15% off SugarSync

March 10th, 2010

SugarSync LogoBackup and Sync provider SugarSync is offering 15% off their 60- and 100-GB plans this month only! This puts the price of the 60-GB plan at $84.99 / year ($7.08 / month), and 100-GB for $127.49 / year ($10.62 / month). You have to buy the entire year to get this great discount.

SugarSync supports real-time backups, multiple computer synchronization of files, collaboration and sharing, along with the ability to stream your MP3s and view your photos online.

When we wrote our SugarSync review, we were highly impressed with the service. It’s much more than just online backup, and getting 15% off is a rarity (we haven’t seen a discount like this before). So if you’ve been thinking about extending your free 2-GB account to a paid subscription, now’s the time to act!

Get 15% off a 60-GB SugarSync subscription or get 15% off a 100-GB SugarSync subscription.

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Backblaze Release 1.0.6 Now Available

March 10th, 2010

Backblaze released version 1.0.6 of their client software this month, and users should be seeing the rollout very soon. To improve performance, the new version Reduces network traffic between client and Backblaze data center.

There are also improvements to the Mac client, handling errors during installation and other small fixes.

Read our Backblaze review for more about this top-rated online backup service.

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Gigmax Online Storage Launches

March 9th, 2010

We learned that today, Gigmax is officially launching their Windows online storage service. Gigmax claims remote access, file sharing, and off-site backup as a few of their features.

GigmaxGigmax.com, LLC was established in August 2005 with the intent of making it easier for people to store and transfer files without having to carry around any tangible object, such as USB flash drives.

Also, rather than emailing files to yourself and then having a bunch of different emails with a bunch of different files, the goal of Gigmax.com was to have users just store all their files in one place.

You can get 2GB for free, or pay up to $24.99 / month for 150GB, with other options avilable in-between.
Gigmax pricing system

Gigmax’s “Community” section is interesting. There, you can see the most popular shared file, the top users, and stats on the various types of files shared. Currently, images, executibles, and a few mp3s are in the top 25 downloaded files.

While Gigmax lists off-site backup as a feature, the process isn’t automatic, like other online backup services. You can only save the files to your Gigmax drive, whereas services like Mozy or Backblaze will backup all of the data on your computer.

If you’re looking for some online storage space, Gigmax may be for you. Just be careful what files you have set as private, versus public.

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SugarSync Adds “Upload by Email” Support

February 24th, 2010

SugarSync LogoSugarSync, a 4-star rated online backup service, recently announced support to upload files via email. Now, any file that is attached to an email can be saved in your SugarSync account. In addition, the files are scanned for viruses upon arriving at SugarSync. The email address can be kept private, or shared with colleagues to allow them to upload files into your account.

In addition to this new product offering, and to support the large accounts of some users, they are also adding a new pricing level: $39.99 / month for 500GB of storage.

Read our review of SugarSync, or visit SugarSync.com to learn more.

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Comcast, Mozy Partner with Secure Backup & Share

February 21st, 2010

COMCAST LAUNCHES SECURE BACKUP & SHARE ONLINE STORAGE SOLUTION FOR ITS INTERNET CUSTOMERS

Secure Backup & Share Provides An Easy and Safe Way for Customers to Share and Preserve Their Digital Files like Photos, Music, Videos and More

Comcast LogoComcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), one of the nation’s leading providers of entertainment, information and communication products and services, starting today is launching Secure Backup & Share to help its high-speed Internet customers reduce their risk of losing important files that are saved on their computers. According to Mozy, an industry leading online backup service from EMC (NYSE: EMC), an average of 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States every week. In addition to hard drive crashes, files that are saved digitally can be lost due to human error, stolen or misplaced computers, as well as viruses. Comcast wants to help reduce the risk of data loss and is encouraging consumers to backup and secure their digital files.

“Physical belongings once stored in shoeboxes, orange crates and manila file folders are now in the form of digital files spread across various computers and smart phones. Unfortunately, these digital files can be lost forever as the result of a simple hard drive crash, or after leaving a laptop bag in a taxi,” said Harel Kodesh, President of Mozy. “Online backup provides the peace-of-mind that comes from knowing your valuable files will always be available from just about anywhere at anytime.”

