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Online backup solutions compared

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Computing | by Randall Bennett | 14 comments

It's one of the most frustrating things that can happen to a computer user, and while we all know it's possible, typically backing up our data in the event of a hard drive crash is something most users ignore or at most aren't prepared for. Over the last few years, online storage rates have come down sharply in price leaving backup services at a few dollars per month for unlimited storage. Join us as we break down some of the best online storage options.

Before we jump into the big list, let's talk buying strategies and how we evaluated the best option. Our main differentiating factor was price per gigabyte of backup, and in the event of a close or tied price, we opted for feature flexibility and number of machines able to connect.

Elephant Drive

Elephant Drive offers an online backup service with a few key advantages over similarly priced competitors. At $4.95 per month for unlimited backup of one computer, users can download software that'll both mount a network drive to a Mac or PC and another piece of software that'll automatically backup all the files on the user's computer. Elephant Drive also allows for web access to your backed up files. While the $4.95 plan allows for one machine, the next tier up allows four machines to connect for $9.95 per month. We see the value in this service to pay $10 per month to backup an entire household of computers. I'll likely be signing up for this service, as it'd be nice to backup my terabyte of household storage on three different machines and not have to worry about crashes.

Mozy

Mozy is another unlimited online backup solution that offers some features that are similar to Elephant Drive, though it's lacking in some other areas. Mozy costs $4.95 per month per machine, and we've been hearing the most buzz about this online backup service. Just like Elephant Drive, users can install software which monitors a file system for changes and then automatically uploads any changes to Mozy's servers. However, unlike Elephant Drive, Mozy won't install a mountable drive, instead relying solely on their software for changes. Despite that minor shortcoming, Mozy offers other nice features like web-based access allowing users access to individual files in remote locations. Mozy's feature set is only trumped by Elephant Drive's multiple computer plan and mounted drive access.

Carbonite

Carbonite offers very similar features to Elephant Drive and Mozy, though there are a few differences. Like the other services, Carbonite will install software on a user's machine to monitor files and automatically upload any changes to Carbonite's online servers. However, Carbonite requires a user to pay by the year, at $49.95, and Carbonite doesn't offer any online access. With one or two machines, Carbonite will be slightly less expensive than Elephant Drive, but without the advantages of web access of data or creating a remote drive that can drag and drop files. Carbonite's real advantage would be bullet proof backup of a single computer for less than Elephant Drive, and literally $5 less than Mozy.

Adrive

ADrive's paid backup solutions aren't in the same class as Mozy, Carbonite or Elephant drive; however cheapskates should check the company out. ADrive has a free plan that offers 50GB of online backup for free in exchange for viewing online ads. We look at ADrive as less of a full online backup solution and more of a place to store a few files temporarily. Our only hesitation with Adrive is that it's unclear where the files are saved, how they're backed up and if they're completely private. However, users get what they pay for.

MobileMe

Another storage solution that isn't a full computer backup but supports temporary file storage is Apple's MobileMe. The service costs $99 yearly and allows 20GB of remote storage that can be accessed via the web or individual computers. Of course, MobileMe's biggest advantage is syncing contact information and calendars with iPhone and iPod touch devices as well as other computers.

Jungle Disk

Lastly, one service for transferring limited amounts of data is Jungle Disk. The service charges in a "pay as you go" scheme, selling data storage at $.15 per gigabyte per month, and $.10 per gigabyte uploaded or downloaded. The obvious advantage is if you never touch a file, it only costs $.15 per gigabyte to simply sit on a server, but once a user hits around 33 gigabytes, Mozy and Elephant Disk start to become more reasonable options, and that's simply for storage. To get the 33 gigabytes uploaded, it'll run another $3.30, for an initial investment of $8.25. Still, not that expensive, however I expect to be backing up my entire three computers worth of data to Elephant Disk, so at 250GB of storage, it'd cost $62.50 for the first month, and $37.50 every month afterward. Not exactly a deal. Jungle disk is ideal for someone who needs a little bit of storage and doesn't need to pay much for it. Jungle Disk's primary advantage over the free Adrive service is that it's backed with Amazon's S3 storage, meaning the storage is redundant and will be around for a while.

