One of the best things about SugarSync is in it’s simplicity. SugarSync offers a streamlined interface which makes navigation of all the features and capabilities easy to use.

Real-time Backups

To start, SugarSync is continuously backing up your files. Most other online backup solutions will only update your files on a daily basis, but SugarSync offers real-time backups. So if you work on a file in the morning, then something happens and you need to restore the file a couple hours later, SugarSync is there for you.

Version History

However, you may think this is a problem as you don’t always want the most recent version of a file. That’s OK: with SugarSync, you can pick from the last 5 versions of a file that’s been backed up. Backing up 5 versions of a file takes up a lot of space, and with no option for unlimited storage, this could be a real problem. But SugarSync overcomes this problem, as only the most recent copy of any file is counted towards your storage quota.

Multiple Computer Sync

As a backup solution, SugarSync can be seen as overkill; but it’s so much more than a backup system. This is SugarSync, not SugarBackups. Let’s say you sometimes take your work home with you, remembering to save the files you need to a USB drive, or email them to yourself, and then remembering to send the files back to work before leaving the next day. This can be a real problem if you forget some files. But SugarSync makes this easy. Sync the files to your account, and access them anywhere. The same file is on your home PC, online, and at your work PC. When you make a change to the file at work, it’s instantly updated at home, too. Or if you edit the file online (yes, you CAN edit many files online!), the changes are pushed to your work and home computers.

Here’s a quick video to show you how this works:

Mobile Access

SugarSync is ideal for the business user, as you can access the files you need from most Internet-connected device, including your iPhone or Windows Mobile Smartphone. There’s applications for BlackBerry phones and the iPhone app is free in the Apple iPhone App Store.

Collaboration

Many corporate users know that collaboration is important with online tools. SugarSync handles this with ease. You can share specific files or entire folders with anyone who also has a SugarSync account. When collaborating, SugarSync not only stores the last 5 versions of a file, but also tags the version with the user’s name, so you know who made the change and when is was made. Files can be shared as read-only or editable; all of this is controlled in SugarSync’s web interface.

While many of these features seem geared towards the corporate user, there are plenty of exciting features that just about anybody would love. Two of these features are the way SugarSync handles music and photos.

Stream Your MP3s

With SugarSync, your MP3 collection follows you, wherever you go. Stream you DRM-free MP3s and M4As to your other computers or even your iPhone or iPod touch using SugarSync. Remember, you’re streaming the files from SugarSync, not your home PC; so even with your computer turned off, you can still listen to your favorite artists from another location.

Digital Photo Albums

Similarly, your photos can now follow you, too. SugarSync not only backs up your photos, but also creates online galleries for you to share with your friends. No longer do you have to backup your photos to one spot, and upload them again somewhere else to share them. The enhanced Photo Gallery for the iPhone makes browsing through your photos a breeze. Since this is a synchronizing system, when you take a photo with your phone and it’s sent to SugarSync, it’s also downloaded into your computer.

Downfalls

SugarSync is such a power system, and I hesitate calling it a backup solution, because it’s so much more. However, it does have a few flaws. The first being the cost for large amounts of data. There is NO unlimited backup choice, and the top tier costs $24.99 / month. So if you have a lot of photos and mp3s to backup, this may not be the right choice for you.

A common flaw we’re noticing with many of the backup providers, and SugarSync is no different here, is the lack of customer support. In fact, users have referred to SugarSync’s support as absolutely non-existent. You won’t get anyone on the phone: support is via e-mail or online chat, only.

Finally, since you’re synchronizing your files, and not just backing them up in off-peak times, you may notice a bit of a lag when large files are uploaded. While all online backup solutions will present this problem, many users won’t notice it with other solutions because backups are usually done when the computer is not in use.

Conclusion

Overall, SugarSync offers so much more than just an online backup solution. If you’re looking for an easy to use product that provides you with a way to securely store as well as sync and share your files, then SugarSync is a great option for you.

Price structure:

• 2 Gb Free
• 30 GB at $4.99 / month ($49.99 / year)
• 60 GB at $9.99 / month ($99.99 / year)
• 100 GB at $14.99 / month ($149.99 / year)
• 250 GB at $24.99 / month ($249.99 / year)

The service currently offers 25 GB of free personal storage, with individual files limited to 50 MB.^[1] Optionally, an ActiveX-based tool can be installed to allow drag-and-drop uploading from Windows Explorer. Up to five files can be uploaded each time if the tool has not been installed.