“As customers create and consume more digital media content, the need for online backup and storage increases significantly. Backup devices, like an external hard drive, can be lost, stolen or damaged in a fire and even if you put your backup device in a safe-deposit box, you probably aren’t updating it regularly,” said Cathy Avgiris, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Communications and Data Services for Comcast. “Secure Backup & Share is embedded into our high-speed Internet service so you can retrieve and share your personal digital media from any Web-enabled or wireless device. Our cloud based storage solution will provide our customers with the backup and storage they need today as well as in the future,” Avgiris added.

Secure Backup & Share allows customers to backup and share important files and offers features including:

  • Online access for offsite backup – In the event of human error, a fire or a natural disaster, files are stored remotely and can be restored.
  • Convenient sharing – A personalized Web site allows customers to share their photos, videos, music and documents with family and friends. Many backup applications offer an online vault, but few support mobile access to backed up content for convenient access and sharing on as many devices as Comcast.
  • Great value – Comcast High-Speed Internet customers automatically receive 2 GB of storage included with their subscription. This amount allows for storage of up to hundreds of photos, music files, or thousands of documents. Comcast also offers a 50 GB storage plan for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 annually, and a 200 GB storage plan for $9.99 monthly or $99.99 annually.

For more information about Secure Backup & Share, visit www.Comcast.net/backup.

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Mozy Valentine’s Day Special

February 12th, 2010

Mozy Valentine's Day Special

We love Mozy, and Mozy loves you – so much, in fact, that they’re giving you a special promotional code to use this weekend. Here are the details of this special Mozy Promotional Code:

  • $10 off 1-year
  • $20 off 2-year

Click Here to get this special deal!

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Carbonite, Inc. Launches Carbonite Pro, Online Backup for Small Business

February 2nd, 2010

Simple solution allows small businesses to easily back up and get back valuable data

BOSTON — February 2, 2010 — Carbonite, Inc., today announced Carbonite Pro, a version of its market-leading online backup service specifically designed for small businesses. Carbonite Pro is aimed at companies that want to protect the data on all their PCs easily and inexpensively. There is a free trial available at www.CarbonitePro.com.

Carbonite already backs up data for more than 100,000 small businesses that use the Carbonite® consumer product, which offers unlimited backup for $54.95 per year per computer. Carbonite found business users had different requirements from consumers, so Carbonite Pro includes many new features that small businesses have requested.

“Small businesses don’t always do a very good job of backing up their office computers,” said Carbonite CEO and co-founder David Friend. “So, many of them have been turning to Carbonite as a way to easily and inexpensively back up their laptop and desktop computers. Now we have a version of Carbonite that incorporates everything that these small-business users have been asking for: no per-PC fees, administrative tools that are simple enough for any office manager to use, the ability to back up external drives and priority support. Nobody wants to spend a lot of time or money backing up computers, so we’ve made Carbonite Pro a simple and affordable online backup service for businesses.”

Simplicity. One doesn’t need a technical background to use Carbonite Pro. Getting started is quick and hassle-free.

Security. Files are encrypted before they leave the employees’ computers. They are stored safely offsite at the Carbonite state-of-the-art data centers. If an employee leaves the company, the administrator can quickly disable his or her access to backups.

Affordable data protection. Carbonite Pro starts with a free one-month trial and continues with a simple tiered pricing structure based on how much data a business chooses to store. There are no licensing, set-up or per-computer fees. Full pricing information can be found at www.CarbonitePro.com.

Centralized administration. Carbonite Pro protects data across the company with little ongoing effort. An administrator dashboard makes it easy to see the status of every employee’s backup.

Back it up. Get it back.™ Backing up is important. But quickly recovering lost files is even more important. When disaster strikes, the Restore Wizard guides customers step-by-step to recover lost or damaged files. Priority phone support, live-chat, and email support gets you quick answers to questions or problems.

Remote access. Carbonite Pro customers can log into their accounts on CarbonitePro.com from any computer with an internet connection and download any file in their backups.

