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Do you
have a remote location backup in the event that
your home or office burns down? |
Your PC May Be A
Disaster Waiting To Happen
Is
your PC a disaster waiting to happen? We store
tons of important digital
files —
important documents, priceless family photos,
hundreds or thousands of music and
video downloads, business files, and other very
crucial financial
information — in our PCs and yet a
lot of people (and even businesses) still
neglect to backup all these, whether to an
external hard drive within the vicinity or
online to another location.
With home PCs increasingly becoming a
central storage vault for everything digital, the
economic, financial, and emotional costs of losing
all of these important files is just too large
to quantify. Are you also aware that no
amount of casualty insurance can recoup the loss
of data from damaged or stolen PCs?
I've heard and read countless horror stories of
PCs, laptops, and their onsite backups being
stolen, accidentally damaged from falling,
damaged by flooding, or simply crashing for some
unknown reason. The types of people who
experience such unfortunate incidents range from
business owners, students, teachers,
professional and casual writers, photographers, housewives,
music lovers, musicians, salesmen, researchers,
consultants, bloggers,
creative editors, dentists, magicians, soldiers, plumbers, professors, lab
technicians, scientists, etc. In short, no one
is spared from the possibility of ill-fated, frustrating PC and laptop mishaps.
I did some research on data losses from PC mishaps and found the following
staggering statistics that seem to support Murphy's Law
("Anything that can go wrong will go wrong")
when it comes to PC's:
Based on the above stats, there is a high
probability that every person with a PC will
experience a major data loss sooner, rather
than later.
External Hard
Drives Are Not Enough
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The failure rates of drives that were in their first year of service or shorter was just as high as those after the seven year mark. |
Are
you still sitting on the fence deciding on
whether you should backup your data online?
Sure, you might have an external hard drive that
you use to backup your PC or laptop but this is
not an ideal option to backup your data because
it sits next to your PC. What
if both of them gets damaged by water from a
busted pipe or a leaking roof? What if someone breaks in your
house and steals both your PC and external hard
drive? Now what if your home burns down? Or if a
flash flood happens? These are scenarios, which
we hope won't happen to us but the reality is
that these kinds of disasters and other PC
mishaps happen to millions of people worldwide ...
everyday.
Now
if you really prefer an external hard
drive and you are in the market for one, feel free
to peruse through some of the best external
drives in the market today:
best selling hard drives.
Again, these may be the best external hard
drives, but not the best option for data
safekeeping.
How about data recovery services?
If your hard drive fails, there are data
recovery services that can help you recover your
data from your PC. Keep in mind though that
there is no guarantee that they will be able to
recover all or some of your data.
Even if you manage to recover your data, expect
to pay a hefty price for their service. Service
charges for data recovery services can range
from a few hundred dollars and into the
thousands.
A Victim Of Data Loss
Myself
I
have experienced PC hard drive failures a couple
of times
and although I managed to recover most files,
there are important data files that were
completely lost. It's not a fun situation to be
in but it happened. These incidents were before the
advent of external hard drives and when these
devices were still very expensive and not
affordable.
Even now that I have external hard drives to
backup my PCs, the risk of having to lose my
important data files remain a possibility if
something were to happen to my home as a result of a
fire or some unforeseen natural disaster. I know for a fact that complacency may
lead to dire consequences. Hence, the smart option
for backing up your PC's contents is to use an
online backup service. Why take a chance when there
are now affordable options for online safekeeping?
So How Do Online Backup
Services Work?
It
used to be that these online backup services
were not affordable to the average Joe like me
or to small and medium-sized business owners. Thanks to high speed internet access and
the emergence of cloud
computing technology, online backup services are now
available to us to protect our all important
personal and business files. Besides, these services
are easy to use and very reasonably priced.
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Most
online backup services have backups of
backups for
an extra level of protection |
So
how do these services work?
» Online backup services work by installing a small program on your computer that sends files to a central server
located in a datacenter in some remote and
secure location.
» The software on your
PC detects files for backing up.
It then encrypts the data and sends this to the
central server where it is encrypted again to keep your data safe while
in storage.
» After the initial
backup, the software detects what has
changed in your PC since the last backup. If it
finds new files, it will queue this for
encryption and transmission.
