By Hiawatha Bray
May 5, 2008

Not many consumers presently use online backup — only about 1.5 percent, according to a survey taken last year by research firm IDC Corp. in Framingham, Mass. But lots of companies offer online storage for small amounts of data, often at no charge. Two firms promise to store every file you’ve got for as little as $50 a year.

You’ve been through this before. A smart-aleck technology columnist tells you to back up your computer files or else. Sure enough, you choose “or else,” because making spare copies of your files is too much bother.

You don’t want to spend $100 or more on an external hard drive or figure out how to install the automatic backup software. Besides, if your house is robbed or burned down, there goes your computer and your precious backup, too.

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Published on May 04, 2008

Tries to do too much:

Hp Upline used to be called Titanize and was the product of a company called Opelin that was acquired by HP last year. At $59 per year for unlimited capacity, it’s $10 more expensive than Carbonite and $5 more expensive than Mozy Home. There is a “Family Plan” that backs up 3 PCs for $149/yr, and a Business version that starts at $299 per year for 3 PCs.

HP Upline tries to do too much - backup, file sharing, photo sharing, publishing, and so on. It doesn’t do any of them really well. We gave Upline 1 star out of 5. As a backup service, it lacks most of the …

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May 02, 2008

By Naomi Grossman

Please click here to read a summary of 6 online backup companies (slide show at Forbes.com)

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by Michael Muchmore

Where’s the best place to keep your backed-up data? Somewhere far, far away. These online services will keep your data safe no matter what sort of disaster strikes your local PCs.

Local backup to external or optical drives is an excellent practice, but it can’t always protect your precious data. Just ask director Francis Ford Coppola. Last September, thieves stole not only his computers but also his backup device. The director lost 15 years of computer records, from writings to family photographs. Similarly, if there’s a fire or flood or tsunami where you keep your computers and PCs, you too can say good-bye to all those digital photographs, your music collection, and anything else you’ve backed up locally—even if you’re smart enough to backup to another on-site device, like a hard-drive or NAS. You can, of course, store a hard drive in a safe-deposit box, but that’s a hassle, and chances are you won’t update it monthly, let alone daily—and certainly not every time you update a file. If you want near-real time off-site backup, an online backup service is the way to go.

The services are inexpensive (typically about $5 a month), and the best ones won’t …

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Digested everything in Part 1 already, wanna know more? Here’s Part 2, about the Mesh Bar and Website sections!

The Mesh Bar

Attached to the right on the folders, both on Live Desktop and on your device, you find the Mesh Bar. It consists of 3 sections:

News
This part informs you of what has happened in that folder: which files were uploaded/updated/deleted and by who and members invited/joined/left. In the News section you can also post a message for those you share the folder with (or a reminder for yourself of course). To do that click the New post link, enter the message in the next screen and click OK

Clicking View all will take you to a new screen containing all activity in that folder. Clicking a member’s name will bring you to this person’s Live Mesh Profile, clicking on a file name will allow you to open/save (download) said file.

Members
This section contains the names of …

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Kip already posted a Live Mesh Technology Preview: First Look, let’s follow up on that. So we’ve already added some devices, now what? First let me start off by saying that the Live Desktop works the same as your computer Desktop (Vista lay-out). Double click opens and in the folders you will find the same open/close/minimize/maximize buttons, there’s even a taskbar at the bottom.

Folders

We already added a folder too. Let me tell you some more about creating folders. You can create a folder on your computer and add it to Live Mesh as shown in Kip’s article. The second possibility to add a folder is to create one on the Live Desktop. To do so double click on Create new folder …

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Simon Williams, Computeract!ve 24 Apr 2008

Would you trust a backup of your vital data stored in Boston (Massachusetts, not Lincolnshire)? There’s no reason why not

Ratings

Overall rating:

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Verdict

Good points:

• Access from any PC
• Unlimited storage
• Works in background
• Easy to install
• Similar price to local storage

Bad points:

• Making backups can be slow

Overall:
Easy-to-use, secure personal online storage for about £25 a year

Price:

$50 (£25) per year

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SOS Online Backup

http://www.sosonlinebackup.com

• Type: Business, Personal, Professional
• OS Compatibility: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Tech Support: chat
• Notes: $19.95/year for 2 GB; 5 GB for $29.95; 15 GB for $49.95; Free trial with 200MB

By Michael Muchmore

On my tests of the latest iterations of well-known online backup services, I was surprised to find that no one product delivered both an easy-to-use interface and advanced capabilities. Then I got to SOS Online Backup. Neil J. Rubenking looked at a beta version in 2006 and liked it enough to give it an Editors’ Choice award, citing its continuous backup, even of open files. I tested a prerelease version of the 4.0 software, which adds a local backup option, a mail-in hard drive service for huge backups, and a new, simpler pricing scheme. The improvements, on top of its already-strong online backup capabilities, keep it on top. Readers won’t be able to access the service until May 1, but those interested in online backup should be sure to check out the new version of the service when it launches.

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A reliable computer is a great asset, but at some point all but the luckiest of us has probably experienced some kind of hardware failure. If your hard disk gives up the ghost you could be waving goodbye to irreplaceable documents. In recent years our PCs have taken custody of our record collections, photo albums and home videos, which means they contain gigabytes of memories that could be lost forever. Read and comment on this review »

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