Carbonite

Carbonite offers unlimited space to back up your entire computer for $49.95 a year. While you can have as much space as you need, bandwidth is restricted. You can upload about 2 to 3GB a day until your account hits 50GB; after that you’re limited to half a gigabyte a day. If you have a 100GB hard drive, that means it will take about 120 days to do a complete Carbonite backup (assuming you leave your computer on day and night while uploading the first 50GB). After the first backup job is finally complete, keeping up with relatively minor daily changes should be easy.

Carbonite runs constantly in the background as you use your computer. Because it works so slowly, the bandwidth usage should not slow down other Internet work. However, if you're doing something intensive, such as online videoconferencing, you can temporarily turn off Carbonite. Carbonite also includes various options for deciding what to back up and what not to back up. By default, Carbonite won’t touch EXE files, for instance, but you can select individual files to include regardless of the general rules. It also skips large files over 2GB, but you can change that as well.

The speed at which files can be downloaded when it comes time to restore is limited only by the speed of your broadband connection. Carbonite estimates that most users could potentially download 14 to 18GB a day. Restoring individual files takes only a few seconds or minutes, depending on their size.

Files are encrypted as they leave your machine, so no one should be able to snoop while they’re in transit. Carbonite keeps keys to decrypt your files, but the company says that these are stored in a secure area inaccessible to the average employee. A totally private key option may be available in the future.

Carbonite is easy to set up and use. The client also adds small dots to files and folders in Windows Explorer to indicate their backup status. For instance, a green dot on a file means it is backed up on Carbonite. A yellow dot means the file is in line to be backed up. No dot means the file is not backed up. This is a quick way to tell whether your backup settings are capturing the files you want to keep safe.

Mozy

Mozy has been around longer than Carbonite but did not offer unlimited storage until Carbonite raised the stakes. Mozy matched Carbonite gigabyte for gigabyte, and since late last year the two have been duking it out with the same basic pricing scheme. Mozy charges $4.95 a month or $54.45 a year.

Mozy offers a free 2GB option that lets you get a feel for the service, and that may be all you need if you’re not looking to back up a lot of music, pictures, and videos. The client software sports a clean interface and includes a variety of backup sets such as All Documents (with standard word processing extensions) or All Pictures to automatically select which files should be backed up. All of that is customizable, so you can back up as few or as many of these files as you like.

Like Carbonite, Mozy’s backups run in the background, usually when your computer is idle or free from intensive processor use. That means you probably won’t notice Mozy is running. If Mozy seems to be slowing down your computer or Internet connection, the software includes a slider bar to strike a new balance. Move it one way for faster backups, the other way for a faster computer. You can decide what’s most appropriate depending on what you’re doing. Mozy also includes a scheduling option to control exactly when Mozy backups run. Typically, Mozy says, users will be able to back up between 2 and 4GB a day if they let Mozy run all of the time. It’s probably a good idea to let your machine pull some all-nighters when you’re starting out.

Mozy supports external disk drives so long as they appear as “fixed” drives in Windows. Unlike Carbonite, Mozy also offers a private encryption key option, which means no one but you can decrypt the files you back up to Mozy. Of course, if you ever lose the encryption key, that’s it. Your data is gone. Mozy will not be able to reconstruct it for you. On the other hand, no one else can reconstruct it either, and some security-minded users consider that a good thing.

Restoring files, should you ever need to do it, is simple. Users head to the Mozy Web page, log in, and select files to download. Mozy also offers a DVD of your files sent FedEx for an additional fee. Given the time required to download a large number of files, that might be worthwhile if you encounter a major drive malfunction.

Xdrive

Xdrive works differently than unlimited storage sites like Carbonite or Mozy. Rather than backing up everything slowly, it is designed to handle fewer files much more quickly.

Xdrive includes Xdrive Desktop, a Windows-compatible client that lets you use Xdrive just as you would an external disk drive. Xdrive Desktop appears as a drive in Windows Explorer, which means you can drag and drop files to or from the online storage area. With a good broadband connection, Xdrive can seem like just another network drive.