» You can set your
PC to backup
online every night when you are done for the
day or whenever you deem convenient.
» Your data
remains safe and private, as these
services use strong encryption technology.
» In the event
that you need to restore your data to your PC or
to a new PC, all you need is to do a couple of clicks
and the encrypted data will be sent and downloaded
to your PC. Data recovery is that simple.
» In addition to storing your data in a remote location, most online
services themselves have backups, which means
that you get an extra level of protection.
Now
that you know how online backup services work,
the next burning question in your mind may
then be: "Which online backup service is right for
me?"
My Quest For The Best Online
Backup Service
Being a victim of data loss myself due to PC
hard drive and other PC mechanical and operating
system failures, I
set out to find an online backup service
that I can use. Although I may understand a
little something about technology, I do not
consider myself to be a techie at all so my
approach to evaluating these services were based
on things which I believe are practical and more
from a user's point of view. Some of
the criteria by which I evaluated these
online backup services were as follows:
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Data security is a major concern for me, most especially since I will be storing
valuable personal data, business files, family photos, music, videos, and other digital media online. I wanted to make sure that the transfer and storage of all of these are as secure as possible. |
» Market
leaders. I wanted to find out which online
backup service providers are market leaders and
are getting great feedback in the market.
Reputable technology companies
which are endorsed or have partnerships with
some of the largest names in technology usually will have
better staying power in the
market. These are the types of service companies
that I am looking for. For me to have the ultimate peace
of mind on the safety of my personal and
business digital files, I think
that
using the online backup services of reputable
market leaders is the best option.
» Data security.
Data security is a major concern for me, most
especially since I
will be storing valuable personal data, business files,
family photos, music, videos, and other digital
media online. I wanted to make sure that the
transfer and storage of all of these are as secure
as possible.
» Price of
service. Who doesn't want to get the best
price for a service? I care about this and am
assuming that you also do. If I can get the best
service at the best price, then no doubt I will
be getting a lot of value for what I pay for.
» Ease of use.
As I have said, I am no techie so any service or
software that makes my life easier and
simplifies the whole process of backing up data
without all the technology gibberish will
definitely score well with me. The more idiot
proof the service, the better it is for me.
The Top Three Online
Backup Services
I don't know
about you but for me, if I were to use a service, I
would rather use products or services which have
proven themselves in the market. Most especially in an
industry that is fairly new, I would rather stick
with the market leaders since these players have
proven their technology. Since I will be
entrusting and storing valuable digital files to
a company, I would rather go with the best.
After doing my
research to find out what online backup services
are worth further investigating, I was able to
reduce my list to three online backup
services which had market leadership as well as
partnerships with some of the top technology
companies. These three services are Carbonite,
Mozy, and Norton (by Symantec).
Here's what I
found out about these three top market online
backup service providers:
 »
Carbonite is a venture-backed company based in
Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 2005, the company has shot to
the top of the online backup industry due to its
outstanding service and technology. Since 2006,
the company
has backed up and protected more than
39
billion files and restored more than 3.2 billion
lost files for customers in more than 120 countries.
Upon
further research, I found that Carbonite has
global partnerships with Acer, Packard Bell Europe,
and Lenovo for preloaded PC protection.
Carbonite also has a partnership with Sun
Microsystems (which was acquired by Oracle
Corporation). Carbonite was recognized as a 2009 Webware 100
award winner on Webware, a CNET site. Carbonite's set-and-forget online backup service was honored as a favorite in the Infrastructure and Storage category.
In June 2010,
Carbonite CEO David Friend was awarded Ernst & Young's prestigious Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2010 Award
in New England, adding more to the credibility of the company's innovative and industry leading technology.
 »
Mozy,
which is based in Pleasant Grove, Utah, is owned by EMC Corporation, the world's biggest corporate data storage equipment maker.
Founded in 2005, the company has also shot to
the top of the online backup industry because of
its outstanding backup technology and ease of
use.
Mozy has
a global partnership with Lenovo to provide online backup service to its
PC owners. McAfee, the world's second largest
security software company, has also teamed up with Mozy to offer online backup services to its
customers. Mozy is also endorsed by eBay
and Iomega. General
Electric Company's (GE) has made a substantial investment in Mozy to back up data for
all its mobile employees. Mozy was voted
No. 1 for backup and recovery by Small Business
Computing in 2009.
