Online Backup Solutions: Review of Carbonite, Mozy, XDrive and Connected (4 companies)

Of all the tasks that occupy a computer’s processing time, none has greater potential to leap from mundane service to critical function than the backup process. In the past, backup procedures (whether implemented for personal or corporate use) were mostly physical and involved regular copy sessions to a separate floppy disk, tape, or CD-R/DVD-R. In recent years, the falling price of hard drive storage has made external hard drive-based backups a practical solution for certain personal or small business uses.

 

The growing prevalence and rising speed of broadband, coupled with the aforementioned drop in storage costs, has allowed companies that specialize in online backup solutions to extend these services to a great range of clientele. Unlike physical backup solutions, online systems have the advantage of requiring no additional hardware and usually have a small software footprint as well, in terms of program size or memory requirements.

 

Once installed, the user assigns the program a set of files to automatically back up to a remote server location monitored and owned by whichever company is providing the service. Alternatively, the user can choose to manually back up files on a personally determined schedule, rather than relying on automatic scheduling. Although online backup services aren’t a new concept as such, it’s only in the relatively recent past that the cost of such services and the number of people potentially equipped to take advantage of them have reached critical mass. We’ve taken four online backup providers for a test drive, and provided our results below.

 

The services

We evaluated the following programs:

• Carbonite
• Mozy Online
• XDrive
• Iron Mountain’s Connected Backup/PC service

 

We also attempted to test Iomega’s iStorage service but ran into basic problems setting up our test account that company’s service technicians were apparently unable to resolve. The company’s storage pricing is also apparently set at competitive levels for 1999: 15GB of personal storage is $49.95 a month under the iStorage Home program and $69.99 under iStorage Professional. 25GB of storage is also available under iStorage Professional, but only at a whopping $99.99 a month.

 

All of the online services we tested were configured to automatically back up the same set of files. Upload and download speeds were measured via the applications themselves (when available) and confirmed via NetLimiter. File restoration was handled manually for each service, with download speeds measured the same way as upload speeds. Service installation and activation was controlled to prevent any one service from interfering with the functionality of another.

 

Our testbed was configured as follows:

• 2x Intel Gallatin Xeon 3.2 GHz
• ASUS PC-DL Motherboard
• 2GB PC3200 DDR RAM
• Windows XP SP2

 

Internet service was provided by BellSouth ADSL. The service plan used was the FastAccess DSL 6MB, which provides upload speeds of up to 512Kbps with download speeds at up to 6Mbps. Verizon FIOS users are not allowed to snicker.

 

Carbonite and Mozy

Pricing:  15-day free trial, $49.95 per year (no monthly option).
Encryption:  combination Blowfish/DES (PC)128-bit SSL (transmission).
Storage:  unlimited, with upload limitation past 50GB.
OS support:   Windows XP, Windows Vista
Web site

 

Overview

The best way to describe Carbonite’s overall service is to glance at the total number of options presented to the user. Mozy Online’s option page offers 13 separate checkboxes, two throttle controls (one controls bandwidth usage, the other PC responsiveness), and an “Only throttle between X and Y” option, where X and Y are selectable times.

 

 

In contrast, Carbonite offers just six standard options and a single checkbox throttle that’s meant to lower Carbonite’s Internet priority. This is a service obviously meant to appeal to those who want a solution that “just works,” and the application feels almost—dare I say it—Mac-like in its simplicity and design. Files and directories are selected for backup via right-clicking on them from within Explorer. Once selected, a file or folder is marked by a dot to indicate its status: blue means that a folder contains backed up files, green indicates that a file has been backed up, and yellow means that a file is awaiting backup. 

 

Backup and restore

Unlike other services we tested, Carbonite offers very few automatic backup options. Upon installation, users are presented with three options:

 

While this fits in with Carbonite’s simple UI and presentation, the options available don’t necessarily capture the range of backup modes users would prefer. Ideally, Carbonite would offer to back up certain file types or allow users to define a range of files (e.g.,  pictures, movies, and documents) they would like to save. 

 

Carbonite’s backup and restoration speeds also leave much to be desired.  Upload speed on my system topped out between 80-120 Kbps, while downloads fluctuated between 150-180 Kbps. Clicking the “Lower Priority” box didn’t appear to impact my upload/download speeds or Internet latency in any way, but it may have a more significant impact on consumers with slower broadband or who use Internet telephony (as mentioned in the application tooltip).

 

 

Pros:

• Simple, effective interface handles most backup tasks well
• Easy to determine whether or not files have been tagged for backup from within Windows Explorer

Cons:

• Relatively slow download/upload speeds; service is best for light/occasional backup needs
• Limited automatic backup options

 

Mozy Online

Pricing:  2GB free, $4.95 for unlimited storage.
Encryption:  448-bit Blowfish (encryption), 128-bit SSL (transmission), option to use personal encryption key.
Storage: unlimited
OS support:  Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X (Beta).  Windows Server 2000, 2003 supported via Mozy Pro.
Web site

 

Overview

Mozy’s 2GB of free space is about standard, but the company’s unlimited storage plan for just $4.95 a month is by far the most generous of the products we tested. Data is encrypted via 448-bit Blowfish encryption on the PC and then transferred using 128-bit SSL encryption. Users have the option of using a Mozy-generated key for data encryption, or they can define their own encryption key. This particular feature is unique to Mozy, but the company warns against losing the key once you’ve defined it, as they’ll be unable to help restore your data. 

 

Clicking the “Configure” button shown above opens the program’s options, including backup set control, file selection, and backup scheduling. Unlike several of the other programs we tested, Mozy doesn’t offer a “Backup this file” option when an item is right-clicked inside Windows Explorer, but single files can be restored quickly using the “Mozy Remote Backup” virtual drive folder that’s created by default at program installation.

