CrashPlan adds server & Google Workspace backup for SMBs

CrashPlan has added backup and recovery for Windows and Linux servers and Google Workspace to its small business product line, extending coverage for businesses with fewer than 250 users.

The new services join the company's existing protection for endpoints and Microsoft 365, giving smaller organisations broader backup options across employee devices, servers and workplace software. Both are available to trial and buy online.

CrashPlan is targeting a market in which smaller companies often run lean IT teams while facing many of the same security and operational risks as larger organisations. It cited industry research showing that 96% of ransomware victims are small and midsize businesses, while severe breaches can cost a small business more than 7% of annual revenue.

Those pressures reflect a wider shift in the backup market, as software suppliers package cloud-based data protection for smaller customers that may not have the staff or budget to run more complex systems. CrashPlan is seeking to protect business data held on local machines, servers and cloud productivity platforms through a single portfolio.

Server backup

The server backup product covers Windows and Linux environments. It offers continuous backups based on user-defined policies, monitoring dashboards, and restore options ranging from individual files and folders to larger sets of server data.

The service also includes immutable and isolated backups intended to support recovery after ransomware incidents. Cloud storage is paired with deduplication, compression and incremental backups designed to reduce storage use and transfer volumes.

For smaller businesses, server resilience remains a practical concern because key applications, shared files and internal systems often still rely on on-premise or hosted server infrastructure. Hardware failure, accidental deletion and outages can all disrupt day-to-day operations, particularly where redundancy is limited.

Google coverage

CrashPlan's Google Workspace product focuses on Gmail and Google Drive. It is designed to back up emails, attachments and files, while offering recovery beyond the native retention and versioning limits in Google's own tools.

The service includes point-in-time recovery, granular restore options and full-site restores. Employees can also search for and recover their own files or emails through a self-service function.

It allocates 50GB of cloud storage per user on a pooled basis, allowing capacity to be shared across users rather than fixed to individual accounts. Automated cloud-to-cloud backups run in the background and can be managed through centralised policies with role-based access control.

Third-party backup for software-as-a-service platforms has become a growing area of spending for many businesses seeking protection against accidental deletion, insider mistakes, ransomware and data retention issues. While providers such as Google and Microsoft offer built-in recovery features, many organisations use separate backup systems to maintain additional copies of data outside the primary platform.

Shivangi Vyas, Head of SMB Growth at CrashPlan, said the products are intended to remove some of the complexity smaller organisations face when buying backup tools.

"Many backup solutions are built for large enterprises - they are expensive, complex, and often more than a small IT team needs," said Shivangi Vyas, Head of SMB Growth at CrashPlan.

"Our solutions give small businesses reliable, affordable data protection without the infrastructure or management overhead that most SMBs can't take on. We also offer a free 14-day trial so business owners can see for themselves that CrashPlan meets their needs before making a commitment," Vyas said.

With the latest additions, CrashPlan's small business range now includes backup products for computers, laptops, servers, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Both the Windows and Linux server backup product and the Google Workspace backup product are generally available with a 14-day free trial.