 »
Norton Online Backup is a product of Symantec, the
world's largest
security software provider. Although Symantec is
more known for its security software, the
company has ventured into online backup services
since this is a strong complement to its core
business.
One of Norton's largest partnership
for online storage is with Hewlett-Packard (HP).
HP is shipping with its PC's preloaded Symantec
software which will include Norton Online Backup
with limited storage.
These three online backup
service providers are endorsed by some of the
world's largest technology companies,
which I thought was very reassuring.
Which Service Provides The Best
Data Security?
It has taken
years for online backup services to
earn the trust of businesses and consumers.
Over the years, encryption technology has vastly
improved. Venture capital and online backup
companies have invested millions of dollars in
R&D to ensure the development of data
encryption technology that can withstand even the smartest
of hackers.
For me, since I
will be backing up all the files on my PC,
which includes personal as well as business
critical information, data security is at the top
of my list of concerns. This therefore brings me
to the next step of my decision-making process: "Which
online backup service provides the best
security?"
I did further
research on this and this is what I found out:
» Carbonite, Mozy,
and Norton all use 128-bit SSL encryption during
the backup and data transmission process. For those who are not
familiar with what 128-bit SSL encryption, this
is the same technology that banks and credit
card processors use to secure financial
information and transactions.
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Of the multitudes of encryption algorithms today, 448-bit Blowfish encryption stands out as the industry leader. |
» For data storage, Norton
uses 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)
encryption. 256-bit AES encryption is the
encryption standard adopted by the US
government. However, Carbonite and Mozy both
use 448-bit Blowfish encryption when storing
your information in their datacenters. Of the
multitudes of encryption algorithms today,
448-bit Blowfish encryption stands out as the
industry leader.
Given that my
top priority is the security of my files, Carbonite and
Mozy seemed to be better choices since these two companies use maximum encryption
technology for data security. Carbonite and Mozy
both scored in this round.
Based on Price, Which Is Better?
Here's a
breakdown of what the three online backup
services have to offer:
» Carbonite has a simple payment plan for
unlimited backup. It's either you pay $54.95 for
a one-year plan or $99.95 for a two-year plan
(this equates to $49.98 a year). You are allowed
to backup one PC per subscription.
» Mozy also
offers unlimited backup but it has two types of
plans ... one for home users (MozyHome) and the other for
businesses (MozyPro). MozyHome charges $4.95 a month
(which equates to $59.40 a year). They give you
three billing options (two years, one year, or
monthly). When you sign-up, Mozy may also give you a
couple of months free use depending on how you would
like to be billed. MozyPro for desktops and
notebooks costs $3.95 per license plus 50 cents
per GB per month. MozyPro for servers costs $6.95 per license plus 50 cents
per GB per month. Like Carbonite, you are
allowed to backup one PC per subscription.
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Unlike Carbonite and Mozy, Norton Online Backup service does not offer unlimited backup. |
» Unlike Carbonite and Mozy,
Norton Online Backup service does not offer unlimited backup.
Norton charges $49.99 a year for 25 GB of
storage space. Additional storage space can be purchased in increments of 10, 25, 50 and 100 GB.
A positive service plan feature that
differentiates Norton from Carbonite and Mozy is
that you can backup files from five PCs with one subscription.
Based on the
pricing plan, Carbonite scored well with me for
two reasons: (1) Pricing is cheaper compared to Mozy and Norton;
and (2)
The simplicity of their payment plan also makes
it more appealing. Regardless of whether you are
getting the service for your household or for your
business, you know upfront how much you will be
paying and that no billing surprises will be
coming your way going forward. Furthermore, regardless of
whether you are using this for your home or
your business, you have access to unlimited storage
space.
For this round,
Carbonite scored.
Which Is Easier to Use?
I know for a
fact that I will be needing more than 25 GB of
offline storage space to backup my PC. This means
that if I use Norton, I will eventually end up
paying more for storage beyond the 25 GB
maximum. It may initially seem that 25 GB of
storage is a lot of space but the reality of
this is that you will eventually be exceeding
this and needing more space.
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Carbonite and Mozy performed well and were very similar but there was one particular area in which I thought one service was better than the other. |
At this point,
I elected to drop Norton Online Backup from my
short-list and opted to focus my attention on
Carbonite and Mozy.
