Online Backup Reviews
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Contents
Summary
The best six online backup services I found are:
Best Online Backup Services | |||
---|---|---|---|
Rank | Website | Traffic | Cost² |
1 | backblaze | No data | |
2 | carbonite | No data | |
3 | crashplan | No data | |
4 | justcloud | No data | |
5 | livedrive | No data | |
6 | mypcbackup | No data | |
Notes: Rank=Position in this group in order of most Internet traffic, according to Alexa as of March 7, 2021. Traffic=Alexa Traffic Rank as of March 7, 2021. 3: Cost=Annual (per year) price for unlimited data for one computer, as of March 13, 2012. |
Reviews
Here are the top choices by some respected computer magazines and a newspaper.
Reviews | |
---|---|
Reviewer | Top Choice |
Computerworld | Carbonite |
The New York Times | Carbonite |
Macworld | CrashPlan |
PCMag | SOS Online Backup |
Introduction
A photographer friend of mine recently had her computer equipment stolen. All her stock and client photos for the past few months were gone; all her current billing files were gone; and, to make matters worse, an external hard-drive with her local backup was also taken. What a disaster.
This got me to thinking: what if my stuff got stolen? Or what if the everything burned down? I have two local backups on external hard-drives (one using, by the way, SuperDuper, and the other using Time Machine), but those could be gone. And I have two offsite backups on external hard-drives, but those are often six months out of date as they have to be done manually. Perhaps I need a worst-case backup. How about something automatic and online, in “the cloud”?
I searched for independent reviews on Google but didn’t find anything good. So I researched the subject and compiled my notes on this page, in case you’re in the same boat. I hope it’s helpful.
By the way, if you have any suggestions, or find any new sites, please add a comment below so we can all benefit.
Good luck, and I hope your online backup solution is never needed!
“Using an online backup service is a convenient way to preserve your key files. It is an increasingly popular way to make sure you never lose a file.”
— Greg Shulz, senior analyst at StorageIO, an IT analyst firm
Types
There are four types of online backup solutions that I found:
- Unlimited. Store all your files online with unlimited storage. Pay one fixed amount annually regardless of how many gigabytes (GB) you use. This is what I wanted. Cost: <$100 per year.
- Limited. Save important files, sync files with your mobile devices, and/or share files with other people. Many sites offer 2GB to 5GB of free storage, and then charge for additional data. Cost: Free for <2GB but gets expensive for a full backup which is what I wanted.
- Software. Programs that you buy to backup to a local hard drive and/or to interface with online services which you pay for separately. Not what I was looking for.
- Enterprise. Large-scale services for businesses with many users. Too much for an individual like me.
Of these four types, the one I wanted was “unlimited.”
Unlimited — Full Backup for One Annual Fee
This is the service I was looking for. One flat fee for one complete backup — nice and simple.
Unlimited Online Backup | |||
---|---|---|---|
Rank | Website | Traffic | Cost² |
1 | backblaze | No data | |
2 | carbonite | No data | |
3 | crashplan | No data | |
4 | justcloud | No data | |
5 | livedrive | No data | |
6 | mypcbackup | No data | |
7 | nomadesk | No data | |
8 | zipcloud | No data | |
Notes: Rank=Position in this group in order of most Internet traffic, according to Alexa as of March 7, 2021. Traffic=Alexa Traffic Rank as of March 7, 2021. 3: Cost=Annual (per year) price for unlimited data for one computer, as of March 13, 2012. |
“The top causes of small business’ data loss included hardware/software failure (54 percent), accidental deletion (54 percent), computer viruses (33 percent) and theft (10 percent).”
— Carbonite survey, July 18, 2011
Limited — Save, Sync and Share, and Pay per GB
There are many companies that will host your files online so that you can access them for a variety of purposes. You can use these services to:
- Backup key files
- Sync files between your computer and mobile devices
- Share files with other people such as colleagues and clients, for collaboration and review
For free, most of these services provide an introductory amount of storage, in the hope that you might get hooked and pay for more later. Costs are usually based on how much storage you use and are by the gigabyte (GB), which is 1,000 megabytes (MB). With one GB you could store 200 5MB photos.
These services can quickly become expensive as you store more data. For comparison, I arbitrarily priced out 1TB (one terabyte=1,000 GB) which would cover me for a full backup. With one company (FlipDrive), this would cost me $10,000 per year! At the time of writing (March 2012), I could buy almost 80 1TB hard drives for that. Each year.
To be fair, these services are not designed for large, 1TB backups. Instead they are intended to store, sync and share a limited number of files. So, if that is what you’re looking for, then 2GB of introductory storage for free is a great deal.
Limited Online Backup, Share & Sync | |||
---|---|---|---|
Company | Free | 1TB/yr | Notes |
Acronis True Image Online | |||
ADrive | $1,319 | ||
Amazon Cloud Drive | 5GB | $80 | |
Apple iCloud | 5GB | 55GB max for $100/year | |
Backup Solutions | LiveVault from $0.40/GB | ||
Bitcasa | Beta | ||
Box | 5GB | 50GB max $20 | |
Comodo Backup | 5GB | $100/yr for 250GB | |
Concentsus | $6,047 | $0.50/GB/month | |
Diino | $49/yr for 100GB | ||
DropBox | 2GB | $795 | |
ElephantDrive | 2GB | $1,031 | |
Eyonic | 7,150 | $0.50 per GB | |
FlipDrive | 5GB | $10,312 | |
Google Drive | 5GB | $50 | |
Hitachi Backup | 3GB | ||
KeepIt | |||
KeepVault | $930 | ||
Memopal | 3GB | ||
Microsoft OneDrive | 7GB | 100GB for $48 | |
MiMedia | 7GB | $325 | |
Mozy | |||
OpenDrive | 5GB | $250 | |
PennyBackup | $89 | Requires software | |
SafeCopy | 3GB | ||
SOS Online Backup | $1,600 | ||
SpiderOak | 2GB | $1,000 | |
Storegate | 25GB for $80/yr | ||
SugarSync | 5GB | ||
Syncplicity | 2GB | ||
Zoolz | 4GB | $1,020 | |
Notes: Prices as of March 14, 2012. |
Software — Create your own Solution
While Googling online backup, I came across several sites that sold not an online service but a piece of software.
I use such software to make a daily backup on a local hard-drive connected directly to my computer. Some software can also save to online services, but you may have to pay for that in addition.
Peer-to-peer is an interesting approach where you can backup over the Internet to a hard-drive that you own (or a friend owns) at some other location, such as at the house of a friend or relative. CrashPlan is often mentioned in that regard.
Software for Backup | |||
---|---|---|---|
Company | Notes | ||
Acronis True Image | $50 PC | ||
Arq | $29 Mac | ||
Backup4all | $50 | ||
GFI BackUp | Free | ||
UpdateStar | $70 PC | ||
Intego Backup Manager Pro | by LaCie. Mac. $40 | ||
Macrium Reflect | PC | ||
Norton 360 | |||
NovaBackup | by Novastor. PC. $50 | ||
Retrospect | |||
ShadowProtect | by StorageCraft | ||
SuperDuper | This is what I use | ||
Time Machine | by Apple | ||
Tonido | |||
Notes: Prices as of March 14, 2012. |
Enterprise — For Big Businesses
There are many services that are intended for large companies. These are too sophisticated for an individual like me, but here are some links anyway.
Enterprise Backup | |
---|---|
Company | Notes |
Amazon S3 Cloud | |
Asigra | |
Backupify | |
Egnyte | HybridCloud |
Huddle Sync | |
Nomadesk | |
Unitrends |