The company [McAfee] announced Thursday the availability of its McAfee Online Backup, an online backup service that automatically uploads data from your computer's hard drive to a remote server via the Internet.
While online backup services are nothing new and have been available for a long time from many providers, such as Carbonite, Memeo, or Cuku, the main difference with the new McAfee Online Backup service is that it's one of a few that offer unlimited storage space.
For a fixed annual fee of $60, you can back up as much data as you want. This could possibly the best deal around for online backup, especially for anyone with a lot of important data and a high-speed Internet connection.
Other than the generous amount of storage, according to McAfee, its new service, which is powered by Mozy, is secure and comes with easy-to-use software.
McAfee now offers unlimited online backup, but you should use Mozy instead
There are cases where re-branding something might make sense, but this isn't one of them.
McAfee has announced that they are adding an online backup service to their stable of products. There's no limit on your storage space and it runs $59.99US per year. That's not a bad deal at $5 a month -- right?
Well, no, it's not. But you could go and get the exact same service without the red McAfee M from Mozy - who are handling all the heavy lifting for McAfee Online Backup anyway.
Apart from the fact that you get service from the guys actually storing your data, Mozy also allows you to pay monthly, yearly, or biannually. Book a year and you get one month free. Step up to two years at a time, and you get three months of free service. McAfee doesn't offer any such discounts.
Even if you're a McAfee fan you should skip the middleman and use Mozy. Of course, it's highly likely that McAfee doesn't plan on standalone purchases of Online Backup from their web store. They'll no doubt get a pile of signups from users who receive their security apps preinstalled on retail laptops and desktops.
Can someone explain the advantage over buying an external USB drive or two?-Carol Haynes (November 22, 2009, 03:37 AM)
My big problem with online backup solutions is this. What happens if THEY lose your data or it gets corrupted on their systems?-Josh (November 22, 2009, 06:36 AM)
If it's a serious company, it's a given that they should have a backup system in place in case these kind of things happen. Since you can't really tell, as everyone says they backup their users data, and when shit happens, it turns out they don't, you're pretty much f***** up.-Lashiec (November 22, 2009, 10:42 AM)
What are your upload speeds?-Carol Haynes (November 22, 2009, 03:37 AM)