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SOS Online Backup Review

www.sosonlinebackup.com
1-877-846-2768

Our Rating:

Reviewed Aug 8, 2011

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SOS Online Backup rated 3.00 stars based on 8 votes

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Pros

• Local & online backups
• Supports up to 5 PCs on one account
• Web login means easy remote access to files
• Calendar view when restoring to choose correct file version
• Backup USB drives, networked drives

Read the full review...

 

Cons

• Pricy when storing more than 10 GB
• Corporate & rigid look & feel
• No visual indication if a file is backed up
• Cannot restore via right-click in Windows
• No Mac client

 

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Complete Review

Summary

SOS Online Backup, established in 2001, is a pioneer in the online backup industry. Named Editor's Choice for personal online backup by PC Magazine three consecutive times is no small feat, either. Being able to backup multiple computers on a single subscription is a major selling point for this online backup service.

Set-up

Upon installation, the first thing SOS Online Backup does is scan the computer for files it thinks should be backed up, and then comes up with a list of potential backup candidates: documents, images, videos, music, and others. In most cases, the list is spot-on on what the user does need to backup, although you may also opt to add or delete to this list. This process constitutes Step 1.

The next two steps are fairly straightforward. In Step 2, you will be given options on how often you want the back up done: hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. Other Settings, which comprises Step 3, allows you to enter the email address where SOS Online Backup will send a summary upon completion of the backup.

Backup

While backing up, SOS Online Backup gives the user tons of feedback to mull over. Some of the information can be quite helpful, although all of this data may be daunting for some users.

In Step 1, SOS Online Backup provides a status of how the compressing of files and encryption is going. During file transfer in Step 2, you are shown how many more packages still need to be backed up. However, it doesn't give you a time frame of how long the entire process has been running or how much longer it would take to complete.

As the files are transferred to the SOS Online Backup servers, the program then confirms the files were successfully transferred. What this essentially means is that SOS Online Backup checks if the uploaded files can actually be recovered. This is the ultimate test for any computer backup solution: how good it can deliver come crunch time - in this case, when the data really needs to be retrieved from the servers. This is a feature we've only seen in SOS Online Backup.

SOS Online Backup also offers Live Protect, a useful feature that does real time backups. The software will continually monitor your critical files, and backs them up as soon as any changes are made to them.

Speed-wise, SOS Online Backup boasts of an incredibly fast speed. At 7669 kbps, it is nearly 50% faster than Mozy.

Another feature of this facility is its Local Backup option. While Mozy, which also offers this, copies the files for local backup, SOS uses its exclusive file format. The good thing about this is compressed files, as the format SOS utilizes, do save disk space. On the downside though, you would need the SOS Online Backup software to restore your data from local backup.

Also, while this service can come in handy, setting your PC up for local backup, whether full or incremental, requires some knowledge of backup terminology. And with local backup saving all versions, be sure to have ample disk space reserved.

Restore

SOS Online Backup has made its Restore function superbly easy as well. If you opt for Online Restore, you can just choose which files to restore and what dates to start from. You can even have a calendar view of all files backed up to ensure that you retrieve the right files. After all, SOS saves unlimited versions of files; even those previously deleted are kept indefinitely. So even if you delete a file now and change your mind later on, SOS has you covered. Then, you also have the option to restore the files to their previous location or to a new one.

The Local Restore, on the other hand, isn't as elegant or comprehensive as its online counterpart. For instance, you can only select a single backup to restore from. Still, it does gets the job done.

Web Access

Web access with SOS Online Backup makes it convenient for you to share your files. It's just like sending a link to someone. You can't however, share entire folders. File sharing does not exactly work like collaboration, so the people you send the files to can't upload them back to you. If you need something like this, you're better off going with SugarSync or DropBox.

Recovering files via web access is also handy and can, in fact, get your file quickly sent to your computer. However, you can only restore one file at a time (and the latest versions at that) so you might want to use this option only when you have a few files to retrieve.

Pricing

Home Users

• 50GB, $9.95 / month or $79.95 / year ($6.67 per month)
• 100GB, no monthly option, $99.95 / year ($8.33 per month)

Business Users

• 10 GB, $12 / month
• 25 GB, $30 / month
• 50 GB, $60 / month
• 100 GB, $120 / month
• 200 GB, $240 / month

Conclusion

Much has been said about the salient features of SOS Online Backup in this review and a lot of them have been good. While it does have its drawbacks, such as the absence of Mac and Linux clients, and a Blackberry app (although one is said to be on the way), the bottom line is, SOS Online Backup is a feature-packed, user-friendly backup solution, especially if you have multiple computers to backup, but don't have a lot (more than 50GB) of data.