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CrashPlan is Hamilton College's supported backup service, available to all faculty and staff. Once installed on your office desktop or laptop, it runs continuously in the background and automatically backs up your local files — no manual intervention required.
What CrashPlan Is (and Isn't)
CrashPlan protects files stored locally on your computer against hardware failure, accidental deletion, and similar loss. It is not a replacement for other storage platforms, and it works differently from the file sync tools you may already use. The distinctions below are worth understanding before you rely on CrashPlan as part of your workflow.
CrashPlan Is Not a Replacement for ESS or Network Storage
ESS and the Academic server are network storage platforms where you can store and actively work on files. Data on those servers is backed up independently by ITS. CrashPlan does not provide a storage location — it backs up files that already exist locally on your machine. Do not treat CrashPlan as a substitute for saving work to a network drive.
CrashPlan Is Not a File Sync Service
File synchronization tools such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and iCloud keep copies of your files accessible across multiple devices. They are not backup solutions. If you delete a file through one of those services, it is deleted everywhere. CrashPlan, by contrast, retains backed-up versions of your files even after deletion, allowing recovery from accidental loss.
Do not rely on Google Drive, Dropbox, or similar tools as a backup strategy. If a file is deleted or corrupted, those changes sync to all connected devices and the cloud copy.
Your Backups Are Private and Secure
CrashPlan encrypts your data using standards that meet or exceed requirements for medical and government environments. Backed-up files are compressed to minimize bandwidth and storage overhead, then stored in an encrypted archive in a private cloud environment — not in a publicly accessible location. ITS does not have routine access to your backed-up file contents.
CrashPlan backs up files continuously while your computer is on and connected to the internet, including off-campus. You do not need to be on the Hamilton network for backups to run.
More information
For more information, please refer to the Related Articles section in the sidebar. You may also submit a ticket on this topic under the Related Services section.