Question
I want to free up space on my computer's local hard drive. Can I use CrashPlan as a permanent archive for files I delete from my device?
Answer
We strongly advise against using CrashPlan as a permanent archive or primary storage for deleted files. While on some plans it may technically possible to configure your settings to retain deleted files indefinitely, CrashPlan is designed to securely mirror your active data. Using it as a storage offload solution puts your data at high risk of permanent loss.
Additional info
- Single point of failure: The core principle of a backup is redundancy, meaning your data exists in at least two places at once. If you delete a file from your local device and it only exists within your CrashPlan archive, you have created a single point of failure.
- Archive maintenance and self-healing: CrashPlan periodically performs archive maintenance to ensure data integrity. If the automated self-healing process detects unrecoverable corruption in your archive, it drops the affected data so it can be re-backed up from the source. If you have already deleted that data from your local device, it cannot be re-uploaded and is permanently lost.
- Risks of settings changes: If your deleted file retention settings are ever modified, whether accidentally by you or via a policy update enforced by your administrator, any files exceeding the newly established time limit are permanently purged from the archive.
- Intended use: The deleted file retention feature is specifically designed as a safety net to protect against accidental deletions, hardware failures, or ransomware attacks. It gives you a window of time to recover active files you did not intend to lose.
- Recovering already deleted files: If you have already deleted files from your device to save space, we highly recommend downloading them back to your local drive to ensure they remain safely backed up. For instructions, see Restoring deleted files.