After an extensive review of online backup services, we have concluded that Mozy Pro is the all-around winner for those serious about online backup protection. Criteria for this evaluation included data transfer speed, software features, service capabilities, etc.
While Mozy also offers an unlimited home service plan, we do not suggest it for most due to the capped transfer speed and one problem that was experienced with the home-level service.
Intronis eSureIT is the runner-up in our testing. While their software is capable, and the service offers some very interesting features, such as Intelliblox and multiple PC backup support, higher pricing, slower transfer speeds, and the fact that revisions count against the disk space quota cause Mozy Pro to come out on top. We have also reported a few suggestions to Intronis regarding usability enhancements that should be made to the software.
IDrive deserves mention. The IDrive software is excellent, and the service works flawlessly for small backups. However, we encountered serious problems when backing up a large collection of files, such as icons or fonts. IDrive provides very attractive pricing. If the issue mentioned above were resolved, we could easily see IDrive moving into the top position.
The only downside we have noticed with Mozy Pro is a delay which often occurs when transitioning between files for upload and download operations. The delay can sometimes be frustrating, but in tests, the overall speed of Mozy Pro still beats the competition.
Update: Please see the comments for an evaluation of the ElephantDrive backup service.
Australian small business should also consider if servers used for backup are located on the Australian continent because the law relating to privacy may not apply.
Our company tested and compared the top online backup services (Mozy, iDrive, SugarSync, Carbonite, Elephant Drive, etc). Our only issue with Mozy is the lack of phone support for their Home plans. It’s a great service, but if you don’t need all the functionality of a Professional Plan, and want to save money (you get 50GB of backup for $6/ month for the personal plan- that much backup space would be $400/ month with the Pro Plan), it’s too bad you can’t get phone help if you need it. Here is our comparison grid and reviews: online-backup.choosewhat.com
The only service offering unlimited backup any more is LiveDrive, but it’s quite expensive. But you can get it cheaper at http://www.lushbackup.com . They offer unlimited backup for £2 a month!! And you can stream you music from the internet to any computer/iphone. Not sure what the big deal is with google music when you can do it using your online backup.
I have only one PC and I need online backup for home finances, photos and music. Who should I use?
@Bob
Use either ElephantDrive or Mozy. Neither are the cheapest, both are better products than the bargain basement offerings.
Check out SafeCopy backup if not Dropbox.They are great online backups services.With SafeCopy ,one is allowed to backup more than one computer on a single account and they are cost effective and so efficient.
Everyone should consider security of your data in the cloud like data encryption, en-route to and at rest the cloud. Find out who owns the encryption keys, could an employee of the company access your data? Additionally, consider the company ‘s ability to maintain business, as free isn’t sustainable and unlimited isn’t really unlimited. Where is your data being stored, maybe in some country without privacy laws (reference my earlier statement about employee access to the data)? The idiom “too good to be true” should apply to your online backup vendor as it would in any business case. You need to get answers to these questions because your data is important, that’s why your paying to keep it safe in a secondary location off-site (you should also backup locally for faster recovery). Take an example with Mozy, it isn’t the lowest cost solution and may not have all of the file sharing features of other cloud solutions, but it is owned by a leading provider of storage solutions. And to Mozy’s credit, they have continued to address technical issues and add features like multiple PC backup plans and mobile access.
I recommend http://www.iozeta.com/. I use it at home to back up my personal files which contains such important memories that time could never replace. I just wanted to share to everybody how lucky I am to have chosen this back up company.
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Have a look at http://www.beecloud.eu. They are a livedrive reseller and offer the backup option (512Gb) for FREE. They are dedicated in helping users to take solid good backups.
I vote for Iozeta online backup. I’m using it and it is great.
Its interesting to read the comments about the products like Mozy not being considered to be ‘Bargin Basement’ products.
Surely the key to a successful backup solution, is not just the software being used, but also the hardware that the data is being stored on? For the cost of most of nearly all the products mentioned in this thread, surely the quality of their back end systems has to come into question?
I know there is certainly a trade off between the cost and the quality of a backup solution, but when a company is offering X 100′s of GB of free backup, it must question weather that solution is one that can be used to protect critical business data.
For me with having just 1MBPS upload online backup can never be a solution.
Why would you say that Aryan?
Some software is WAN optimised to ensure that users can backup over small upload speeds.
For example only sending block level changes to files, de-duplication and compression.
We have used both Mozy and Intronis and all I can say is that Intronis is unquestionably the better choice. There are two major ways Intronis beats Mozy. The first is that this article refers to backup uploads, not restores. Mozy (this may have changed) use to send you a ZIP file link via email that you would download. This process (of receiving the email) took on two occasions more than 3 days!!!!! Can you really wait that long to get your data back? The second is with Support. Intronis’ wait time is about 30second. I have sat with mozy waiting more than 10 minutes to talk to someone – who then had to escalate me to higher support (more waiting!). Backup is the most important add-on you can select for your company. If saving a few bucks is the way you want to get – you will get what you pay for, and probably get burned for it down the line.
Intronis might be good, but I would never buy anything from a company that has a “Try now” button and no price list. These are deceptive business practices that I will never support. Also, why would I invest time trying out a product that I might not afford (or not want to pay for)? This is self-destruction.
Has anyone heard of JustCloud as an online backup service? I recently subscribed to this service & received very nice emails from the co-founder & then another from Jamie my “Personal Account Manager”. I’ve had some questions with the backup wondering if its working properly, one being why has my progress bar been sitting at 92.6% for the last 2 days? I’ve sent several emails to both Jamie & the Help Center none of which have been answered. What do I do?
I would recommend against using Carbonite. I lost thousands of videos of my young kids. I had my video files inside of subfolders and even though I had selected the main directory to be backed up and chose the .mpg file format for backup some of the directories backed up and others did not. The only explanation Carbonite could come up with was to say that I chose each file individually which I did NOT individually select serveral thousands files for backup. So be warned.
i have the Zenok Backup Online service two years ago and is good .. recommend.
It is a very good business solution. We are satisfied with Mozy Pro options for basic backup needs. It is not the cheapest but affordable. It is interesting to read the user reviews.
I just wanted to say you should also mention Monster Cloud here. I have been really happy with their service and their support is great.
It’s a great price and service. google Monster Cloud.
I wonder if you tried Nitrobackup.com
http://www.nitrobackup.com
Unlimited backup for 2 computers for a few bucks a month.
Other sites don’t really do unlimited or they throttle you after 100Gb
Hi, online backup services are a great help for small businesses like I do have. Nevertheless, I have a hard time convincing my friends to go online backup because they are not too sure if it’s secure. This article of yours just do that. Thanks. I’m gonna share this with them.
Justcloud it’s just a scam, they change their pricing constantly so you don’t stop paying them, after paying 100$ in 6 months I’m going to look for another service
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I have used Idrive, not the others and can vouch for them, they are amazing.