Online Backup solutions

Honestly, all these services are garbage, imho.

Sure, you can back up small amounts of stuff pretty decently but bandwidth is always SO limited.

So you lost your hard drive in a catastrophic failure? Have fun spending two weeks downloading everything again. These companies cap their throughput so harshly that if you are using this for full backups, it's going to take a VERY VERY long time to get stuff off their system.

If any of your customers find this out the hard way...yikes.

I have used mozy and carbonite, both with the same issue.

Personally, i'd rather just keep my files on my main machine (RAID 1) with a USB drive next to it. If I was really scared (fire, etc.), I'd just copy to my collocated machine.

Sure, its more expensive that these services but you might be able to offset the cost by selling out your left-over space.
 
We've been reselling iBackup for a while now, great product, good support. We only sell this to our business customers as it has out of the box exchange/SQL backup plug-ins and network drive support.

It works well overall but is fairly expensive to get rolling with (need to buy one year at a time to get the right breaks). Also cost per GB is very high ($1), but our clients really seem to appreciate the service. I've actually been looking for an alternative as I really think the cost per GB is high, and when our clients compares it to other online backups they've heard of (i.e. Carbonite), they go into shock of how expensive it is and I have to explain the exchange/SQL plug in, added value service, etc.
 
Forgot to add: iDrive has the same parent company as iBackup, different pricing/features though. We would resell iDrive, but they don't seem to offer a true reseller program.
 
we had two customers on Carbonite that just couldn't get there stuff back the past january. Fortunately both were simply transitioning from an old to a new system. Thus we were able to get the data off the old system no problem. One of them was able to get a hold of tech support and they were told a file stalled the restore process. Tech support removed the stuck file and the restore started....until it happened again...and again. The other customer wasn't even able to get a hold of tech support (probably didn't wait on hold long enough).

We have been playing around with options for our residential customers. So far mozy seems decent. I like the fact that the mozy app supports both mozy online backup and a local external drive backup from one managed solution.

We know to stay away from carbonite, and mozy so far is good, but so was carbonite until someone needed their data back.

I want to evalutate more of the available services. This is one of those projects that keeps getting pushed to the back burner. One of these day's i'll have a chance to brand my own or something....
 
rainmaker2112 said:
I recommend a 3-prong approach:

1. Once computer is setup I use DriveXML to create image backup

Watch out for the XML file if it gets damaged you cannot recover the drive or at least you could not in the past
 
I use iBackup for small business online backups They charge about $1.00 per gigabyte. I looked hard into EFolder but didn't want to fork out the $500 upfront fee. iBackup has a great affiliate program, they handle the billing (which I like), and you earn over a 20%commission (I can't recall the exact %), a markup I would charge if I were a reseller, without the hassles of billing the client.

The company also offers a remote helpdesk service called RemotePC, which is about as cheap as any I have ever found and works well.

http://www.TucsonComputerRepairService.com
 
Arise!

Now that Mozy has upped their prices, I'm hoping I can capitalize on this and score some recurring revenue from ex-clients looking for a more reasonably priced solution.

Does anyone have any experience with reselling through Crashplan or NineTechnology?
 
Nine Tech is great, its very new so the program is still being built upon, but it does the job, and it works great!
 
Let this be a lesson in the power of social media - Yesterday I was talking to someone about Mozy and Ninetech reached out and got in touch with me. I was able to DM their rep questions and get answers immidiately.

I tried tweeting to Crashplan and Symform but neither has responded yet. Now, if this was my only form of contact with them, it would be too soon to jump to judgement.

I then called Crashplan and Symform, and both partner phone tree prompts sent me to voicemail. Obviously, not wanting to answer my questions is a pattern with these two.

So only 1 of the 3 companies really wants my business, I guess.
 
By next week i'll have the "white label" build finalized and thru the Associaton you can get it discounted. To me this is the best way to go. Reliable, will make a profit and not as much responsibility as running your own servers with something such as Vembu (I have done it for years).

I've read through the whole thread just now and am wondering where you are at with this. We are interested to see what you have come up with. :):)
Vincent - Weyant Enterprises
 
The staff at Nine Tech have been very busy on Twitter all week, and have referred nearly all UK mozy complainants my way :-) Used to resell Carbonite but the Nine Tech service has proved much better for us. Have posted a fair bit about it over the last few days, and Google had us at #1 for "let down by Mozy" apparently too! More info on our story with Nine at http://pzl.me/9mz and http://pzl.me/910
 
Last edited:
I've read through the whole thread just now and am wondering where you are at with this. We are interested to see what you have come up with. :):)
Vincent - Weyant Enterprises

Think Dan would have been referring to SpiderOak, but he's also powered by Nine now :)
 
We've been reselling iBackup for a while now, great product, good support. We only sell this to our business customers as it has out of the box exchange/SQL backup plug-ins and network drive support.

It works well overall but is fairly expensive to get rolling with (need to buy one year at a time to get the right breaks). Also cost per GB is very high ($1), but our clients really seem to appreciate the service. I've actually been looking for an alternative as I really think the cost per GB is high, and when our clients compares it to other online backups they've heard of (i.e. Carbonite), they go into shock of how expensive it is and I have to explain the exchange/SQL plug in, added value service, etc.

I looked at iBackup but it was way too expensive. It may be OK for PC's that are very static (no software changes) and all you want to backup is user data. I much prefer imaging the drives and that would be very expensive on iBackup.
 
Your backup arrangement is exactly what I am interested in. I should be able to do this and make a profit. The small businesses and homes in my area are simply not interested is spending $100 per month backing up less than 10 PC's. The economy is just that bad in my area. If I can back up to disks in my home (office), that will satisfy them. A big benefit is I can copy their backup image to a new disk drive, take it to the local customer site, install the new disk drive, and reboot. No online arrangement to a distant server (Carbonite, etc.) can do that.

Anyone else have experience with Vembu or a similar arrangment?

I am wondering what kind of bancwidth is needed. Would 8-mb DSL work on my end?


If your backing up to your own server I'd recommend looking into Vembu storegrid I've been using it for about 2 years now and it is the most robust solution out there. It will back up sql and Exchange servers (added revenue) along with regular files. My actual backup server is at my office which all of the client backups (384 bit encrypted) go to, and then I have what they call a replication server that replicates the backup server that is sitting in my basement at home. So at any point in time I can switch my replication server into a backup server in case it fails for some reason and the backups are then directed to the new backup server. Just my 2 Cents.

Scott
 
Anyone else have experience with Vembu or a similar arrangment?

I am wondering what kind of bancwidth is needed. Would 8-mb DSL work on my end?

I've written about Vembu in the past, I used it for years. Really not something I would do again due to hardware required, bandwidth and sheer pain knowing you are on the hook for the data on a 24/7 basis.

Been using Spider and Nine Technology.

Mainly Nine Technology and no problems that could not be fixed with a simple phone call.
 
Back
Top