CrashPlan PRO's sophisticated data de-duplication is one its most important features. Using advanced byte-pattern analysis, CrashPlan PRO detects duplicate data and eliminates the need to back it up again. This means copied files, documents and even embedded items in documents are backed up only once, reducing storage, network and performance costs.
In CrashPlan PRO, you can control the degree to which de-duplication is applied to your backup:
| Automatic | Full compression is used when backing up over an Internet connection. Minimal is used when backing up directly to disk or over LAN. |
| Full | It is 100% effective, but is CPU-intensive. It is a little slower, but saves bandwidth and disk at destination. |
| Minimal | About 90% effective, it uses several methods to identify duplicate data. It is less CPU-intensive and will speed up initial backup speed significantly, typically 400% on a single processor system. |
PRO Client performs the data de-duplicating, which takes place only on the client machine. PRO Server data de-duplication to handle enterprise-wide de-duplication is not yet available.
The administrators control these settings in PRO Server and determine the extent to which end-users can change the data de-duplication settings in PRO Client.