CrashPlan provides online data backup, with unlimited online storage for as low as $3/month – I paid $139.99 for 4 years. That’s even cheaper than the electricity for a NAS for 4 years if I would do backup myself to another NAS. All my data is stored on a QNAP NAS 269 Pro (Intel Atom CPU) and I wanted the NAS to directly backup to CrashPlan without the need of a client PC to be connected to make the backup run 24/7. This is how I did it.

Note: This guide is for QNAP’s running Intel CPU. If you have an ARM (Marvel) CPU, please check this post and this forum post for tips.

1. Download JRE 7
I had problems installing JRE 6 from the QPKG Center on the QNAP so I decided to run JRE 7. Go here and download (and yes, you have to register at their site and the Update x is the latest update, at the time of writing update 21 and I have also tried earlier versions like 6):
Oracle Java SE Embedded version 7 Update x -> x86 Linux Small Footprint – Headless
The name should be something like:
ejre-7u6-fcs-b24-linux-i586-headless-10_aug_2012.tar.gz
Make sure it has.tar.gz, some web browsers might rename it when downloading for some reason. Don’t rename it and put it on the \\QNAP-IP\Public share on your NAS. Then you need a JRE 7 QPKG which can be found here or here. Go to Application Servers -> QPKG Center -> Get more tab and upload the JRE_7.qpkg file. Once uploaded, go to Installed tab and it should work:

2. Download CrashPlan QPKG
Link found at the bottom of the first post in this forum thread (at time of writing, version 3.6.3):

3. Install CrashPlan QPKG
Go to Application Servers -> QPKG Center -> Get more tab and Choose File and upload the downloaded CrashPlan_x.x.x_x_x86.qpkg file.

4. Install CrashPlan on your client machine
Client PC doesn’t have to be connected for the backup to run but you need to install the client so you can configure the CrashPlan service on your NAS. Download here. You also need to change the configuration so that the client tries to connect to a remote CrashPlan service on your NAS instead of the local client PC. Edit: “C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\conf\ui.properties” Make sure the following line contains the IP-address of your NAS:

serviceHost=192.168.1.99

5. Stop the CrashPlan service
Since you’re not backing up the local PC, stop the CrashPlan service on your local PC and put it to manual.

6. Start CrashPlan on your client machine
Now you should be able to connect with your client machine to the QNAP and start adding files to backup. Keep in mind that even if you got a 100 Mbit Internet connection, the initial backup will take time. My initial backup of a few 100 GB took several weeks.

Important things to remember:

• When CrashPlan updates their server, you also need to update the client on the NAS. When you update, make sure to follow the instructions or you might need to re-upload all backed up data.
• Remember to check ui.properties after updating a local client machine.
• If you change something in the ui.properties, make sure to restart the client and also the “CrashPlan Backup Service”
• CrashPlan always require you to have the latest version of CrashPlan so if it suddenly stops working, make sure to check the forum post if there has been an updated version.