Today’s Backup Reminder comes courtesy of Caroline Xerxes, who posted a comment to the Backup Blog asking us to cover BackUPMax. (Apparently there are two spellings of this: the personal version is BackUPMax and the business version is BackUPMAX.) She explained that she’d switched to them after problems with Mozy.
Since I’d never actually heard of BackUPMax, I invited her to write the review herself, and here it is.
I used to be a customer of Mozy. However, after months of poor customer service and virtually non-existent technical support, I decided it was time to look for another solution for my data backup needs.
After some digging, I found a company called BackUPMax. They are a technology partner of Remote Backup Systems, a company in business since 1987, the largest distributors of online backup software in the world, and the original founders of online data backup. Their pricing was reasonable for the features I was looking for (less than five bucks a month), and I liked the look and feel far better than Carbonite and iDrive, which I also considered. So, I downloaded their free trial.
The software turned out to be extremely user-friendly and versatile. Accounting data, pictures, word documents, spreadsheets… It backed up everything I needed it to, and the software does not have a cap set on individual file size. They don’t allow backup of music or movies yet, but they say it’s on the agenda. It even backs up open and locked files. Since it does not require configuration of Windows VSS, it will back up open files on any Windows system, regardless of whether the system is NTFS or FAT32.
Once you’ve got everything set up the way you like it, the backups run automatically with no interference from you. They use military-grade 448-bit encryption, so no one can see your files but you. A 128-256-bit SSL is used to protect your files during transmission to their two different data centers.
I really like their restore interface, as well; you can restore a file using the BackUPMAX software itself or from another computer using their web interface. (It stores up to three different versions for a full 45 days; you can choose one of the three, or just select “show most recent version.”) Since the software will run on both Windows and Macintosh machines, you can restore a file to a PC that you originally backed up from your Mac.
BackUPMAX also offers something neither Mozy nor Carbonite offer: the Security Suite. If your laptop is stolen, you can log into the BackUPMAX website from any computer to activate any of the options included. It can use the computer’s onboard webcam to take pictures and record video/audio of the thief, halt all BackUPMAX operations, send details of the networks it has connected to, or even shred the hard drive so the thief can’t access your data. There is also a geo-location function that can help pinpoint the location of your laptop without a GPS, using only your laptop’s built-in network card.
BackUPMAX also provides a business edition, for the backup and restore of Windows Server operating systems, as well as SQL and Exchange servers.
All in all, this software provided everything Mozy does and then some, for the same price. The customer support is fabulous, the technical support team is responsive and knowledgeable, and I get the security and reliability I wanted from an online backup service. Needless to say, I am now a paying customer.
If you have a favorite backup product that you’d like to write about, send your review (along with your contact information) to sallie [at] fileslinger [dot] com.
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