Online Backup Search - Expert Top Picks

Rank
Company
Editor Rating
Price
Data Storage
Free Trial
Free Plan
Read Full Review
1.
Editor rating
 
9.2
$4.95/Month
Unlimited
Yes - 14 Day
No
2.
Editor rating
 
9.0
$4.95/Month
Unlimited
Yes - 14 Day
No
3.
Editor rating
 
9.0
$4.95/Month
150GB
No
5GB
4.
Editor rating
 
8.6
$4.99/Month
30GB
Yes - 30 Day
5GB
5.
Editor rating
 
8.4
$5.95
Unlimited
Yes - 14 Day
No

 

Backup Plan Types:

Free Backup Plans

Several companies offer Free Backup Plans. Generally these plans are limited and meant for you to upgrade to one of their paid plans. These plans are useful for college students or others on a tight budget. Dropbox, SugarSync, and Mozy all offer free plans giving you two and five gigabytes.

free-backup-plans

Single Computer Personal Plans

This is a great option for those with only one computer.  The prices are affordable, the plans have many useful features, and just about all backup companies offer these types of accounts. Look for plans that offer easy to use software scheduling, and are a good value on storage space.

single-computer-backup-plans

Multiple Computer Home Plans

Like most homes there are laptops, desktops, Windows and Mac OSX and they all need to be backed up. Some plans are based on Storage space while others are based on number of computers.  Look for easy to use software, and companies that support all the major operating systems.

multi-computer-backup-plans

Business Backup Plans

You enter the realm of Business Online Backup with the need to backup lots of computers, require several access levels for user access, need fast backup times and the need to backup servers. Most business plans focus on multiple users as the main costs, while others focus primarily on the storage requirements.

business-backup-plans

Enterprise Backup Plans

Large companies and departments / divisions of these large companies often have the need to backup hundreds of computers, windows servers, exchange Servers, Oracle Servers and Linux Servers.  This type of plan will be very flexible with many backup options.

enterprise-backup-plans

Start here to learn more about Online Backup:

questions-125Questions to ask yourself:

  1. What is my online backup budget?
    Prices can range from free to $30/month to $3000/month.  Learn how much you should pay for different types of backup plans.
  2. What is my level of technical expertise?
    Easy to use but may have fewer setting to control  More control requiring more technical knowledge
  3. How many computers do I need to backup?
    Most individuals ony have one computer, if you need to backup the entire housedold check out our top picks for Family backup plans.
  4. Which operating systems do I need to backup?
    Windows, Mac, Linux, Windows Servers.  All Companies will support windows, but you want to ensure you will be able to back up all types of systems.

The answers to these questions will point you in the direction of the type of online backup company you are looking for. Backing up your important files and most companies will break down the plans by storage size and price. With little storage requirements, or basic backup plans, you probably will not have to pay a huge price for your service. If you need more storage and perhaps some more users to access the same data, then you may need a business size plan. Anything bigger than that will require more storage options. Some will provide per gigabyte used every month. Plans for lots of users and storage options are called enterprise plans.

howmuchbackupspace-125Why Online Backups are Mission Critical

Backing up and keeping copies of important documents has been a practice for hundreds of years. Often, people do not realize the importance of keeping more than one copy of a document. This can be disastrous for someone if they lose an important document.

The modern digital age has saved us a quite a bit of hassle in storing our documents, but are they really much safer on a computer? Not necessarily. Hard drives can fail. Even external backups could fail. If there is a fire or big power failure you could lose all your data at once!

The new way to store your digital data is online. Online backup service are great but you need to arm yourself with the right tools before you go into the online backup marketplace.

 

Summary

We hope you find the information you are looking for if not contact me, Steven Johnson, and I will see what I can do to get it added to the site. Chances are if you have a question about Online Backup Companies there are hundreds of others who have the same question.