We've got some team members using Mozy, and I'm planning on signing up for Elephant Disk, but do you have any experience with any of these services? Sound off in the comments if you've had any good or bad experiences with these services, or if you use another backup method that works really well for you. If you have any questions you'd like to see answered, make sure to hit our tips form, or leave a comment asking another question on this post.

News by company:
Apple, Carbonite, Mozy, Adrive, Elephant Drive, Jungle Disk
News by glossary term:
Backup, Hard disk drive, Online backup, Apple MobileMe

Comments (14)

Add a comment Inappropriate or promotional comments may be removed.

Reply
Andy (2:49 PM on Tue Nov 11, 2008)

Great call - I checked out two of them and ended up going with ElephantDrive. It's moving pretty fast. It took me a few minutes to figure out the "TrunkDrive" but now that I've got it up and running it is pretty sweet.

Thanks - Andy

Reply
Jimmy Bergmark - JTB World external link (5:18 AM on Wed Nov 12, 2008)

Hi,
I have experience of both Carbonite and Mozy and have evaluated SpiderOak
http://blog.jtbworld.com/2008/10/review-of-spideroak-onli...

SpiderOak look promising but still needs some work. One good thing with the pricing is that it is unlimited when it comes to computers and it deduplicates across your devices.

I have found that restoring from Carbonite can be tricky because you cannot restore to a specific date/time on a whole folder or whole backup. You can restore previous versions but sometimes that is not enough and if you have deleted files on purpose and then want to restore you will get these files back as well.

Mozy is better as you can restore to the last backup snapshot or to one of the older snapshots.

Another note is that be aware what file types are backuped. This is different between all of them.

Reply
Tim Farrell (2:53 AM on Wed Nov 12, 2008)

I'm one of these guys who likes to own their own files so I use Amazon S3. It's cheap (the cheapest storage of any provider), stores 6 copies of the data for backup and **I own it**. Unfortunately you can only access it via API !

I've tried a few of the services to work with S3 and I was using Jungle but it has a proprietary naming convention which makes accessing the files outside of Jungle impossible.However I stuck with it because I could not find anything better, until recently. I came across SMEStorage.com from some blog or other. It is fantastic if you work with S3. You get a real file tree within a web browser with integrations to Picnik for photo editing, Zoho office for online editing of office files, Sribd for preview of PDF's etc, and it comes with a windows explorer and plug-ins for MS Office and Open Office. I can get my files from my iPhone, work with them through the iGoogle dashboard, use a firefox plug-in, and you get unique url for each file, can share them, collaborate, use them on facebook and much more. I cannot say enough good things about it, especially as with something they call OpenS3 you can use your own S3 account.

Reply
Anonymous (7:09 PM on Tue Nov 11, 2008)

Nice summary. I am a JungleDisk user and I like it, but I don`t understand when people are saying that it is "just 15 cents a month" since the calculation, as you stated it, should be that it will cost .25 cents the first month and then 15 cents. For a small quantity of files, this is good, but the solution become costly if you attempt to backup all your photos, as you can reach the 33 gig pretty fast. I am surprised that amazon are not lowering their price, or suggesting lower $/gig if you use more space. As of the JungleDisk software, which must be purchased for 20$, it is a very good application and the price is more than reasonable for the features included.

For now, I try to do part of my off-home backup with jungle disk and part with DVD`s and external HD that I store at someone else house or at the office. I presume, for someone with over 80 gig of disk of valuable data it would worth buying an external disk (or 2) and do regularly backup and a rotation of the HD between home and somewhere outside the house.

- Pierre

Reply
Giselle (6:09 AM on Fri Nov 14, 2008)

I read about Memopal.com at http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/article.php/3780761

and I bought it. I think it's a very usefull tool because stored files never expire and buying ONE license I can use it on all my pc and also iPhone now,

Reply
Jim Walker external link (4:55 AM on Mon Nov 17, 2008)

I backup my important files on a daily basis using a data backup software called Titan Backup, onto an external harddisk, but the company stated that an online backup feature built on Amazon S3 is under work also.

