Online Backup Reviews


By Andrew Hudson Published: March 16, 2012 Updated: January 19, 2017

By Andrew Hudson Published: March 16, 2012 Updated: January 19, 2017

In this age, getting your computer stolen can be a disaster. So here are the various ways you can backup your precious files to the cloud.

Summary

The best six online backup services I found are:

Best Online Backup Services
CompanyRank¹Cost²
Carbonite13,270$59
LiveDrive15,078$80
MyPCBackup26,979$72
CrashPlan28,313$50
JustCloud43,427$72
Backblaze49,371$50
¹ Rank=Traffic rank on Alexa.com, as of March 13, 2012.
² 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
ReviewerTop Choice
ComputerworldCarbonite
The New York TimesCarbonite
MacworldCrashPlan
PCMagSOS 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 And I have two offsite backups on external hard-drives, but those are often six months out of date as they have to be done manually.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.”

Please click here to read more.

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