backup topics you‘d like me to cover in a future article. Stay safe out there!