 

 

Mozy has a set of folders it preselects for backup. Tweaking Mozy’s default configurations is simple, as is adding additional files to the backup sets—right-clicking brings up the “Add Backup Set” option.  Individual files within backup sets can also be cleared or added once specific file folders are selected.

 

Backup and restore

Mozy’s backup speed is fully controlled by the end user; the service can be throttled from 32Kbps to 1.0Mbps.  Throttling can be turned on at all times or set to automatically occur between certain hours of the day. The separate “Backup Speed” throttle only impacted my system’s Internet performance when shifted all the way towards “Quicker Backups”; at that point, I had trouble using the Internet for much of anything, although overall system performance was still fine. On my system, choosing a throttle point of either 256Kbps or 384Kbps with the Backup Speed slider set as indicated gave the best balance between smooth Internet performance and backup speed.

 

 

File restoration under Mozy is handled two different ways.  One method is to simply navigate to the “Mozy Remote Backup” folder under My Computer, select the files or folders to be restored, and then choose the “Restore” option.  The other option is to handle the backup via Mozy’s online web service (accessed by clicking “Restore Files.” Accessing Mozy via this method allows the user to select a backup set or a set of files that are then assembled via a restore request. Users then receive a notification via e-mail that the restore request is complete, and the file can now be downloaded. Clicking on the provided link initiates the download of a single zip file that contains all selected backup files.

 

The amount of time it takes Mozy to build a restore file for download was the only significant difference I encountered between the free and paid versions of the software. When I requested a restore build as a free user, it took Mozy 36 hours to make my restore file available versus only 18 minutes when I requested the same service as a paying customer.

 

Download speeds from Mozy’s servers were approximately equal when downloading either a set of individual files (selected via the Windows Explorer interface) or pulling the cohesive zip file.  In both cases, Mozy was able to sustain a download speed of approximately 3Mbps.

 

 

Pros:

• Best throttling controls
• Best price/storage ratio
• Multiple encryption options

Cons:

• Slow image restore process for non-paying users

 

AOL XDrive

Pricing: 5GB free, $9.95 a month otherwise
Encryption: 128-bit SSL (transmission), 128-bit AES (encryption)
Storage: 50GB
OS Support:  Windows 2000/XP/Vista (XDrive Desktop). Mac OS X support is via web interface only, using Safari 1.2.4 or above.
Web site

 

Overview

At first glance, AOL’s XDrive service seems to offer a middle ground between Carbonite’s limited options and Mozy’s plethora of customizability. At 5GB free and unlimited storage for $9.95 a month, XDrive is more expensive than Mozy or Carbonite, but the service markets itself as more than a simple backup tool (though that functionality is front and center). XDrive Shows are available for users who want to create slideshows and set them to music, and the company also plays itself up as a medium for exchanging files.

 

Unfortunately for XDrive, the features and benefits of the system are entirely overshadowed by the program’s horrific desktop interface. Like many of the programs we tested, XDrive creates a network drive icon within the “My Computer” space. Attempting to actually access the “X:\” drive is via this method is, however, an exercise in utter frustration. 

 

Simply double-clicking on the “X:\” icon can cause the entire system to pause for 15-25 seconds, with the Windows Explorer completely unresponsive for most of that time. This pause is repeated virtually any time you take an action within the virtual drive system. Moving up a level?  That’ll be 25 seconds, thank you very much.  Need to jump down 4 subdirectories? Might want to grab a drink—this could take a while. If the system can’t connect to X:\ (and these sort of random hiccups are frequent), be prepared to wait 4-5 minutes while Explorer hangs completely in the background. Eventually, you’ll get system control back, but there’ll be no error message or warning that the service is down. 

 

So far as I can tell, this is an issue unique to XDrive, rather than my system. None of the other programs or drive interfaces behaved this way, and XDrive continued to hang my rig for long periods of time regardless of how my router or firewall was configured. 

 

Fortunately, the program has a web interface which rescues it from total disaster, though the connection can be a bit spotty at times.  Over the weeks I tested the program, the web interface would occasionally fail to connect for up to several hours, though no outage bulletin was posted on the XDrive site. Typically these problems would resolve themselves over a relatively short period of time, but it’s a problem I didn’t have with any of the other services I tested.

 

 

Backup and restore

Backup sets are easy to build in XDrive, and the program offers several options for automatic selection of certain file types that Mozy and Carbonite lack, including options to automatically select Excel, Money, PowerPoint, Quicken, and Word files.  Restores are launched directly from the Desktop interface if backup sets are used or handled via the web interface.

 

 

Backing files up via the desktop interface, however, leaves a large window sitting onscreen that can’t be minimized to the system tray. You can also upload via the web interface, if desired, but the upload process again leaves a large window open in the taskbar area.

 

 

Restore speeds averaged around 150-200KBps, while backup speeds were capable of maxing out my Internet connection at upwards of 40KB/s. Unlike Mozy, however, XDrive lacks any sort of upload/download throttle; I had to use the third-party program NetLimiter to keep my Internet functional while XDrive was uploading. After testing XDrive for several hours, the best compliment I can give the program is that it reminded me what it was like to run Windows 95 on a 486 with 4MB of RAM. I’d like to thank AOL (and the fine folks at XDrive) for reminding me just how grateful I should be for my modern system.

 

 

Pros:

Cons:

• Speed
• Reliability
• Periodic system hangs lasting from 15-25 seconds—unless, of course, they last longer.

 

Iron Mountain Backup/PC