Best Cloud Backup Services 2018

[Paul Wagenseil]

We've tested five reputable online backup services (aka cloud backup services) and crowned a winner based on features, convenience and price.

Best Cloud Backup Services 2018 : Read more

 

[desertsweeper]

Acronis: It does work BUT....
March 2018. I was just called in to assist a small company hit with Ransomware, all data destroyed on their server. I initiated the Acronis Cloud Recovery they used and it is not yet at 50% - THREE DAYS LATER!!!
It needs to restore around 800GB spread across three drives from their HP Proliant Server. I guestimate they will be down for a whole solid week. This service is really only good for an additional layer of protection. Do not even think about using this for DR unless a really small quantity of data needs to be restored.

 

[Paul Wagenseil]

Acronis: It does work BUT....
March 2018. I was just called in to assist a small company hit with Ransomware, all data destroyed on their server. I initiated the Acronis Cloud Recovery they used and it is not yet at 50% - THREE DAYS LATER!!!
It needs to restore around 800GB spread across three drives from their HP Proliant Server. I guestimate they will be down for a whole solid week. This service is really only good for an additional layer of protection. Do not even think about using this for DR unless a really small quantity of data needs to be restored.

I wouldn't recommend a consumer product to a small business. You'd want instant recovery if you're running a business, and there are commercial backup solutions that would be much better for those purposes.

 

[desertsweeper]

I wouldn't recommend a consumer product to a small business. You'd want instant recovery if you're running a business, and there are commercial backup solutions that would be much better for those purposes.

I absolutely agree...but Acronis pushes this as a business solution and I want to warn anyone who thinks it is a solution that it is NOT. Use a good local backup solution first and foremost and test cloud solutions for an additional layer. And by "test" I mean actually do a test restore.

 

[rsj.milobadz]

I have been using iDrive for 2 years. Repeatedly, its drive engine service gets turned off. There is no notice that this has happened. So only by noticing that you have not received a"successful backup" notice (which you have to select) for a while and check things out, do you know this has happened and that your files have not been backed up as expected. Regardless of any features, this is very undesirable behavior and defeats the whole purpose of auto backup

 

[michelle.dunn]

I am looking for an online backup and I was all set to subscribe to Backblaze, but I was under the impression it's more of an online storage option as opposed to backup? I thought you had to keep it constantly connected to a physical computer that's always on. Which I don't have as I use my laptop as my main computer and everything else is on external drives. I'm looking for a second backup to Time Machine (once I can figure out how to partition an existing time machine drive to add another time machine backup. If that is not an option, then I will have to go get yet another time machine drive...)

 

[mperlitch]

I've been a Carbonite user for many years. It seemed to work well. I could access files from my tablet, phone or laptop (in addition to my desktop which was the system that was backed up).

Last month, I lost a disk drive. I thought -- no problem, I've got Carbonite. What a mistake!

I tried to restore my critical files (financial stuff for taxes, etc.) using their web interface.

Unfortunately, that interface limits your downloads (number of files and size) too much to get much restored. And, several of the zip files I downloaded were corrupted (7-zip could get some of the files, but Windows couldn't even open the archives).

When I looked at the "Carbonite drive" to do a full restore, it said I had no files saved on the failed drive.

I called. After a long conversation with a tech, I was told there were problems on their end and they'd escalate it.

After about a day or so, I finally spoke to the senior tech. Again, another long phone conversation. No luck. They can't restore my files. Many emails back and forth. Days pass. Finally, they said they'd send a hard drive with my files on them. They eventually did (I had problems getting it since they sent it USPS instead of FEDEX overnight or something reasonable).

To make a long story short, it's two weeks later and I have the drive. It has files from 3 other hard drives on it, but NO FILES from the drive that had failed.

The day before I finally got the drive, I got an unexpected call from another senior tech there. He magically got my files restored online and I'm downloading them as we speak (it will take more than 2 days to get all the files restored).

In the meantime, I see that another drive (about 1TB of stuff on it) shows 0 on Carbonite, even though a month or so ago I was able to access files on it!!! Carbonite said it "didn't look like the drive was selected for backup" -- BULL.

Anyway, I can't recommend them. Website performance is poor. Customer service is inept. Service is unreliable.

 

[budtugglie]

No consideration of OS supported? Lack of Linux support eliminates the tool. It's not simply a Windows world anymore!

 

[tonyzorin]

Any opinions on Cloudberry's backup app?

 

[Paul Wagenseil]

No consideration of OS supported? Lack of Linux support eliminates the tool. It's not simply a Windows world anymore!

We discuss the various operating systems each service supports in the individual reviews. The only one that has Linux client software is SpiderOak, which has applications for Red Hat and Debian-based distros. Acronis has a Linux-based rescue disk which can be used in a pinch, but that's not recommended by the company.

 

[Paul Wagenseil]

Any opinions on Cloudberry's backup app?

CloudBerry is just backup software, not a full backup service that runs its own servers (or rents space from Amazon, as Zoolz does). We might consider it for the next round of reviews.

 

[Paul Wagenseil]

I am looking for an online backup and I was all set to subscribe to Backblaze, but I was under the impression it's more of an online storage option as opposed to backup? I thought you had to keep it constantly connected to a physical computer that's always on. Which I don't have as I use my laptop as my main computer and everything else is on external drives. I'm looking for a second backup to Time Machine (once I can figure out how to partition an existing time machine drive to add another time machine backup. If that is not an option, then I will have to go get yet another time machine drive...)