Since both of
these services have a trial period (Note: Norton
Online Backup does not have a trial period. You
have to purchase the service in order to use it), I decided to
avail of this for an actual test run in order to
find out the actual performance of Carbonite and
Mozy on my PCs. For the trial period (which is
15 days for both Carbonite and Mozy), Carbonite
allows for unlimited data backup while Mozy
allows for only 2 GB of data backup.
I downloaded and installed Carbonite on my Hewlett-Packard Pavilion Elite
m9340f PC. I downloaded Mozy on my
Hewlett-Packard Pavilion Elite m9715f PC. These
two PCs have very similar specs so hardware
performance should not be a factor.
Just a side
note for Mac users ... Carbonite and Mozy are also available
for Mac.
After running
Carbonite and Mozy on my PCs, these were my
observations:
» Software
download and installation. After I
registered for an account with both Carbonite
and Mozy, I downloaded their installation
software. The installation of both Carbonite and
Mozy on my PCs took just a few minutes and went
smoothly. There were no techie or fancy
instructions to follow, which is perfect for
technology idiots like me.
» Interface
functionalities. The interface for
both Carbonite and Mozy were easy to use. Based on the
functionalities, both offered the same options.
For example, you can pause the backup process
anytime you want to. You can also set up a
schedule when you would like the backup process
to commence or stop.
» Average backup
rate. I have a cable
connection to access the Internet. For the
initial encryption and data backup process, both
Carbonite and Mozy backed up around 3 to 4 GB on
average a day (which was surprisingly a little
bit higher than the average upload of 2 to
3 GB a day that both Carbonite and Mozy
advertise on their sites). I did not notice any significant
difference in the rate of data
transfer for both online backup services.
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Carbonite's interface was simple and
easy to use. |
» File
restoration access. For both Carbonite and Mozy,
you can restore files from any PC with a Web interface
and an internet connection. Subscribers can log on to their account from any browser on any
PC,
chose the files that are backed up, and
immediately download these to your PC.
» File and folder selection.
Both services have folder and file selection capabilities when restoring
or when backing up your PC. For example, you can expand a folder tree and check or uncheck individual files
for restoration or for backing up.
» File
restoration. For online
restoration of files, keep in mind that it will
take roughly the same time to restore all your
files to a computer as you had initially backed
up your data. If it took you 6 days to
initially backup your PC, it should then take
you around 6 days to restore your data to a new PC.
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Mozy's
initial backup instructions are easy to
follow. |
» New file or
update detection. After you
complete your initial backup, Carbonite and Mozy
can both detect new or updated files, which are
then flagged and backed up based on the schedule that you had setup.
» Standby mode.
A feature that I
thought was pretty cool with both services is
that Carbonite and Mozy will check to see if you
are not using your PC. Once they detect that your
PC is idle, that will be the only time that
these programs
will start the upload process for new or updated
files.
In terms of the
factors mentioned above, Carbonite and Mozy
performed well and were very similar but
there was one particular area in which I thought
one service was better than the other.
One Service Was Better In This Aspect ...
As much as both
Carbonite and Mozy were very similar in
features and functionalities, there was one
particular aspect that made an impression on me and made me
decide on which of the two I should use.
» File scanning.
When my PCs were
in the process of initially being backed up, both Carbonite and Mozy scanned
my PCs to find the files that need to
be backed up. In this phase of the initial back
up, I noticed that Carbonite was
significantly faster than Mozy. Any time saving
mechanism, most especially with the initial
backup process, scores points with me. Carbonite
was better in this aspect.
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I found this really annoying since this happened very often. |
» Initial file
selection and backup. The initial
backup process for Carbonite was also more
efficient in that it would index, encrypt
the files, and then send the files for transfer in
batches — all without a hitch. Mozy, on the other hand, would index
the files, then pause and wait for me to select
the files to transfer. After which, Mozy will
then encrypt and send out the files. During the
"select files to transfer" phase, Mozy would
freeze a lot of times or appear to be doing
nothing at all when I was selecting files or
folders to backup. I found this really
annoying since this happened very often. I had
to wait for Mozy to unfreeze (which took a long
time) every time I selected folders and files for
backing up. It was a bit frustrating and I do
not need that.
