CrashPlan or Time Machine — What's the Difference?
There are significant differences between the two backup solutions. We hope you find the following information helpful when deciding on your backup strategy.
CrashPlan Advantages Over Time Machine
Off-site backup
Our second customer at Macworld was a police officer who had his laptop and backup drive stolen from his home. Off-site protects you from all forms of data loss. Time Machine doesn't do off-site.
Encryption
Your data is encrypted before being stored at destination. Time Machine just makes a copy, including previous versions. Someone else can recover things you thought were deleted.
Multiple Locations
CrashPlan will automatically backup to as many other locations as you desire. For example, on-site, near off-site, and far off-site respectively providing speed, security, and protection from local disasters.
Compression
Backup files are compressed. Duplicates are also removed. This saves you space, allowing for larger and more frequent backups. Time Machine does neither.
Delta Blocking
This is a very powerful form of compression. When a file changes, only the new bits are compressed and stored. Time Machine copies the entire file over again. This is a big deal when you have large files that are changing (i.e. entourage mail database, VMware or Parallels disk images, video files, etc.)
No additional hardware
If you don't have a ton of data to back up, you probably have enough space on another computer (or your friends) to hold your backup.
Scheduling
You can schedule when CrashPlan is allowed to do its work. Time Machine lacks scheduling.
Real Time
CrashPlan can back up your changes every minute. Time Machine is once per hour.
Excludes
With CrashPlan, you can say things like, "don't back up files ending in temp". Time Machine cannot.
Includes
CrashPlan allows you to back up only the files and folders you select.
Quotas
You can limit how much space your backup archive is allowed to use. Time Machine will consume all available disk.
Backup Brains
CrashPlan isn't fooled if nothing has really changed in a file, Time Machine will dutifully make another copy of the same file. CrashPlan knows when you've moved the file or duplicated it, and stores it only once. Time Machine makes copies upon copies.
Cross Platform
Back up your Mac to an old Windows box or Linux server
Data Integrity
CrashPlan repeatedly verifies that your backup archive is in good and working order, even if there is no new data to back up. Time Machine assumes its all fine and good, only at time of restore can you realize the drive had bad data on it.
No Cables
Most of us use laptops these days. As I write this at the cabin, my changes are quietly being compressed and transmitted to my house. An extra cable is another reason to not be backed up.
Peace and quiet
Do you really want your backup device sitting next to you blinking and clicking while you work on the sofa?
Supports Tiger
We support 10.4. (We'd support 10.3 too if someone can get Java 1.5 working on it.)
Time Machine Advantages Over CrashPlan
It's free with Leopard
You can't beat free. Unless of course, you need to buy a new USB drive to fit all your backup data. Then we might be less expensive.
Supported on OS Install Disk
It's really neat how they offer the ability to back up or restore on OS install. Awesome feature.
Developer APIs
Third party developers can integrate with Time Machine. CrashPlan is still a closed application.
Dead Simple to Get Started
Hats off to Apple for making it really easy.
Direct to Disk
Time Machine can back up directly to an attached drive. CrashPlan currently requires another computer to be used as a destination with an optionally attached drive. Soon we'll also support direct to disk.
Really amazing looking interface
Gotta hand it to the designers at Apple, that's one sexy UI.
CrashPlan and Time Machine on the Same Mac
Time Machine & CrashPlan will compliment each other well on your Mac. Just make sure you tell Time Machine to ignore the CrashPlan.app file. If you're letting others back up to your Mac using CrashPlan, it also makes sense to ignore their backup data.
The reason for this exclusion is because as CrashPlan appends new data to the backup archive, Time Machine will copy the entire archive to USB again, and again, and again. You'll be out of space in no time if you fail to exclude the archives.
Other Reading
Joe Kissell is the author of a fantastic e-book on how to back up your Mac who recently wrote Time Machine: The Good, the Bad, and the Missing Features for TidBITS.
Did We Miss Anything?
Please let us know at support@crashplan.com.
