Online Backup's Inflection Point

I have been a fanatic about backing up my hard disk since the mid 80s after losing a month's work on a year end paper in a hard disk crash.  Scars like that don't heal.  They stay front and center and result in an obsession about being backed up.

For years it meant a local tape drive, some backup software, and a manual tape rotation system. It was a pain, but it worked.

But then in the mid 90s, my friend Charley Lax introduced me to a company in Boston called Connected and my life changed for the better.  I didn't invest in Connected, but Charley did.  I became a customer.  Charley made money (eventually, it took a long time) but I got peace of mind. Connected was sold Iron Mountain a couple years ago.

Fast forward ten years.  I still use Connected.  And I have been rewarded several times by being able to get back a file, a folder, and a whole hard disk when I would have otherwise been totally hosed.

I can't say enough good things about Connected.  Except that Connected is too expensive for most people at close to $20/month.

Connected is basically an "enterprise" solution meaning it is sold to businesses, large and small, to protect the data that sits on their employees hard drives (most likely mobile/laptop hard drives).  It's too expensive to be a consumer solution.

For most of the past 20 years, while I have been paranoid about my hard drive, most people I know have been operating without any sort of backup protection.  Doing manual backups just isn't a realistic option for most people.

But things are changing.  Everyone is now using digital cameras to shoot pictures and video.  That's ending up on their hard disks.  They are accumulating a lot of music on their hard drives.  These personal media files are valuable to them.  And increasingly my friends who have been going unprotected for years are saying to me "what do I do to make sure I don't lose this stuff?".

I tell them about Connected but many say "$20/month is too much, what are my other options?"  There are a number of less expensive online backup solutions out there and we have seen a few new companies being started recently that promise even lower prices.

One that I particularly like is Carbonite, started by serial entreprenuer David Friend.  Carbonite is aimed squarely at the home computer user and costs $2.50 per month.  If you are looking for a good home solution, I think you should give Carbonite a shot.

I am not the only one thinking that online backup is reaching an inflection point.  Jeremy Zawodny thinks so too and has an interesting post up on the subject right now.  Apparently some of Jeremy's readers think that consumer broadband upload speeds are too low to make online backup a viable solution.

I totally disagree.  I have been using online backup for over ten years in my home. I have even used it over dial-up.  You just let the backup go over night.  The only really large backup happens when you get started.  After that, these systems just backup what's new.  I have had to run a backup for almost a day a couple times, but I do it over a weekend or something.  That's a small price to pay for peace of mind.  I agree with Jeremy, it's like filling up a swimming pool at the start of the season.  Once it's done, it's over.

So I think online backup is at an inflection point.  Consumers are going to be adopting this approach to peach of mind in droves over the next couple years.

It will only take one lost photo of a newborn baby or a birthday party to cause "post crash stress syndrome".  Trust me.  I know how it feels.

Comments

[jason]

Connected's price of 20$ a month is way high for a home user like me. I found this online
backup service called IBackup. They are awesome and I never had a single issue with them till today. The price is half of that of connected with double the storage space.

[The File High Club]

We offer a good version control service which is designed for safe and secure storage of important documents and data.

Backups are good to a point, but the strength of our system is the complete audit trail of your documents. And it's easy to use, even when out of the office and disconnected.

[Simon]

We tried many services but after testing what seemed to be weeks we decied to go for the best all round service. We chose SecuriData. http://www.securidata.co.uk

[Dan]

Since everyone is plugging their service, DriveByMail.com is yet another. We send you CDs or DVDs of your storage contents on a regular basis, have snapshots (you can see old versions of your files), and have a guest and public folder. We support rsync over ssh, sftp, scp, and a basic https web interface. The contents sit on encrypted RAID drives that are backed up to a different building.

[mike]

Perfect DVD Duplication - DVD Copy Tool

http://www.yaodownload.com/video-design/dvdcopy/perfectdvdduplication_dvdcopytools.htm

[Jess]

Hi guys, this is Jess from Carbonite. I saw that we got a mention here, so I just wanted to let you know that we're now live with our unlimited online backup product, Online PCBackup. It's only $5 a month to back up everything on your PC. Check it out -- you can download our 15 day free trial.