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While
selecting files and folders to backup, Mozy
would freeze a lot of times or appear to
be not responding at all. I found this really annoying since this happened very often.
During instances when Mozy was not
responding, I had to end the program a couple of
times and had to start the whole process all
over. |
» Ease of site
use. For the Mozy
trial, 2 GB of space is allowed. When I tried to
increase my quota, instructions on Mozy's site
were confusing. It took me a while to figure
things out.
» Customer
support. Here is another area where Carbonite has a distinct advantage over Mozy. You
can get technical support from Carbonite in
three ways: live phone support (7 days a week),
real-time live chat support (7 days a week x 24
hours a day ... yes, I did get support even at
the unholy hour of 2:00 in the morning!), and
email. Mozy technical support has a tiered
service so your level of support will depend on
whether you have MozyHome or MozyPro. MozyHome
only offers email support while MozyPro has
phone and email. No live chat support is
provided, which is can be a pain if you happen
to have any issues or questions about the
service at 2:00 in the morning.
Based on my
overall experience and observations in using
these two online backup services, my experience
with Carbonite was hassle free and more
pleasant. Carbonite
scored well with me this round.
My Final Recommendation
In general,
Carbonite and Mozy are both true set-and-forget
types of service. These two services are great
for busy people or technology idiots like me. If
you were to ask me which of the two would be the
best online backup service to use, then here is
what I think:
For Personal
Data Online Backup. For backing up
your personal files, it's really a close call
between Carbonite and Mozy. As I have discussed
above, the two services offer the same level of
data security, they both offer very similar
features and functionality, and both deserve an
excellent rating for ease of use.
» In
terms of performance, I give Carbonite an edge
over Mozy as a result of its more efficient
initial data backup process. Although both
online backup services had almost the same
online data transfer rate and the same level of
security for data transfer and storage, Carbonite was more efficient during the initial
backup process. There was an annoyance factor
with Mozy's file selection functionality during
this particular phase, which I was not too happy
about.
» For the
budget conscious type of consumer, Carbonite
also has a
slight edge over Mozy. Carbonite's price of
$54.95 a year is cheaper than Mozy's $59.40 a
year (it's a $4.45 difference). Being a price
conscious consumer myself, I would therefore
recommend Carbonite over Mozy.
For Business
Data Online Backup. For businesses, I
would recommend Carbonite hands down. The
unlimited backup offer on a simple payment plan
makes Carbonite more appealing since the
business owner knows upfront how much he/she will be
spending per PC that will be backed up. There is
no guesswork needed to address your business
storage needs and no unexpected additional
charges are incurred every month with Carbonite's online backup service. I am sure
that you will agree with me that this is more
appealing than Mozy's.
So based on the decision process that I have outlined and
discussed above to determine which I think is
the best online backup service in the market, I
am now using Carbonite for the safekeeping of my
personal and business data. I therefore would
recommend Carbonite to anyone who is in the
market for an online backup service.
Hope my review helps you in your
decision-making for an online backup service.
Steven S.
Disclosure: Compensated Affiliate
PS. I am really very happy with Carbonite. In
fact, I have Carbonite installed on three of my
home PCs (all used for various purposes such as
business, personal stuff, and entertainment.
PS2. A commonly asked question that I receive
about Carbonite is this: "If you have Carbonite
installed on three of your home PCs, does it
mean that you have to pay for three Carbonite
subscriptions?" The answer to that is a "Yes".
That's the way their plan works. I initially
installed Carbonite on 1 PC. After seeing how
easy it was to use and feeling very secure that
I really had made the right decision, that's
when I decided to buy additional subscriptions
for my other PCs. I think of Carbonite more as
an insurance in case something goes wrong with
any of my PCs. I have peace of mind and feel
very comfortable with the fact that all my
important business and personal data are safely
and securely stored offsite, and that I have
access to them anytime I want to.
PS3.
If you have questions regarding the online backup services featured on this site, feel free to contact me at:
ask.steven@onlinebackupyourdata.com
Carbonite
Unlimited Online Backup 15 Day Risk-Free Trial
Mozy
2 GB Online Backup 15 Day Risk-Free Trial
Norton Online Backup
Buy Now
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Did You
Know That? ...