A maximum of 20 folders (or “libraries”) may by synced, including libraries shared over the internet. Each library can contain a maximum of 20,000 files and each file cannot exceed 4GB.

Windows Live Sync was released on December 11, 2008.^[2]

I won’t write down the comparison between the services however, Syncplicity looks like a decent service and what attracts the most about this service is that they are thinking of providing unlimited space in future, when they come out of beta and that too for $ 20/month only.

Another reason to choose Syncplicity is that it syncs Google Docs and Facebook photos too. These are some of the PROS which put Syncplicity ahead of the competition. However life of a consumer is just isn’t that simple and we’ll always find something less or something more in any of the service.

It only comes for Windows XP/vista and unfortunately there is no version for Mac (although it’s coming in the third quarter of this year) and it fails to provide joy to linux users too. Sugarsync seems to be the only service which is taking care of the mobile users and lets you sync the mobile phones with its amazing service.

FatCow was born in year 1998 in Burlington, Massachuesetts. They are probably the cutest brand ever! With their cute logo and dedications on the work , their customers love them very much.

Moo Hosting

Founded in 1998, FatCow is a hosting provider providing shared hosting service for small to medium-sized businesses and individuals. FatCow was designed from the start to be different and is remarkably successful in serving the users.

If you are looking for a good host, FatCow is definitely one.

FatCow has only one principle in their hosting service: Simplicity. They emphasize simplicity a lot in their hosting; their pricing scheme is simple; their hosting is easy to use; their customer support is easily reachable. Thus with Fatcow you can have full focus on your website rather than being distracted by any hosting issues. I define FatCow as trustworthy.

Why is FatCow so successful?

There are reasons how FatCow becomes this successful and of cause their hosting technology plays an important role. They use load balanced technology in their servers to give redundancy. To illustrate this, imagine your website files are stored in 3 different physical servers at the same time and being served evenly by the 3 servers. Besides that they have multi-Gigabit connections to do maximum data transfer and diesel generator as electricity backup. They also perform daily server backup which secure your files from time to time. These are actually services hardly found elsewhere with their budget pricing.

Needless to say with such technology they possess great hosting performance. I have in fact tested FatCow carefully and as expected their hosting performs. Not only their great uptime, their customer support aka Moo Crew is very effective too. To be honest along my research, I can hardly find any complains on them and I see this as an excellent achievement. Obviously their management team is well established and very stable in carrying out their business.

What do you get from FatCow?

In term of hosting features FatCow uses vDeck 3.0 as their hosting control panel. Being one of the best control panel vDeck 3.0 provides flexibility to users to install tons of free software and free scripts through their Install Central. You can easily install WordPress and phpBB in few clicks. Also, vDeck is famous for ecommerce features, business owner can easily embed system like PayPal shopping cart and credit card transaction system with vDeck 3.0.

Conclusion: Is FatCow Recommended?

Certainly! FatCow is recommended and is one of my favorite host! They have also been recognized as the Best vDeck Hosting here. If you are looking for a responsible host with great features and uptime, FatCow works! On top of that FatCow is cheaper than average where you only pay $5.50 $4.83/month for everything with no hidden cost. FatCow = hosting deal? Not until you subscribe with them.

A big surprise from SpiderOak is their support options. Normally lacking with online backup companies, SpiderOak offers a wide range of support options, including e-mail, phone, Twitter (@spideroak_help), Skype chat and Skype phone support. And the support you get isn’t from an overseas outsourced support center: the CEO and founders of SpiderOak respond to many customer service and support issues to keep on top of the issues facing their users.

Backup

SpiderOak takes data security to the extreme. Like every other backup service, data is encrypted and transmitted over a secure connection. However, SpiderOak takes things a step further, encrypting even the file and folder names, so SpiderOak employees can’t even tell what you have backed up.

Because you’re limited on how much storage space you have available, SpiderOak supports the backup of data on external drives (unlimited backup services like MozyHome and Carbonite do not support this). In addition, you can install SpiderOak on as many computers as you’d like.

One important feature of SpiderOak’s backup service is that older versions of a file are kept. So if you overwrite your thesis and don’t notice right away, restoring it from one of the many other backup services would give you the overwritten file. Only services which support Version History would give you the complete version, rather than the newest version (the overwritten one).

