The advantage of having your data backed up off-site, away from your home or office, is that it’s safe from theft, fire, and other local disasters. You can buy Backblaze for $7 /month, or less if you order it for a year or two at once. We also like that there are no file size limits, meaning you can finally back up your 100 GB virtual machine files and 3-hour 4K videos. Backblaze is also one of the least expensive unlimited backup plans that we’ve reviewed. If you’re concerned about backing up online being complicated or confusing, you’re going to love Backblaze. Many people rave about Carbonite’s cloud backup plans—they’ve been popular options for a very long time. Our experience has been similarly positive. All of Carbonite’s Safe backup plans allow for an unlimited amount of data backup from one internal hard drive, per-computer, and require a one-year prepayment. Carbonite’s lowest tier plan, Safe Basic, runs $6.00 /month ($71.99 /year). There are two higher tiers available as well, called Safe Plus and Safe Prime, and these run $9.34 /month ($111.99 /year) and $12.50 /month ($149.99 /year), respectively. Each tier must be paid upfront for one year (those prices above) or two or three years. They also occasionally run deals of up to 40% off. They give you a few extras with the base service, like backup for an external hard drive. Carbonite also has business-class plans. There’s one plan option with CrashPlan: $10 /month /computer. For example, if you wanted to back up from three computers, the price would be $30 /month; ten computers backed up to CrashPlan would be $100 /month, etc. CrashPlan used to have a plan called CrashPlan Home, targeted at home users. However, even the CrashPlan for Small Business plan can be used at home; the pricing and features work the same. While SugarSync does “traditional” online backup just as well or better than much of its competition, it also syncs files between all of your devices, gives you access to your backed up data from your smartphone, and much more. SugarSync has three tiers of online backup service that are each available on a month-to-month purchase plan: 100 GB for $7.49 /month, 250 GB for $9.99 /month, and 500 GB for $18.95 /month. All three of SugarSync’s cloud backup plans offer support for an unlimited number of devices, meaning you can back up your smartphones, laptops, tablets, and desktop computers all on the same account without any extra fees! If you want more than just an online repository for safety’s sake, you will no doubt be very happy with SugarSync. SugarSync also has a business class plan, as well as larger plans that you’ll have to get a quote for. Pricing is pretty straightforward. Everyone starts out with a trial run account that lasts 21 days. You can then select the 150 GB, 400 GB, 2 TB, or 5 TB plan for $6 /month, $11 /month, $14 /month, or $29 /month, respectively. If you’re after a service run by a company that takes their lack of access to your files very seriously, you’re going to love SpiderOak. A one-year prepayment of any of the plans mentioned above will save you a little over the listed prices. This backup service lets you store all of your servers, internal drives, and external drives. There are no file type or size limits. If you’re looking for a backup for archival purposes, Zoolz might be a great choice. Several plans are offered by Zoolz Cloud, all of which are purchased for a full year at once. Each supports unlimited users.
1 TB: $199.99 /year2 TB: $399.99 /year5 TB: $999.99 /year10 TB: $1999.99 /year20 TB: $3599.99 /year50 TB: $8999.99 /year
Livedrive Backup and Pro Suite are the two backup plans you can purchase. They both offer unlimited online backup, but the Backup plan only supports backing up one computer, whereas the Pro Suite can back up up to five computers. Livedrive Backup runs $8.99 /month, and Pro Suite is $25 /month. All Livedrive online backup plans offer significant discounts if you prepay for one year. Another plan offered by Livedrive is called Briefcase, which is just an online storage plan that offers 2 TB of space—it doesn’t back up your files like a regular backup plan. Other features are included, though, like file sharing, file editing, file syncing, and more. This comes in at $16 /month. If you purchase the Pro Suite plan, you get 5,000 GB of cloud storage and the added Briefcase features. “Military grade” AES-256 encryption, an excellent interface, and competitive pricing make any of the Livedrive plans a good choice. The Advanced package is the lowest tier that includes cloud storage. It’s $54.99 /year for 50 GB of backup space for one computer. If you need 500 GB, the price jumps up to $89.99 /year. The other option is called Premium, and it’s $124.99 /year with 1 TB of backup space. With this one, you can purchase more space for an additional price, anywhere from 2–5 TB. The prices above don’t include first-year discounts and are for backing up just one computer. You can instead pick the three or five computer options to back up more, but the price, of course, goes up, as well. Among other options, you can also encrypt your files with a password, schedule the backup to run at a later time, and choose a specific country for the data center where the files will be stored. Some other features that make this one stand out among the competition include mapped drive support, disk imaging, and excellent mobile apps. There’s also the simple Basic Client you can opt for if you’re not interested in all the extra settings in the full version. The completely free plan gives you up to 5 GB of storage. IDrive Personal comes in two tiers and offers support for backup from an unlimited number of computers:
5 TB for $79.50 /year10 TB for $99.50 /year
There’s also a Team plan if you need more users (5–100), as well as business-class pricing and storage options up to 50 TB. For just photo backup, you might prefer the unlimited IDrive Photos. All plans are offered in one-year and two-year prepayment forms, both of which are usually discounted. The prices you see above are non-discounted, one-year prices. Check their website for the most up-to-date pricing with discounts included. We found the software to be no more or less intuitive than any other online backup services. However, if their unique features are high on your priority list, it may be just what you’re looking for in an online backup service. You can purchase Pro for $3 /month, which comes with 500 GB of storage for 10 devices. The Ultimate plan is a bit more at $10 /month, but you also get 5 TB of storage for an unlimited number of mobile and desktop devices. It’s identical to Pro feature-wise, but also includes “photo storage maximizer.” Degoo uses zero-knowledge encryption so that not even their employees can access the files in your account. Its use of storage replication means your files are backed up in chunks across different countries so that even if a data center is breached, there isn’t enough information to access a whole file. Sharing backed up files is supported, too. It’s free for the first 20 GB, with an opportunity to get 5 GB more. A free account doesn’t include zero-knowledge encryption, does include ads, can only back up files from three computers, and will expire if you don’t use it every 90 days. Degoo works on Android, iPhone iOS, and web.
Norton AntiVirus Plus: 2 GB for $59.99 /year and one deviceNorton 360 Standard: 2 GB for $89.99 /year for three devicesNorton 360 Deluxe: 50 GB for $109.99 /year and five devicesNorton 360 with LifeLock Select: 250 GB for $179.99 /year and 10 devices
Keep in mind, these backup services are usually heavily discounted for the first year, sometimes as much as 80% off; the website lists all the current deals. If online backup is all you need, you might not like Norton’s software because each backup plan is just part of a larger suite of security tools. However, if you don’t currently have an antivirus program on your computer, then getting one with backup included is a nice deal. The plan costs $.10/GB for what you use, with a minimum of $20 a month after your 14-day free trial. NAS device users get a 90-day free trial and 100 GB of perpetual free storage for all ASUSTOR NAS devices. Unlimited devices and users are supported, so this is great for families where everyone needs backup space. You can use the same account on multiple computers so that everybody can share in the cloud storage. Data Deposit Box sports all the excellent features of any online backup service that’s in it for the long run, including an excellent history of data recovery, top-of-the-line security, file sharing, free customer service, and more. The cheapest of these plans is $8.33 /month for 1,000 GB of backup space and support for 10 devices (and three sub accounts), if you pay $100 for a whole year at once (the other option is $10 month-to-month). You can add more space for the same price and storage as the month-to-month option—for example, 1 TB for $100 /year, 2 TB for $200 /year, etc. The maximum storage plan you can pay for is 15 TB, but if you want more, you can contact their support team. Check the link below for the other plans you can choose from. The family plan maxes out at 50 TB, and there’s an unlimited business plan. One really cool feature is you can share a folder with your colleagues via a URL link, and the changes you collaboratively make automatically sync to each other’s devices. Many online backup services only allow backup from your approved devices and only via their proprietary software. The base price of $10 /month /user, including 10 GB of compressed and de-duplicated data, and $0.15/GB after that, saving you 30–60% on data usage. There are no file size limits, network drive support is included, and you get AES-256 private key encryption. Add-on features can be added if you need email archiving, password management and monitoring, or compliance training. The pricing page makes it easy to see exactly what it’ll cost as you add/subtract users. There’s a single, 500 GB personal-level plan with different prices depending on the number of users you want. You can add up to 10 users, with each new user adding an extra charge; for example:
