How To Choose an Online Backup Provider

Online backup makes a lot of sense: It gives you off-site peace of mind and the security that comes from knowing that someone else is keeping your data safe and sound. The trouble is that, while there are dozens of individual service providers, there are just a few designed for enterprises and small businesses.

Good choices for backup services are those that work on non-Windows machines that you need to backup, as well as those allow you to use one account to backup multiple PCs and multiple users. Three notable vendors that offer these features include iBackUP.com, SpiderOak, and Amerivault.com.

Some of the more notable services--such as JungleDisk, Tilana.com, Zmanda or ElephantDrive--offer no upper bounds on storage. Others, such as Iomega's iStorage Professional Edition, Onlinebackupvault.com, and StorageGuardian.com, support an unlimited number of users. Additional things to look for include 24x7 phone support, server OS support, mapped and network drive support, and an administrative Web-based console to manage all of your employees' backups. Mozy Pro has these features. Backupmyinfo.com has extensive support for a wide variety of server OSs and SQL Server and Exchange native support, too.

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