CrashPlan 2009-04-14

CrashPlan is configured to automatically backup your documents to data center. CrashPlan Central is good, but backing up to another PC is even better! This avoids monthly fees and delays in getting your data back. CrashPlan is installed on a windows desktop called My Old PC that allows someone to backup to you is free, you only pay for CrashPlan if you are backing up.

Major Features:

1. INEXPENSIVE & Easy
   
   • Cost to backup 50 GB
   • Automatic & unattended
   • Up and running < 5 min
2. FASTER Backup
   
   • Onsite & offsite       
   • Incremental & differential
   • Locally complete in minutes
3. FASTER Restore
   
   • Same day recovery
   • Guaranteed Restore
   • Multiple file versions
   • Remote retrieval
4. MORE Secure
   
   • Data in your control
   • Files encrypted before transfer  
   • Archive tampering detection

Enhancements:

1. New Private Key Model:
   
   • Previously CrashPlan had two security settings that secured the encryption key that protected your backup archive: Account Password (secure) and Private Password (really secure). Now there is a third option for the super-paranoid-cant-be-too-secure types: Private Key (really really secure). The Private Key option replaces the default encryption key with one that you generate yourself.
   • NAT-PMP, UPnP Now Supported
   • CrashPlan boosts your NAT-PMP or UPnP capable router to work with multiple computers on either side of your firewall or router. This makes it even easier to connect to other computers with CrashPlan no matter where they are.
   • Check out your Settings > Network page to see which connectivity mode is currently active. Original CrashPlan TCP NAT Traversal is still in place and used.
   • Now with Snow Shoes!
   • CrashPlan continues to impress in Snow Leopard. The engine is 64-bit ready!
2. Changes: Check out these changes to backup.
3. Backup:
   
   • New custom regex patterns now allow CrashPlan to recognize when Entourage files have changed.
   • New default exclusions ensure that Entourage temp and Windows temp files are automatically excluded.
   • Improvements when backing up to local folders so that syncing happens as expected.
   • The data de-duplication process is even faster.
   • Scanning is even faster!
4. Settings:
   
   • Security:
   • You now have the option to replace the default encryption key with a private key that you generate yourself. You can create your private key in several ways:
   • Enter a pass-phrase that supplies a private key in the encryption key box
   • Allow CrashPlan to generate a private encryption key for you without entering any text (just click the Generate option)
   • Import an encryption key that has been saved to a text file (e.g. an SSH private key)
5. Important Stuff to Know About the Private Key:
   
   • When using private key, you do all the work: You create, manage, and escrow your own encryption key. BEWARE! If you lose your key, its just like losing your backup. This super, super secure option is only recommended for those folks who never misplace the remote control, always know where their car keys are, and never forget birthdays of their spouses family. Additional details
   • Important: If you lose the password or key, you will not be able to restore your data.
   • Important: Once you have upgraded your security settings, you can never downgrade.
   • Important: CrashPlan Support has no way to recover your private password or private encryption key because we never have access to this information.
   • Really Important! If you forget your private password or lose the private key that you created, you must reinstall CrashPlan on all computers in your account with a new email address and start backup over.
   • Also: If you must restart your backup, your previous backups are no longer available and cannot be restored.
6. Network:
   
   • Connection discovery is a process that helps determine and test a computers external connectivity. The process tests various connection mechanisms and also uses a router feature known as port mapping to allow external connections. Using port mapping we communicate with the upstream router and tell it to open a port that maps to our internal address, so that external instances of CrashPlan can connect to a client.
   • On the Settings > Network page, you can now click Discover to test, update and view the status of your connection.
7. Website: No significant changes to the Website
   
8. Bug Fixes:
   
   • EULA (in English) now appears in installs for all languages.
   • If you at first mistyped your user ID when logging in to the desktop, but then retype the user ID correctly, CrashPlan now logs you in.
   • Under some rare conditions, changes to encryption security settings were not updating as expected. Settings now take effect immediately and persist in all situations.
   • In some situations, the enable inbound backup option was not being updated as expected. Settings now take effect immediately and persist in all situations.
   • In some situations, if folder parent was missing the files path was not being identified properly as being selected. Now CrashPlan interprets this relationship and child folders remain associated with parent folders and are selected for backup.
   • Some Windows Services were not stopping cleanly. Now they do.
   • Archives maintenance would sometimes erroneously report corruption detected. These “false positives” have been corrected.
   • Corrected process that under some conditions resulted in a service that would prevent desktop UI from connecting.
9. General Enhancements:
   
   • Improvements to the UI include making the scan smarter (and faster), clearer messaging and more reliable linking to website from the desktop.
   • Mac OSx:Improvements to automatic backup exclusions using metadata tags.
   • Linux: Weve eliminated unnecessary waiting for watching process to complete, that delayed CrashPlan start.
   • Changes to wait interval setting that determines when computer is idle (user is “away”) no longer requires a restart and now takes effect immediately.
   • You no longer need to supply a private password to receive backups (one less thing for you to remember.)
   • When you enter a backup code to allow someone to back up to you, you no longer need to enable the inbound backup option.

• 512 MB RAM (1 GB recom.)
• 1024 x 768, 16 bit display
• 250 MB available disk space