3 GB for FREE1 user for $79 /year5 users for $395 /year10 users for $790 /year
There’s also a business plan that can support up to 50 users and that can be expanded beyond 500 GB. You can order from the U.S. and will be charged in USD when paying in PayPal. However, if you pay via a major credit card, the currency depends on the card’s standard. Software or apps for Memopal are available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry. There are several Personal Premium plans listed on ADrive’s site, ranging anywhere from $2.50 /month for 100 GB of space up to $250 /month for 10,000 GB, with several options in between. If you need more space than that, you can go up to “unlimited” by contacting their sales team. These plans can be had at deeply discounted prices if you prepay for a longer time period, up to three years. For example, the 100 GB plan is just $1.67 /month if you buy it for three years at $60. Multi-user business plans are also available that start out at 200 GB for 10 users for as low as $4.67 /month, and go up to 20 TB for 1,000 users for $700 /month (more can be had by contacting them). There are two ways to get online backup with Total Defense, and with both, you also get their Internet Security program:
Ultimate Internet Security: $99.99 /year with 25 GB of storage for 10 devicesPremium Internet Security: $59.99 /year with 10 GB of storage for five devices
You can buy either plan at two or three-year prepayments to bring the price down. For example, the 25 GB plan comes out to $8.33 /month for the one-year price, but if you pay for three years upfront for $199.99, the monthly equivalent drops to $5.56. In addition to the 5 GB free option, there’s one consumer-grade plan called Personal Unlimited. It costs $9.95 /month and offers an unlimited amount of storage space for your backed up files. Prepay for one year at $99 to bring that down to $8.25 /month. You can add computers for $9.95 per computer, up to three extras for a total of four. You also have the option of a custom plan. Choose the online backup space you need, how much bandwidth you expect to use each day, and the number of users that should have access to the backups. Most of you probably won’t find a better deal using the custom plan, but you might if you have a small amount to back up. The cheapest plan you can make here is $50 /year ($4.17 /month) for one user who needs 500 GB of storage and 25 GB of daily bandwidth. OpenDrive also has a free plan that offers 5 GB of storage, but since this plan doesn’t offer file versioning or any kind of encryption, we’d stick to the Personal Unlimited plan if you’re looking for a true cloud backup solution from this company. This service is much different than the others from this list because nearly all of them can upload many more file types, like EXE, ZIP, 7Z, ISO, and others. These are MiMedia’s plans:
Starter: 10 GB for FreeBasic: 500 GB for $7.99 /monthPlus: 1 TB for $9.99 /monthPremium: 2 TB for $15.99 /month
Plans can be purchased at a slight discount if you prepay for a year at once. For example, with the Basic plan, paying monthly for a year equates to $96, or you can buy a year at once with one payment of $85. Backing up with this software is great if you only need to store things like your photos and music. For support for a wider range of file types, we suggest using a different service from this list. MiMedia can be used on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. There’s one FREE plan that allows one user to back up as much as 5 GB. Personal and Home plans are available, too. Personal provides unlimited backup space for $9.90 /month or as low as $8.25 /month with a one-year plan of $99. Home includes anywhere from 1 TB to 10 TB of shared storage space for five family members, starting at $6.99 /month, or $5.83 /month for the $69.90 /year option. File versioning works a bit differently with Jottacloud. Most online backup services keep old versions of files available for restore based on length of time, like 30-day, 60-day, even unlimited. This one keeps the last five versions no matter the length of time. Files you delete from your computer are kept in the Trash folder for 30 days, giving you plenty of time to restore that accidentally removed file. There’s also a business plan for small and large companies that supports 1 TB of space for anywhere from two to an unlimited number of users. Jottacloud’s servers are located in Norway.
Ultimate: 4 TB for $14.44 /monthPremium: 1 TB for $11.94 /monthHome/Pro: 250 GB for $10.69 /month
Each plan can be had for several dollars less per month if a full year (or even two) is paid up front. There’s also a six-month option for all three plans. Since you can’t add more than one device per plan, each device you want to back up requires a plan of its own. Also available through the link below are add-on services, like a 5 GB sync folder, network drive and external hard drive support, hourly backup, and bigger maximum file size limit, each of which come with an additional monthly payment.
