Top 25 for June 2008

8 Responses

1. Verna L. Allen

   June 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 am

   1

   THANK YOU for your reviews of current computer back-up companies. I recently got a new PC & I have had a terrible time with MOZY. Seems that they can’t ever get things right — even when they tell you so. I’m tired of talking with them, etc. & I have decided to “go with” CARBONITE.

2. Leo

   June 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm

   2

   For anyone with any amount of tech sophistication, Amazon S3 ($0.15/GB) combined with Jungle Disk (free) and some synchronization software (e.g. allway sync, also free) is by _far_ the best option if you’re wanting to backup multiple computers.

   After spending hours yesterday reading this site and others, it appalls me that I didn’t find it earlier. I found out only by upgrading a piece of software and it subtly recommending that I check out Amazon S3.

   You _really_ ought to add this to your list.

3. Bruce Fern

   June 25th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

   3

   Re Data Depost Box - listed as #3 above

   STAY AWAY

   My hard drive failed and when I went to restore my files I found that many folders were missing. When I called, they proceeded to tell me that since I had my music not checked for back up (which they recommeded I do) then any new folder I added in MY documents would NOT be backed up unless I manually went in and added that folder to the back up commands each time I created it. Well they did NOT tell me that when they instructed me on how to first set up the system. I lost everything in any new folder I added for the last two years. Horrifying. Stay away from a firm that has either such a poor design or tech reps that don’t warn customers of this fatal flaw.

4. Justin M

   June 26th, 2008 at 5:03 am

   4

   I have been an ex carbonite and mozy user, and recently switched to IDrive. It is much better than either of them. I guess they don’t market their product very well, else they would be near the top of your list.

   IDrive beats others hands down in performance, ease of use and access methods. I only wish that they increase their storage for personal use from 150GB to unlimited.

5. Danny

   June 26th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

   5

   I have used Mozy and Carbonite, did not really get on with them, so went with onlinedatastore.co.uk, I got a 300GB account for 9.95 per month.

   Main reason for choosing these guys is they offer a free seed load. I sent them my 250GB on a USB drive and they transfered it to their data centres so I did not have to worry about the large initial upload.

6. Nicola

   June 28th, 2008 at 1:25 am

   6

   After trying all, IDrive is the best backup service. I hope that the 150GB will become 300GB or unlimited for $4.95/month. Then IDrive will become #1.

7. Brooks

   June 29th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

   7

   A matrix of scores for features, prices, pros, and cons would go really well on this page. It seems like you could also update it on a monthly basis with your top 25 list.
   A suggested list of row titles might be: Name of Service, Web site, size limits, pricing, OSS/local/both, archiving, versioning, file types (Carbonite makes it hard to back up video; Upline doesn’t backup .pst’s, etc.), Web access, excryption type, mobile app or mobile access, usability rating for each UI, data centers, support-type (phone, e-mail), scheduled back-ups or dynamic, external drives (I think your Carbonite review erroneously says that it does permit external backup when it doesn’t), Mac/PC, cross-PC sync.

   If you wanted to get really fancy, you could make it a Web form that allows to be ranked and filtered based on those criteria too.

   Just a suggestion. Thanks for reviewing all of this.

8. admin

   June 29th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

   8

   @7 Brooks.

   Thank you very much for the feedback. We have been using such a matrix internally since we launched our website in 2004.