In addition, if you delete a file, it’s moved to your “Deleted Items” folder in SpiderOak, and is only removed if you delete it from there (via the SpiderOak software interface).

Like every other backup service, only the changes of the backup set are transmitted during a backup process. However, since SpiderOak runs across multiple computers, they have to go a bit further. Say you have two files on two different machines, which are 50% identical. One machine backs up the entire file, while the other machine only backs up the differences.

Sync

Much like SugarSync, SpiderOak can be used to sync files across multiple computers, on multiple platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux). So you can work on a file in the office on your Windows PC, save it to SpiderOak, and have it on your Mac when you get home. Do some work on the file that night at home, and when you go into the office the next morning, your changes will be on your office PC.

Share

Share Rooms are secure, password-protected locations where you can share your data with colleagues, friends and family. Make a change from any computer running SpiderOak, and the changes are automatically published to the share room, with notification of the change sent to an RSS feed.

When sharing photos, an online photo album is created, which is rough at best. It’s OK for sharing mock-ups with a client, but I’ll stick to Picasa for my online photo galleries.

The sharing features of SpiderOak are useful, but it seems SugarSync does a superior job at this.

Access

Should your computer crash and you need to access your files, you can do so through SpiderOak‘s web interface (much like Mozy, Carbonite, and others). You can also access the data from the “View” tab in the SpiderOak software. When you download a file, the file is saved in your Downloads folder, along with a datestamp in the filename.

Conclusion

SpiderOak is a strong contender for online backups and more. Though there are a few faults, the company seems to work quickly to resolve them. Installing the software is easy, but with no default backup set, users must know where on their computer the data resides. If you’re a novice user, simply looking for backups, Mozy or Carbonite may be a better solution. But if you’re even an intermediate user, SpiderOak’s added features and customization, while keeping at a reasonable rate of $10 / 100 GB / month, make it a serious product to consider.

IDrive offers fast and knowledgeable phone and chat support too; something not available from a lot of the other online backup service providers and often essential when learning to use a new program.

Another plus of IDrive is that they offer a drag and drop restore option which does make restoring files a bit simpler; however, this capability is available for restoring files only. This is still a unique option among many of the online backup services though and does make up a bit for the difficult interface.

IDrive is able to continue uploads after lost connections, whereas some providers must begin uploading the file(s) all over again if there is a break in the connection. This feature definitely saves time and hassle and makes the system more reliable.

Security is also a plus with IDrive. It will encrypt your data before leaving your computer and then again when it’s stored. You keep the key/password, but if you lose it, your files are gone too. There is no option offered in which IDrive keeps the key.

Mac support is something not offered by IDrive, which unfortunately isn’t surprising; many services don’t work with Macs. IDrive also doesn’t offer web restore capabilities to Windows Vista users.

Unfortunately, IDrive won’t be easy to use for most people. The interface is very confusing and difficult to understand at first, and therefore will require additional time to learn and setup for the majority of users.

IDrive also can be a drain on your PC and inhibit the use of the machine while uploads are taking place. Generally uploads are quick though and there is a feature in which you can adjust how much “juice” is going to IDrive vs. the rest of your running programs.

IDrive can be a great option for some people, but, it really depends on how much time you want to spend learning to use an online backup program, because once the interface is understood, IDrive can make a great online back up solution for home or business.

• Signup for IDrive

Also, everything is automatic. You set your preferences and Carbonite takes care of the rest in the background while you work; with no slowing of your connection or interruption of your work either. As the NY Times says

It’s the easiest online backup software to use… in fact, to not use, since it’s completely automatic.

Carbonite is also very affordable. At $55/yr for unlimited storage you’re paying about $1 per week for your data to be secure (and you can save 20% with this Carbonite Offer Code). This is true for both home and business accounts, although businesses can’t back up networked files which could be a problem in some situations.

Security is also a huge bonus of using Carbonite, and an essential component of any online backup provider. Carbonite’s datacenter in Massachussettes is located in state-of-the-art facilities with temperature-controlled rooms, backup generators, restricted personnel access, and other features to protect the security and integrity of all the data stored there. Carbonite also adheres to the European Safe Harbor principals, further guaranteeing the safe and secure storage of information held there.

For additional security you can choose to keep your encryption key, but you have to make sure it is kept safe; your data can’t be retrieved without it. Carbonite does give you the option of keeping the key with them, but this isn’t as secure an option as keeping it yourself.

