What are the Top/Best online backup services?

[nelsonm]

Hi all,

If this is not the right forum to ask this question, please let me know.

I was wondering what you all think are the top/best online remote backup services at i may suggest to my commercial small business clients. As an example, one client needs to have one server's accounting data backed up and another client needs to have up to 5 pc's legal data backed up. Having their monthly system drive image files would be nice as well but may take a while to upload to the service.

I currently offer automated remote backup services to two of my commercial clients using DeltaCopy, but it's hard to compete in pricing unless you have a lot of customers.

I was looking to recommend crashplan from www.crashplan.com.

thanks.

 

[techguysolutions]

Backup Services

I have been using JungleDisk for the past few years which uses AmazonS3 to backup the data. I like it but there interface on their site is very clunky and hard to understand. I am looking for a different backup reseller. I am going to be looking into elephantdrive.com here is the link http://home.elephantdrive.com and click partners at the bottom. A tech friend of mine told me about them and said it was $1500 a year. He uses QNAP NAS boxes on the lan which supports elephantdrive.com replication.

http://www.livedrive.com/ForResellers is suppose to be another good one. They are based in London so if your in the US their support can be odd at times to reach.

Hope this helps.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

By the description of the needs you state...you just need simple data backup. So the "best backup services" would be way overkill for you...since they go into disaster recovery, saving in image format so you can virtually boot up the backup image of the crashed server, etc. So to answer your question "best backup service"...my answer would be DattoBackup...but it's huge huge overkill (and price) for your need here.

For our basic backup needs....our "entry level package"...we use JungleDisk. It's hard to find a cheaper solution...first 10 gigs are free, 15 cents a gig after that, plus 4 bucks for the license. 30 gigs at 30 bucks a month charge to the client..decent profit for you. Reliable backup agent too...we haven't had issues with it.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

I was just checking this out. I was hoping for a way to cap users space but I do not see one. Seems like it could make billing a bit complicated without a cap setting.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Does Jungle Disk over any seeding? Without it seeding it is hard to justify any online backup service. It takes to long if you have any bulk of data to save.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Does Jungle Disk over any seeding? Without it seeding it is hard to justify any online backup service. It takes to long if you have any bulk of data to save.

They don't do any round-trip seeding....but to be honest, I've not had issues either. When I first set a client up on JD....in the backup software network settings, I throttle it during production hours and have it go wide open after 8pm until then next morning. And wide open all weekend.

Todays business grade broadband connections typically have great upload these days...cable often starting at 2 and 5 megs of upload, bigger packages at 10 and 20. Fiber being similar. We don't have many clients left of old school DSL..it's too slow for much at all.

 

[nlinecomputers]

They don't do any round-trip seeding....but to be honest, I've not had issues either. When I first set a client up on JD....in the backup software network settings, I throttle it during production hours and have it go wide open after 8pm until then next morning. And wide open all weekend.

Todays business grade broadband connections typically have great upload these days...cable often starting at 2 and 5 megs of upload, bigger packages at 10 and 20. Fiber being similar. We don't have many clients left of old school DSL..it's too slow for much at all.

We are in the boonies out here. Lots of DSL or consumer grade cable in business because that is enough for most one location SMBs. Hard to justify (holy $$it) high grade internet lines to webhosted email and basic internet browser users.

 

[ComputerRepairTech]

I also could not find how the end user knows how much backup space he is even using.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

We are in the boonies out here. Lots of DSL or consumer grade cable in business because that is enough for most one location SMBs. Hard to justify (holy $$it) high grade internet lines to webhosted email and basic internet browser users.

Well....there are actually more costs in doing local backups that you could tell the client.

*Tape drive for a server...factored in with 2x weeks worth of tapes to rotate, plus a cleaning cartridge. Typically ~2 grand. And you have to (or should at least) rotate new tapes each year. So recurring costs of having local backup. Plus backup software.

*We always strongly recommend that our biz clients have biz grade accounts from the ISP. Higher priority/uptime. Faster access to support, when we are calling. Do they want to pay me 125+/hour to sit on hold with the lower grade oveseas support of home accounts? Loss in productivity.

*This is the backup of a company we're talking about....it's all of their data. How much is their data worth to them?

Gotta look at it like..."at the end of the year...what are the costs of each?"

 

[nlinecomputers]

Well....there are actually more costs in doing local backups that you could tell the client.

*Tape drive for a server...factored in with 2x weeks worth of tapes to rotate, plus a cleaning cartridge. Typically ~2 grand. And you have to (or should at least) rotate new tapes each year. So recurring costs of having local backup. Plus backup software.

*We always strongly recommend that our biz clients have biz grade accounts from the ISP. Higher priority/uptime. Faster access to support, when we are calling. Do they want to pay me 125+/hour to sit on hold with the lower grade oveseas support of home accounts? Loss in productivity.

*This is the backup of a company we're talking about....it's all of their data. How much is their data worth to them?

Gotta look at it like..."at the end of the year...what are the costs of each?"

Lot of my clients are there they have tape drives or have been moved to external HDD backups. It works. It's hard to justify cloud backups in place or on top of that. The medium sized business will jump on that but many Small shops just aren't going there.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Lot of my clients are there they have tape drives or have been moved to external HDD backups. It works. It's hard to justify cloud backups in place or on top of that. The medium sized business will jump on that but many Small shops just aren't going there.

What works quite well for us is reminding them about backups, and how frequently does it really happen?

With the larger organizations with servers and tapes....someone in HR or Finance is usually in charge of the backup..and it's regimented into them to swap out the tapes as a routine, part of their job. Look at the previous nights backup logs. Monitor, etc.

Smaller businesses...that tends to fall apart. Nobody checks. Years ago by and the backup stopped a long time ago.

Remind them about security also. That USB drive they take offsite once week or once a month (IF they remember)...is it encrypted, secure? Say it gets stolen or lost! So many businesses are dealing with personal data now.

It is not a hard sell, not difficult to pitch. And turns into recurring revenue for you.

 

[nlinecomputers]

What works quite well for us is reminding them about backups, and how frequently does it really happen?

With the larger organizations with servers and tapes....someone in HR or Finance is usually in charge of the backup..and it's regimented into them to swap out the tapes as a routine, part of their job. Look at the previous nights backup logs. Monitor, etc.

Smaller businesses...that tends to fall apart. Nobody checks. Years ago by and the backup stopped a long time ago.

Remind them about security also. That USB drive they take offsite once week or once a month (IF they remember)...is it encrypted, secure? Say it gets stolen or lost! So many businesses are dealing with personal data now.

It is not a hard sell, not difficult to pitch. And turns into recurring revenue for you.

Yep I know it falls apart. I offer GFI Max to monitor for them. Give referals to the cheap courier service from the Document storage house in town. They pick up and swap out drives. Hard to forget when someone comes by once a day to swap drives. Many take me up on it and just as many don't. Can't convince the foolish when they look at one more monthly bill and less revenue. And this is an a boom town with oil going nuts. Somepeople are just foolishly cheap. Have my clients still run Xp on machines older then 5 years. And drive home in new top of line F-250 trucks or Lexus.

But this town is weird. We have abandoned office buildings yet also have no housing, workers living in hotels and not enough workers to do basic jobs like being waiters and truckdrivers. Yet many business owners, afraid of another bust also will NOT spend money.