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As much as the digital age has made our lives easier by saving us the hassle of arranging the documents and never-ending task of paperwork, we still run the risk of losing the data. If the data is being kept in document format; it can be lost or misplaced, burnt, fall into wrong hands, lost to some natural calamity or may simply become illegible over time.
On the other hand, if the data is kept in digital format (Internal Hard Drives, USB Drives, DVD’s, etc), there are numerous possible things such as deletion, corruption, system hacked or natural calamity. Either way, it is necessary to have the data backed up safe and secure. Ever since the transition into the Cloud era, millions have found a solution to store the copy or copies on one of the online storage services or as some know it as Cloud storage services.
However, as discussed in our previous post there are some small but significant difference between cloud storage and cloud backup services. We had listed in one of our previous posts some of the cloud storage services, so we are now listing some of the recommended Cloud Backup vendors. Please bear in mind that the listings are random and not listed as per their rankings or ratings in the market.
1. Backblaze
Launched in 2007 and Headquartered in California, Backblaze is a well established and a prominent cloud backup vendor. It offers unlimited backup storage for Personal end users and for Business enterprises. At the time of writing this post, Personal backup costs just $5/month while for Businesses it costs $50/year/computer with Unlimited storage for both. You will need to contact Backblaze if you wish to buildyour own Cloud storage solution through Backblaze, since the cost remains undisclosed at the moment. You can restore the backup by either downloading the file or you can have Backblaze to have it sent to you through Fedex in an external Hard drive (upto 4TB) or a Flash drive (upto 128GB). Unfortunately, Backblaze doesn’t have Phone support or File-syncing option at the moment.
You will need to contact Backblaze if you wish to buildyour own Cloud storage solution through Backblaze, since the cost remains undisclosed at the moment. You can restore the backup by either downloading the file or you can have Backblaze to have it sent to you through Fedex in an external Hard drive (upto 4TB) or a Flash drive (upto 128GB). Unfortunately, Backblaze doesn’t have Phone support or File-syncing option at the moment.
2. Carbonite
Carbonite has several plans for Personal and Business users. Plans for Personal user starting from $42 per year. Carbonite segregates Business plans in to Computer Backup (Starting from $269.99 per year), Server Backup(starting from $899.99 per year). They use Hybrid storage solution and Bare Metal Restore solution for data restore. Linux users may want to look elsewhere as Carbonite at present only provides it backup software for Windows & Mac. The software program once installed continuously keeps backing up the data as per the opted plan.
3. Crashplan
Crashplan was developed and released by an American company named Code42 in 2007. Crashplan would be the backup option for you if you are a bit wary about having your backup stored in the cloud (although it would in a way defeat the purpose of this list you may be going through). The Free plan allows you to backup your data to another computer or an external drive (including a free 30 days online backup). The online backup Plans start at $5/month for Individual users and $12.50/month for Family for 2-10 computers. For Business end users, it costs $10/month per computer. All the online backup plans offer unlimited storage and supports all types of file types and sizes.
4. SpiderOak
Available since 2007, SpiderOak claims and prides itself for being the Zero Knowledge cloud backup vendor. In simple words; no user data or their encryption keys or even the file meta data is even accessible by SpiderOak. SpiderOak is also available for Linux besides Windows and Mac. The plans for Individual user starts from $7/month for 30GB data, $12 for 1TB and $25 for 5TB.
They offer separate plans for Groups and Business end users. Group plans starting for $9/user per month with Free setup; Enterprise Hosted plan for $5/user per month with an initial cost of $299 for setup; Enterprise On Premise plan for $5/user per month with an initial cost of $599 for setup. It may appear a little expensive compared to other cloud backup vendors considering they are offering very limited storage.
5. IDrive Inc.
Not to be confused with IDrive which helps control BMW cars. Previously named IBackup and then renamed to IDrive in early 2000, IDrive allows you to backup up to 5GB of data for free. It is available for Windows and Mac on PC platforms and iOS, Android and Windows Phone on mobile OS platforms. IDrive also provides real-time syncing so you can access your data across devices. Pricing Plans for Individuals start from $59.50/year for 1TB space and $99.50 for Business end users for 250GB.
Recommended : Remote Backup – Advantages and Disadvantages
6. SugarSync
Unfortunately, unlike before SugarSync no longer offers a Free account with free 5GB space as it used to. The complete Paid only model now start at $7.49 / month for 100GB storage and $55 / month for 1000GB storage for Business end users ( Maximum 3 users).
7. SOS Online Backup
SOS Online Backup is a online backup product by the Infrascale Inc,. SOS Online Backup has quite a few features to be excited about. Starting with the fact that files once backed up, are never deleted by SOS even if you accidentally delete it from your system. SOS provides incremental backup system so you never have to start the backup from the beginning in case of system reboot or a network connectivity issues. The plans start from $7.99 per month for personal users and $39.99 per month for businesses.
8. Mozy
Founded in 2005, Mozy was later acquired in 2007 and is now a part of EMC Corporation. Mozy’s online backup is available in 3 versions: Mozy Home for $5.99 per month per computer with 50GB storage & $9.99 per month per computer with 125GB storage; MozyPro (without server) for $9.99 per month with 10GB storage & MozyPro (with server) for $13.98 per month with 10GB storage and MozyEnterprise for Enterprise and medium to large business end users’ backup.
9. OpenDrive
OpenDrive offers both Limited and Unlimited online Backup option to the users. Below are their pricing plans:
Limited Backup (Customizable)
Personal User – Starting from $6 per month with 500GB storage
Business User – Starting from $7 per month with 500GB storage
Unlimited Backup
Personal User – Starting from $12.95 per month with 500GB storage
Business User – Starting from $29.95 per month with 500GB storage
OpenDrive is also offering a Free personal account with 5 GB Storage, 100 MB Maximum File Size limit,1 GB per day Bandwidth and 200 KB/s Speed. OpenDrive is currently available for Windows & MAC for Desktop and iOS & Android for mobile platforms.
10. Acronis
Founded in 2003 and Headquartered in Switzerland, Acronis develops Backup software and Disaster recovery solutions. Acronis develops Physical as well as Cloud backup software for Home and Business users. For Home users, the plans start from $49.99 for 1 computer and provides only local backup, while plan for Cloud + Local backup starts from $99.99 for 1 year and supports 1 computer and 3 additional devices.
Business users targeted backup software includes Acronis Backup and Acronis Backup Advanced. Acronis Backup offers complete backup for:
Windows Server
PC/Workstation
VMware
Linux
Windows Server Essentials
Acronis Backup Advanced offers backup solution for all mentioned in Acronis Backup and also Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, Active Directory, Oracle VM, Linux Server, etc.
Conclusion
It is vital to have a cloud backup vendor service to have your data backed up on regular intervals. All the more crucial is to have access to the data to be restored on demand in case you lose your data for various reasons mentioned earlier. Do make sure to go acquire in depth information and details regarding the cloud backup vendor which you select.
NOTE : – Prices may be subject to change by the respective companies at any point of time without any prior information. The costs mentioned are as they were at the time of writing this post.
Feature Image Credit – GotCredit/Flickr
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