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Acronis launches multi-PC friendly online backup app
Acronis is a well-respected name in IT circles, and when they release a new application people tend to take notice. They were nice enough to give me a heads up that their online backup app for Windows was now ready for download.
A good reputation is a big deal when you're selecting an online backup provider, and Acronis certainly has that. So how does their Online Backup stack up?
The desktop application is as easy to use as any other I've tested on Windows. Sign in to your account, select the files you want to upload, and fire up the backup job. You can back up multiple computers into the same storage space: each machine will appear on its own tab in the Online Backup interface (as above). The calendar strip along the bottom provides a nice, easy way to keep an eye on your backup history.
To restore data, you'll need either the desktop application or to fire up web restore using Internet Explorer or Firefox. The process is simple and as speedy as any other service on my 5 meg DSL connection.
Storage is one area which might need to be addressed. Paid accounts are $4.95 per month (or $49.99 per year) for 250GB. When you're competing against providers like Mozy, Carbonite, and BackBlaze (who all offer unlimited storage), 250GB might not be enough to entice most single-system users.
If you're looking for a thrifty way to back up a quarter terabyte of crucial data from multiple systems, however, Acronis Online Backup is a great option.
Bonus: until February 15th 2010, you can save an additional $20. Sign up for a full year, and pay just $29.95.
A good reputation is a big deal when you're selecting an online backup provider, and Acronis certainly has that. So how does their Online Backup stack up?
The desktop application is as easy to use as any other I've tested on Windows. Sign in to your account, select the files you want to upload, and fire up the backup job. You can back up multiple computers into the same storage space: each machine will appear on its own tab in the Online Backup interface (as above). The calendar strip along the bottom provides a nice, easy way to keep an eye on your backup history.
To restore data, you'll need either the desktop application or to fire up web restore using Internet Explorer or Firefox. The process is simple and as speedy as any other service on my 5 meg DSL connection.
Storage is one area which might need to be addressed. Paid accounts are $4.95 per month (or $49.99 per year) for 250GB. When you're competing against providers like Mozy, Carbonite, and BackBlaze (who all offer unlimited storage), 250GB might not be enough to entice most single-system users.
If you're looking for a thrifty way to back up a quarter terabyte of crucial data from multiple systems, however, Acronis Online Backup is a great option.
Bonus: until February 15th 2010, you can save an additional $20. Sign up for a full year, and pay just $29.95.
Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsDrew GreenJan 27th 2010 7:38PM
I've had good experiences with Acronis corporate products in the past up until last week. I just returned $3500 worth of garbage. They fail to mention some important details regarding functionality with ESXi (which they only mention in their knowledge base articles). Their support is god-awful. I literally had to spoon feed the answer to my question to their support agents for them to then say "yea, that's why it's not working". What's worse, I'm using an agentless VM image backup product, yet had to explain to multiple Acronis techs multiple times that there is NO AGENT installed on my VMs, because their product doesn't need that. Lesson learned: always try before you buy, even if a company's older products have been good.
SleepingPandaJan 27th 2010 7:56PM
Thank you for that heads-up. You just saved me a bad purchase.
John GrayJan 28th 2010 8:11AM
Don't know where this idea that Acronis are well respected came from. I have heard the corporate products are good but the consumer stuff is notoriously unreliable. Worst of all is the support, it's just pathetic.
ChrisFeb 8th 2010 5:53PM
Egnyte is another company worth looking at. I've had a great experience with their solution. Anyone else tried Egnyte?
tonygFeb 13th 2010 12:16PM
I have installed and used this Acronis online backup. It is cool to have multiple computers backing up with one account. HOWEVER - the software does not allow backup of mapped drives! It does not even show mapped drives for selection in the "what to backup" options.... NOT cool. I have a support ticket in to see if they will allow mapped drive backup, if not - I want a refund! :/
AlfredoFeb 17th 2010 11:11AM
If security and privacy of data is a concern, and it should be, companies of all sizes should familiarize themselves with Next Generation Backup. If you run a few servers I assume you are virtualized already. Online services have a big bottleneck wen backing up increasing numbers of VM's
If you add a need for replication to the equation, then the case for backup to disk is more compelling.
If you add data deduplication on top of that, it is actually easy to prove that TCO is lower, complexity is less and automation is easier when you use a Next Generation Backup approach.