[queenli]

WinBackup Standard, the fastest backup and recovery software on the market, allows you to secure all your valuable data within minutes. Featuring a Windows-familiar and intuitive graphical user interface, WinBackup 2.0 Standard makes it extremely easy to set up and run regular backups in your existing environment. With shortcuts to over a 100 of the most popular applications, WinBackup 2.0 Standard makes it possible to easily and quickly backup emails, address books, bookmarks, digital images, financial documents and other records at the click of a button. Home and small office users can rely completely on WinBackup 2.0 Standard for full data consistency and integrity without compromising superior performance

[nick]

Hi folks, take a look at IBackup. IBackup can not only backup and restore your all-important data, but it can also schedule them easily with a few easy clicks.

Besides backing up your files or folders, IBackup can do SQL Server, Exchange Server and System State backups. It does incremental and compressed backups by transferring only portions of your modified files. So no clogging of network bandwidth.

I find that they use 128-bit SSL encryption and so far my data is safe with them. Their snapshots feature is nice. With this, you can see the files stored in your IBackup account during the previous days under newly created directories. You can also restore files from these directories.

IBackup automatically selects data from locations like Outlook Express and My Documents. There is an option to select only those files or folders that need backup. The GUI is similar to Windows explorer, so no confusion anyway. So for enterprise-class data protection use IBackup. It’s feature-rich, user friendly and it’s fast.

[Greg Miller]

Hi Folks, Greg Miller from MillerNET Solutions here. We offer a robust secure online backup service called MillerNET Protect. It supports scheduling, encryption, a retention area for old versions of your files, incremental backups, and more. The system even sends detailed reports after every operation. We will be having a "double your space" sale soon, and if you mention this post, I will double the space on your free account.
MillerNET Protect Online Backup

[paul]

Windows and Mac OSX online backup client. Uses Attix5 technology which has in the past been focused on the Corporate sector and is now moving across to the SOHO and home user space. www.click2backup.com

[Joni Hanson]

There is a paradigm shift that is happening and we see a different future for online storage.
I agree with the post above on mp3tunes.com - they do a great job for music but we are taking it even further for not only music but photos and videos as well. And it's free. The GoGoMo future is about:
•Store. Upload, back-up and store licensed and user-generated content such as photos, videos and music from the device or the PC.
•Search. Search for content stored in locker directly from handset.
•Shop. Easily buy more content for the locker or sideload free content.
•Move. Move content from device to device. For example, upload a video on the PC and watch it on a mobile device.
•Sync. Auto sync content stored on PC or handset into the locker.
•Share. Share user-generated content with friends directly from handset or PC to other handsets or PCs.
•Play. Stream or download content from locker to device
•Access. Access content in locker directly from any Internet-enabled device such as PC, mobile device or any portable media center.

[CBrown]

You should also check out Data Deposit Box for online data backup. It's inexpensive and very easy to use. It takes about 2 minutes to install the online backup agent. Once installed it's fully automatic with nothing to remember and no procedures to follow. You can access your online data storage easily with a web browser.

[Mick]

Fred, do you think Zapr (previously Zingee) fits into this category, or are we more about sharing?

[jerry4444]

While online backup is reaching an infletion point, the competition is also getting tougher and tougher. At the current service price, most companies are bleeding hard. Those companies don't have technology advantages and only competing on raw storage will soon be out of business. A while ago, I wrote a post on how to choose an online storage service. It is worth to read it: http://www.drivehq.com/Bbs/getmsg.aspx?bbsID=1005&msg_id=279201&ref_id=0

[Dave]

I was looking for an online data backup solution for businesses that needed more reliable services, customer support and even direct connections rather than Internet based connectivity and found an interesting solution from Storagepipe. They also offer long term archiving and not just backup services. But they seem focused on businesses and not home users cause they also have stuff for email archiving and compliance.

[Mike]

Personally I think online data backup has been of age for a long time. The cost of storage has dropped but the need for more space has increased so waiting for cheaper storage doesn’t make sense. It used to be that 250MB was a typical backup and you would pay about $25/month for this. Now we are looking at 5GB for $25/month.