I think Backblaze would suit you just fine. You don't need to leave the machine always on.

 

[kitecamguy]

I was a happy user of CrashPlan, but they discontinued home user support and encouraged us to use Carbonite with 50% first year discount. I'm not happy. I have the basic plan. The application interface is terribly dumbed down. Selecting which directories to backup is hard: there is no directory tree with check boxes. I have to use ordinary File Explorer and then right-click to control the Carbonite flag for a directory. And the status icon is a very tiny circle in the lower left in File Explorer.
And here's a killer for me: the application always shows that I am 92% complete. The status shows that it's stuck on the same file for hours on end. Usually the file is only a few kilobyte in size. Sometime later it moves on and gets stuck on another file. But if I reboot, it shows 100% done - for about a minute, then it goes back to 92%. Tech support suggested I reinstall. I did, and it does not fix it. So what is my real backup status? No way to know!
Bottom line: this is software that's been an industry leader in sales, but the interface looks and behaves like a version 1.0 product, and there are unacceptable bugs.

 

[stggrt]

Backup so slow that it never completes. File list was actually growing over a week despite nothing being added to the backup, just files changing through using the machine being added.

Carbonite automatically refreshes the list of files to backup, so c: drive files have priority. My photos on 2nd HDD will never be backed up at this rate.

Customer service have no advice to help and blame customer computer\internet for the speed. This is 100% not true. A larger backup set definitely slows Carbonite's ability to process the files.

Their Status page will show "Your files are safely backed up" and the programme has been idle for an hour. But looked in Settings and it told me there were 12,000 files waiting to back up. So why had it stopped, surely it would work 24/7 to complete?

Now I would never trust that Carbonite was securing my files. After 5 days of waiting, I tried iDrive which backed up 800Gb+ from the same computer\internet in 5 days.

But according to Carbonite, speed is an issue at my end! Carbonite is still not finished after 14 days with only a fraction of this data to upload despite them testing my internet and seeing download 56Mb and upload 18Mb.

It is selective in the file types\locations it backs up, so you may still lose files that matter to you.

Having read many reviews of cloud backups failing for people when drives fail, it should be clear that these cannot be your only backup. A local HDD\network backup needs to be part of the routine, to give the best chance of getting ALL our data back in a crisis.

I have found ViceVersa ideal for creating various backup copies to external drives. Saved as different profiles you can select drives include\exclude files, file types or folders. Various types of backup process on offer from synced to mirror etc.

 

[aesa]

@STGGRT... What were your upload and download speeds when you backed up to iDrive?

 

[aesa]

@STGGRT... hit submit too soon. It took me weeks to do the initial upload to Carbonite and I have under 400Gb worth of data. I am on a 200mb down x 10mb up cable connection. I have been using Carbonite for 3-4 years but the cost per gig, imho, is exorbitant compared to iDrive. I am seriously considering changing providers.

Any other pertinant info you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

 

[staging10_purch]

only by noticing that you have not received a"successful backup" notice (which you have to select) for a while and check things out, do you know this has happened and that your files have not been backed up as expected.

 

[datpete]

I too had to switch from crashplan for home. Initially I switched to Crashplan for small business, although my 5 family computers will end up beein too expensive after the first year 75% discount period.
Technically I am also becoming less and less happy with crashplan. The heavy java process running it is slowing down computer and eating RAM, it is slow, and their upgraded UI may be prettier but misses a lot of information.
So just recently I have started migrating to JottaCloud - a norwegian solution run on "green energy".
They offer unlimited storage for one person (7Euro/month), including unlimited number of devices. Or a family plan with 5 members for 10Euro/month (strangely enough limited to 5Tb). You can sync any folder on your computer, and it is instantly synced when things change (crashplan only regularly, e.g. every 15 min, do the backup). It is FAST compared to Crashplan: I used 1 month to re-sync a 1Tb external disk to crashplan on my 100Mbit upload, the very same disk was uploaded to JottaCloud in littel over 1 day. They also automatically provides a chronological view of all photos you have (from any folder) on photos.jottacloud.com and in the iPhone app. I am so far happy with JottaCloud.
One caveat: A linux sync client is not available, but there is a command line interface that provides this opportunity.

 

[douglerner]

I also have to switch from Crashplan within the next few weeks. I tried iDrive yesterday, but it was so slow simply scanning my MacBook Pro's SSD that I gave up. I've canceled and asked for a refund. I have about 400 GB on the drive, and after 5 hours it had only scanned (not backed up - just scanned) 1/4 of the drive. I contact their support and their suggestion was to go back to the default setting where "only the most important" files are backed up. They also cautioned me that settings files are not saved. I wonder why? On their site they advertise that they backup everything. But that doesn't seem to be accurate.

I'm also in the middle of the 14 day free trial of Backblaze. But with Backblaze I still don't understand how I ever know if an item's backup is complete.

1. There is no notification.

2. There is no log or history.

3. The fact the item appears in the viewer doesn't mean it was backed up either, because there are huge size discrepancies.

So how do I ever know if something was actually backed up or not?

I'm looking for other alternatives now.

 

[rebelwithacoz]

iDrive has a 1-star rating on TrustPilot. I was ready to sign on based on this review, but the 92 TrustPilot reviewers changed my mind. This is your data people!!! Don't mess around. Go with a respected business that has a long, successful track record (read: Carbonite IMHO). And, no, I don't work for Carbonite nor am I their customer...yet.