About Carbonite

The Carbonite industry-first offer of unlimited online backup for a flat, low price revolutionized the market for consumer and small business backup services. Since 2006, the company has backed up more than 39 billion files and has restored more than 3.2 billion lost files for its customers. Carbonite backs up more than 100 million files every day to high-redundancy storage servers in its Boston and Somerville, Mass. data centers.

The Carbonite mission is to provide a simple, affordable, and secure backup solution for the mainstream computer user. Carbonite supports both the Windows and Mac platforms. For now, Carbonite Pro supports Windows only. Carbonite is available directly at www.carbonite.com, and through international distributors. Carbonite Pro is available directly at www.carbonitepro.com.

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What Does Mozy Have Up Their Sleeve?

January 27th, 2010

Yesterday, EMC (Decho’s parent company, whose flagship product is Mozy) announced fourth-quarter sales that were better than expected. But that’s not what interests me…

David Goulden, executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) at EMC said Mozy is now backing up 25 PBs of customer data, and will also expand online backup to a broad set of personal cloud services in 2010. EMC CEO Joe Tucci said they’ll be working on new services, including PC backup as a service, storage as a service, archiving as a service, parts of our content management and security product lines as a service, and desktop as a service – the potential list goes on and on.

In addition, R&D spending is going up 20% to focus on multi-billion dollar opportunities including cloud services.

Also, a job posting was spotted at Decho: Principal Web Developer. The new hire will be responsible for developing a next generation web application leveraging Mozy by Decho’s massively scalable Mozy Information Platform.

Based on these comments, what could Mozy be up to? Right now, you cannot easily share a file with a colleague or family member via Mozy’s web interface. Many other providers are adding web-based file sharing, collaboration and sync to their backup offerings. Mozy has a lot of user data and a top-notch backup solution, but stops there. Users looking for more than just backup are starting to look elsewhere.

What features do you think Mozy will be adding in 2010?

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Google Online Backup

January 13th, 2010

We mentioned yesterday that the GDrive has not arrived, and even if it had, online storage is not online backup. However, that got us thinking… could the ability to store any type of file within Google Docs be used as the storage mechanism for an online backup system?

We’ve seen it done before… CloudBerry backs up to Amazon S3, and JungleDisk uses S3 or Rackspace Cloud Files. These applications could easily be altered to write files to Google Docs, using Google’s own List Data API.

Would it make sense to use Google Docs as your online backup solution? Consider backing up 30 GB of files with 3 common systems:

  • Mozy: $5 / month, or $54.45 / year
  • Amazon S3: $30 for CloudBerry Online Backup, followed by $0.15 / GB / month for storing the files, and $0.17 / GB to upload the data = about $90 / year
  • Google: $20 / year

This is assuming only 1 version of a file is kept; as more versions are saved, you’ll need more disk space with Amazon S3 or Google, pushing up the cost.

While we’re one of the first to scream that the recent annoucement by Google is not an online backup solution, it’s something that could be developed with a little manipulation of current systems.

What do you think? Will Google announce an online backup solution in the future? Are you willing to give them more of your information?

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Google’s GDrive Has NOT Arrived

January 12th, 2010

TechCrunch has a post, “Google GDrive Launches. Just Don’t Call It That,” which can’t be any more misleading. And the only reason it’s receiving this attention is because it’s from Google.

In fact, Google Docs product manager Vijay Bangaru states, “This is not Gdrive.” Should Mozy, Backblaze and others worry? Not yet.

First of all, just because there is an online storage solution, it doesn’t mean there’s a new online backup solution! Online backup is not online storage (and online storage isn’t online backup). Backups include scheduled transfers, file version history, and a means to restore data. This new method of storing any* file in Google Docs isn’t any of these requirements!

In addition, services such as Mozy and Backblaze offer unlimited online backup for about $5 / month. Google is charging for this online storage at $0.25 / GB. That’s $125 / year for 500 GB – slightly less than IDrive’s Family Pack, but still lacking all of the features of a backup solution.

So, Google fanatics, don’t drop your online backup service just yet – the GDrive is still just a myth.

* any file must be 250 MB or smaller.

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