In the end it seems many feel the same way PC Magazine did when they said Carbonite “is the cheapest, simplest and most reliable service out there.” It may not carry all the bells and whistles of other online backup options, but it delivers what it promises and is affordable, secure and simple to use.

Update: Friday, March 13, 2009
Carbonite just announced a web interface for accessing files. What this means is no matter where you are, if you have access to the Internet and a web browser, you can download your backed up files. One step closer to collaboration & document sharing.

• Signup for Carbonite
• Start your Free trail

The most unique thing about Backblaze is that they back up ALL of your files. Instead of having you select the files you want to backup, which can be confusing for many users, Backblaze automatically backs up the files they know you care about, including music, data, pictures, movies, etc. Then, to save your time and their storage space they automatically exclude things like your operating system, program files and temporary internet files, because this is stuff you definitely won’t need in the future. You can manually exclude files you don’t want backed up too.

Another really helpful feature with Backblaze is that it will update files as you update them, not all online backup providers offer this continuous backup feature, and it’s really beneficial, especially because it’s automatic. You can change it if you want but most users will find this default setting offered by Backblaze really helpful.

As your data is sent from your computer to Backblaze it is double encrypted. Once your data is stored (in an encrypted format) with Backblaze, it will be safe in their very secure location. There are no worries about outages as Backblaze’s facility has Diesel and Induction Power Redundancy, and the facility is protected from earthquakes and floods too with Seismic Pedestals and a 24 foot raised floor. All of this plus their 24/7/365 onsite staff protects your data much more than any external hard drive you store at home ever could.

If you’re looking to backup files on networked drives, Backblaze is not for you. Because some users may abuse this to backup multiple PCs, so it’s currently not enabled. Watch for this to be added in the future.

As far as features and ease of use, Backblaze really has a lot to offer and is a sound investment.

• Get an unlimited Backblaze account for $5.00 / month – save 15% here*

Mozy offers affordable online backup solutions for the home and office. Mozy offers a 2GB free trial; if you’re happy with the service, unlimited backup space is only $4.95 / month. Not only is Mozy affordable though it also offers secure storage and is really fast and easy to use.

One of the most important features any online backup provider can offer is security, and Mozy delivers in spades. Before your data leaves your computer, it’s encrypted by Mozy so that no one can read your data even if they’re watching your connection. And, your data is stored in a specially encrypted way by Mozy too; so it’s well protected when stored as well as when being transferred from your computer.

Not to mention the fact that no one can reconstruct your data unless they have Mozy’s algorithms and your specific, password protected encryption key! Not every company trusts you with your own encryption key, and Mozy will offer to keep it for you if you want, but in the end it’s your choice whether the key will stay with you or be stored at Mozy.

Ease of use is almost equally as important as security when looking at online back up providers. A highly secure service that’s difficult to use isn’t really of much use to anyone. Mozy makes the process of backing up your data simple by offering features like a quick and easy set up procedure, fast upload speeds, and the automatic encryption of your files before transfer.

The other big factor that makes Mozy simple to use; and benefits you greatly, is the automatic backup feature they offer; so you’ll never forget to update each and every important file, after any changes are made!

In addition, the interface is very straightforward and simple for anyone to use. Simply select which files you want to backup, set the times for backup, and Mozy takes care of the rest. Mozy will also continue to update these files whenever it sees they have been changed, and/or according to your preferences.

Mozy won’t interrupt your work either and will update files in the background. You can back up an average of 2-4GB/day with the most being 9 GB/day (with a fast, uninterrupted connection). And, after the initial backup, Mozy only backs up files that have been changed, which makes all subsequent backups extremely fast.

If you do ever need to restore your files there are several options. Mozy will overnight them to you burned on a DVD (for a fee); perfect for full or large restores, or, for smaller restores, you can restore files from your Mozy account online, through Windows “restore files in folder” option, or through your access to Mozy’s Remote Backup Source. And, all deleted files are saved in your backup set at Mozy for 30 days, that way if you change your mind, they’re there.

Mozy is a good solution to your online backup needs and will provide you with a secure storage option that is fast, reasonably priced, and easy enough for even a beginner to use confidently.

• Get an unlimited Mozy Home account for $4.95 / month – save 15% here!
• Check out Mozy for Mac – http://mozy.com/mac
• Mozy Pro for your business starting at $3.95 + $0.50/GB per month
• Get a free (2GB limit) Mozy Home account