Reply
John Galvin external link (7:42 AM on Wed Nov 19, 2008)

Hi All,

Why not try BackupEarth. I would love to hear what you think of our software, download for free, the only option you don't have on the Demo version is to backup your files to BackupEarth Servers.

Otherwise you can, AutoZip Files, Backup Scanned Documents, Backup SQL... there is no software restrictions BackupEarth only charge for the online space you use @ €1 per GB.

Have a look,

Thanks, please let me know what you think, I spend along time writing the code!!

Kind Regards

http://www.backupearth.com
BackupEarth Developer.

Reply
shm (12:42 PM on Sun Nov 23, 2008)

Elephant drive has a feature that stood out above all others. If you delete a file from your machine elephant drive still retains a copy of it, indefinitely, not 30 days or a year. That is what above all else made the decision to do with elephant drive for me.

Reply
Anonymous (1:39 PM on Wed Dec 17, 2008)

Let me update everyone...

On November 12 2008 Xdrive LLC part of AOL LLC sent out to Xdrive account holders an AOL Official Mail notifying them that the Xdrive service will be shutting down on January 12 2009. On December 12 2008 Xdrive LLC part of AOL LLC sent a second notice to Xdrive account holders.

Check your SPAM box if you don't see it in your Inbox especially if you have a non AOL email account.

Today is December 17th 2008 so that leaves Xdrive account holders 27 days to get their assets off of the Xdrive service. I would not recommend waiting until the last day. Get it done today...!

I recommend choosing ElephantDrive and to make transferring those digital assets over as easy as possible just click the link http://www.elephantdrive.com/m/ct.aspx?ici=267 ...this is the Xdrive to ElephantDrive migration page.

ElephantDrive is the only solution provider working in cooperation with Xdrive using their Open Xdrive API. While competitors of ElephantDrive may offer discounts on their subscription plans you'll have to do all the work of transferring your digital assets. ElephantDrive is committed to helping every Xdrive account holder make transitioning their digital assets seamless and transparent by using the Xdrive to ElephantDrive migration page.

ElephantDrive offers packages that are designed to protect the digital assets of individuals, SMBs, and large organizations.

Xdrive consumers with questions about transferring their digital assets over to ElephantDrive can check our Common Questions page.

https://www.elephantdrive.com/online_backup/xdrive_elepha...

Matt K. Olson
Consultant @ ElephantDrive

Reply
Jane (3:27 AM on Fri May 8, 2009)

Elephant sounds great for business backup. For my personal computers, I've been using SafeCopy, www.safecopybackup.com. In particular I was able to backup USB drives, share files and backup both my Mac and PC with one account. I'm very happy with it and it may be worth checking out.

Reply
Chris Apap (5:41 AM on Fri Jan 8, 2010)

I am particularly interested in acquiring either the Mozy solution or the ElephantDrive solution. I see that there pricing is very competitive except if one then takes a plan which includes more than 1 PC. If I choose a 1 PC plan does that mean that I can only upload files to the online storage location from 1 PC or can I upload files from eg: three PC's as long as I use the same user name and password. Does anyone have any insight to this query of mine? Thanks so much! Chris

Reply
Chris Apap (5:39 AM on Fri Jan 8, 2010)

I am particularly interested in Mozy and ElephantDrive. I see that both solutions have a price per computer which then makes their pricing not that competitive compared to others. If i opt to go for either solution on a 1 PC plan does that mean that I can online upload files to the online storage location via ONE pc or can i upload from eg: three PC's as long as I always use the same user name and password. Does anyone have any insight on this to provide me with!. Thanks a lot! Chris

Reply
John Le Brasseur external link (5:21 PM on Sun Jan 10, 2010)

I like and use DriveHQ Online Backup Service.
Reasons:
Integrated with Windows file manager.
Reliable and stable software.(Windows only)
Realtime or scheduled backup.
Backup of files in use.
Backup Folders or individual files.
Retention of file versions as changes are made.
Reasonably priced.
1 Gig free.
The Company is focussed on quality.
I believe their product is underrated. Probably one of the very best services available.
See my website for discussions and recommendations on this subject.
(http://www.online-data-backup-info.com/)

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