Reviewing the Top Online Backup Services
Online backup services are an excellent way of keeping your data secure. They work much like traditional backup software. With an online backup service, however, your important data is transmitted over the Internet and securely stored on a server in a professional data center verses your own CDs, DVDs, or backup drives.
So what exactly is online backup? As opposed to online storage, it’s simply letting a software/web service automatically backup your data over the Internet so you never have to perform the task yourself or worry about it. We reviewed and tested dozens of online backup services, and out of the ones we liked, five (5) stood head and shoulders above the rest — all with a guarantee to perform and save. Criteria for this evaluation included data transfer speed, software features and service capabilities.
1. Mozy
Storage/Pricing Plan
2GB – free
Unlimited GB – $4.95 USD/month
Without reservation, Mozy is our pick as the best online backup service on the planet. Really nice thing about Mozy is that they offer a free subscription (HOME) for anything less than 2GB of storage, so you can try them out and not have to pay anything for it. They also offer an unlimited plan (PRO) for about $5 US dollars a month. Of course with the Pro plan you get a higher level of customer support and some extra features, such as account administration. In my opinion – from someone who’s experienced a hard drive failure – $5 per month for peace of mind is a small price to pay compared with the pain of having to deal with lost files, photos, or important documents.
2. Carbonite
Storage/Pricing Plan
Unlimited GB
$49.95 USD/per year
Carbonite’s online backup service works in a similar fashion as the other services – you download and configure their software and the backup is handled automatically in the background. Carbonite used colored dots to show which of the files are backed up, which are waiting for backup and which files are recently modified. Carbonite makes no distinction between personal and business use, as most other services do. Carbonite has succeeded in making a truly simple service. For the consumer, SOHO, and very small business user, Carbonite is just about the perfect online backup service.
3. IDrive
Storage/Pricing Plan
2GB – free
150GB – $4.95 USD/month
50GB – Business Use $9.95 USD/month
IDrive offers 2GB of free online backup space to its customers with every subscription. With this 2GB offer, there are no backup and restore restrictions, no bandwidth limits and no restrictions on file type. The backups are automated, with remote backups of files/folders. IDrive boasts a world class infrastructure for the data centers and advanced data encryption. The powerful capabilities of IDrive goes beyond the standard bells-n-whistles in consumer online backup services with drag-and-drop file restore, backup-set searching, and Web-based viewing of backup logs. The free Basic version allots up to 2GB of storage, and, where most rivals give you extra space for a set time if you refer acquaintances who then join, IDrive permanently adds 10GB to free accounts just for sharing five e-mail contacts. Idrive was easy to use, flexible, and had good solid features. Their photo album is a great way to store and share pictures. You can create multiple photo albums and upload pictures to each of them.
Storage/Pricing Plan
Free 14 day trial
2GB $2.00 USD per GB
Subscribing to Data Deposit Box was a simple two-step process. It’s an ideal backup service for small and medium business. Their interface was user friendly and extremely simple to navigate. Pricing is based on per account, not per PC. Data Deposit Box pricing scheme attracts small businesses, as do all of the added features such as “suspend and resume”, open file protection, and file sharing. Data Deposit Box online backup service has been in the business for almost 6 years now. Therefore, their service is mature and reliable.
5. Box.net
Storage/Pricing Plan
2GB – free
5GB – $7.95 USD/month
15GB – $19.95 USD/month
If you want secure, easy–to–use online storage service with a lot features. You can get 1 GB of storage and try this service free. Uploading files to box.net was easy. You have two ways to upload files to box.net, one is drag and drop, and the other is the traditional way of browsing your computer and choosing a file. Their prices are competitive, but they don’t offer large amounts of storage. Using their premium membership, you can create sub–accounts and work groups. Box.net offers multi–level security, this allows you to share files securely with people without giving access to all your important files. Thier multi–level security is only available with an paid account.