Storage space is undeniably more expensive at Xdrive than Mozy or Carbonite. Xdrive does offer a free version with 5GB of space, which is more than enough to handle a batch of word processing documents, spreadsheets, checkbook program data, or other important files. For $9.95 a month or the annual plan at $99.50, you can get 50GB of storage, which will easily hold most photo or music collections on top of those documents. If you do choose an option large enough for multimedia files, Xdrive’s AutoCopy feature is a good way to make sure they are backed up and available on the Xdrive server. When enabled, AutoCopy automatically uploads any new files in the Windows My Photos or My Music folders. There’s nothing for you to do or click to make sure it happens.

Although the desktop client is the most convenient way to manipulate your online files, you can also sign in to Xdrive through the Web on other computers. That way you can view, upload, or download your files from anywhere. It’s also possible to share access to files this way with other people. You can define file permissions for specific people and invite them, through email, to view or edit files. They’ll need to sign on using a free user ID and password included in Xdrive’s notification email. Along with simply sharing files, Xdrive also includes tools such as Xdrive Shows that let you build slideshows with music out of the files stored in your account.

IBackup

In time measured on the Internet, IBackup has been around a while. It seems to compete mainly with Xdrive, although it is aimed more toward the business market.

Like Xdrive, IBackup is faster and more flexible than the cheaper, unlimited storage options of Mozy or Carbonite. IBackup also includes IDrive, a client-side program that maps your IBackup account to a drive in Windows Explorer. You can then use the online storage just as you would a hard drive in your own machine. Web-Manager, a browser interface, provides support for viewing files from any Internet-connected computer. IBackup also includes backup utilities that make it easy to designate a batch of files or folders for regular backups to the online drive. You can select from various predefined sets to automatically back up common files and folders or choose your own. IBackup allows you to stream video and music files from the online server, as well as share files with friends and associates who do not have IBackup accounts of their own. You can even set file permissions so that people you specify can edit the files.

One section of the IBackup Web site you can’t help noticing are the pricing options. The cheapest economy storage plan IBackup offers costs $9.95 a month for 5GB of storage, the same amount of disk space that Xdrive gives away for free. Prices go up from there; 50GB runs $49.95 a month, five times the price at Xdrive. Unless you’ve got an expense account or unlimited mad money, this might be all it takes to send you somewhere else.

Just what does the extra money pay for? IBackup does have a reputation for reliability. The company says that files are stored in datacenters around the world with state-of-the-art security. IBackup also offers some specialized services for businesses, including a toll-free support line which is a relative rarity these days. Overall, however, we didn’t see a big difference that would make it worth the additional cost, at least not for the average consumer.

Which service is right for you depends on what you want from online storage. Xdrive and IBackup work essentially as extra disk drives, giving you quick, drag-and-drop flexibility with fast upload/download times and the option to share files. Carbonite and Mozy work much more slowly but offer unlimited space at a relatively low price. If we’re talking about true online backups, the Smart Choice award must go to Mozy, for its full backup abilities, ease of use, and private key encryption option. Those who are more interested in fast, flexible file saving and sharing, however, may wish to consider Xdrive.

by Anne Steyer Phelps

July 2007 Smart Choice:

Mozy

Software Information
	Price	Company	Contact Information	URL
Carbonite	$49.95/year for unlimited storage	Carbonite, Inc.	info@carbonite.com	carbonite.com
Mozy	2GB free; $4.95/month for unlimited storage	Berkeley Data Systems, Inc.	(801) 756-2331	www.mozy.com
Xdrive	5GB free; $9.95/month for 50GB of storage; annual plan available	AOL	N/A	www.xdrive.com
IBackup	$9.95/month for 5GB; economy plans include $49.95/month for 50GB	Pro Softnet Corp.	(800) 949-3555	www.ibackup.com

Scorecard
	Features	Ease Of Use	Installation	Support/Documents	Price	Overall Score
Carbonite	4	4	4	4	4	4
Mozy	5	5	4	4	4	4.4
Xdrive	4	4	3	3	3	3.4
IBackup	4	4	3	4	2	3.4