If you think p2p services are an option then you should read my post Has online backup come of age? There are some things that you should think about before using p2p as a backup solution or any online backup service for that matter.

The cost of any backup solution has always been a balancing act between the cost of replacement, versus convenience and reliability, versus how much you are willing to spend. The cost of losing data as a business is typically bankruptcy or going out of business.

The cost is hi.

The cost of data loss on a personal computer these days means loss of memories, family history, financial records and personal contacts and communications and your creative efforts. What is the dollar cost? Priceless. Some things you can replace with time and effort, others, like music you can buy again, others like the memories associated with pictures and videos can never be replaced just forgotten.

[Jon]

For low-cost online backup, check out http://www.myotherdrive.com . This site gives you 5GB free and has options to upgrade to significantly more space, for much less than most other companies charge. Also, they have the slickest Web 2.0 User Interface I have seen.

[Jack]

Take a look at IDrive-E. It performs totally hands-free automated backups of data. You can perform free online backup of upto 2GB of data for free with no limits on backups or restores and upload or download sizes.

You can backup any type of file, including open files, with IDrive-E. The backups are incremental that transfer only portions of file that have been modified or changed since the last backup. Besides, simple sign up and installation, the user-friendly application interface can be used even by novice users. IDrive-E efficiently uses your Internet bandwidth by compressing the data files during transmission.

Easily restore files and folders from your IDrive-E account to the local computer with a simple drag-and-drop operation. The application has two interfaces for the users to do backup and restore related operations. IDrive-E Classic interface offers a very simple and intuitive user-friendly interface to backup and restore files and folders, schedule backups for a future data and time, exclude files and folders and delete files and folders.

[Ronnie]

You can try out our online backup solutions for free. Backing up for small home users is getting easier and more inexpensive by the day.

[Johnson]

An IT assistant set up a backup program at his company that was rather clever. He bought a tape backup system, and designated the same person to backup the data at the company everyday. EAch day she backed up the data and everyone was happy. Then one day the system crashed and with confidence the IT guy requested the backup from the day before. To his chagrin the tape was blank. Feeling a bit embarrassed but still confident he requested the tape from two days ago, uh oh, it was blank too. It a panic he ordered all the backup tapes delivered to him. Guess what? All of them were blank. How could this be? Well the lady backed up every night, but come to find out that none of the tapes had been formatted. Putting data on a unformatted tape is useless. Having a tape backup system without testing it is useless also. Truth is, over 50% of tape backup restores fail. Mostly because of corrupted tape, in this case it was human error, or perhaps a training error. With online backup solutions you never have to worry about this happening. I have restored at least a dozen times with no problems at all. Guess what, the failure rate of a hard drive is 100%, that is, a hard drive only has a lifespan of a certain period of time. THerefore, unless you replace your computer regularly you will have to deal with failures and lost data. Online backup solutions have saved me and my business many times. Everyone should have a online backup solution.

[Fredrik]

has anyone heared about www.diino.com? I just got 20gb there and its working pretty damn good. I uploaded like 500songs and playlists and now I can listen to them from anywhere on my phone! they also provide you with a mail that has a 2048 bit encryption, and I dont even think that NSA can read that, not that I think that they even need to... is there anywhere people rank all the different online-storage products?

[Ollie]

I used to use box.net for backup, but now I use mydatabus.com. They give you 5GB for free, plus tons of file storing/sharing options: public file links, e-mailing file links(with no attachment sizes), online image/doc editing, online file format conversion, shared files right on facebook.com profile...the list goes on. I haven't backed up my entire hard drive yet, but i just purchased more storage space from mydatabus, and the costs are really reasonable.

[ftpreview]

Things changed a lot since this article was published. Now we see Xdrive is bought out by AOL and gets screwed up; Mozy is bought by EMC and is likely to get out of free/cheap service. Box.net started charging for services and limit the free service file size to only 10MB. You best bet for online storage probably is DriveHQ.com, which has very impressive client applications and feature sets. For a more detailed review, please visit my web page:
http://backupreview.googlepages.com/default.html

and

http://ftpreview.googlepages.com/default.html