Cheapest Cloud Storage Option We Recommend

MyPCBackup Can Be The Cheapest…If You Know The Secret

cheapest-cloud-storage-option

Cheapest Cloud Storage Secret

There are so many companies entering the market that coming up with the cheapest cloud storage option can be a moving target.

And as we have written so many times before, sometimes cheap is as cheap does (to paraphrase Forrest Gump). Actually, we prefer to use the term “inexpensive” unless we intend to be derogatory, but since people search for the term “cheap” – and the customer is always right 😉 – that’s what we shall use here.

Plus there are always the free accounts, which we use ourselves for testing and special projects; because these days even 50GB doesn’t always cover your every need for online backup.

So let’s take a look at an online backup service that gives you a choice between how much storage you can get and modest price increases with a SECRET that can crush the price so low you won’t believe it.

Can The Best Cloud Storage Also Be Cheapest?

MyPCBackup is one of our top picks for cloud storage and if you know the secret to getting their lowest price it is probably the cheapest cloud storage option of all paid services; including the unlimited cloud storage package!

These guys have now been around for a while and they have been continually upping their game with best in class, geo-diversified cloud servers to store your data.

One nitpick we do have with the company is that it’s not super easy to see just how much they do charge, and we will follow that up with a post tomorrow (time willing).

But we can definitely help you out here.

The Secret To 70% Off MyPCBackup

If you aren’t sure you want MyPCBackup to be protecting your data you can:

If you want to get MyPCBackup for their BEST PRICE (70% off) and have a few days before you need full cloud storage protection of your data:

  1. Start a free trial of MyPCBackup – click here
  2. Download and install the software on your computer and have it select some files to backup
  3. Put up with it telling you that you are NOT protected (you’re not, the free trial is very limited space-wise)
  4. Watch your email box
  5. Probably the same day you will be offered 30% off to upgrade to a paid account – don’t
  6. A day or two later you will receive emails offering 50% off – don’t take them up on it
  7. As your 10 day free trial nears its end you will be offered 70% off! TAKE IT!
  8. Get fully protected

With the smallest account, 75GB, 1 year of MyPCBackup can be had for about $23. Seriously? That’s almost free. Want UNLIMITED cloud storage? Less than $3/month, paid upfront for 1 year, less than $36.

How much less do you expect to pay for UNLIMITED online backup to the cloud?

Read what you want elsewhere, and maybe MyPCBackup doesn’t have EVERY feature you need (more features every month, though). In our opinion the cheapest cloud storage option that we can recommend is MyPCBackup at 70% off. Click the link above and get started.

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MyPCBackup Releases New Mobile Apps – This Is HUGE!

Stream And Edit Your Cloud Files With MyPCBackup Mobile Apps

MyPCBackup sent out an email the other day like it was no big deal, but these new mobile apps are huge and catapult MyPCBackup into the next level of service provider.

In short, you can now actually DO SOMETHING with your cloud data; like stream media files and edit online content. We will be testing shortly, but this announcement is something that a lot of users have been wanting and, in truth, some have chosen a competitor like SugarSync because it was a feature that was a deal breaker for them.

Here is a screen shot of the email MyPCBackup sent out announcing the new mobile apps:

mypcbackup-releases-new-apps-for-android-iphone-ipad

Stream and Edit Cloud Files With New MyPCBackup Apps

Just for the sake of the search engines I’ll enumerate what is stated in the graphic.

For the iPhone and iPad, The New MyPCBackup App Will:

  • Easily edit and view all of your backed up files
  • Upload new files, voice memos, photos or videos
  • Stream your music and videos on the go
  • Automatically backup your Camera Roll

The New MyPCBackup Android App Will:

  • Easily edit and view all of your backed up files
  • Upload new files from your phone or tablet
  • Save files from other apps to MyPCBackup
  • Listen to all your music on the move

Pretty exciting stuff, huh?

There’s actually more to this than meets the eye.

Yes, it’s great that the MyPCBackup apps will do these cool things, but what’ more important in general (though maybe not for you..) is that it shows us that the company is not resting on their as such very successful laurels and is instead continually pushing the corporate envelope to provide more services to their customers.

It also shows that these people are still excited about their work; what that means for you is that they are making sure that your data is taken care of. A successful business can tend to the needed maintenance, staff the support help desk and keep your data protected and available.

Yes, they’ve gone through some growing pains and we’ve been among the first to point out issues when they were present, but for now it looks like they are firing on all cylinders and we are excited to see it.

Not yet a customer?

Start a free trial right now for MyPCBackup then download the new apps on your mobile devices.

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HIPAA Compliant Cloud Storage

Affordable HIPAA Compliant Online Backup Solution

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Secure Your Data, Avoid HIPAA Violation

Having been an IT consultant to many medical clients and law firms over the years I understand the importance of a HIPAA compliant cloud storage solution that is affordably priced.

Losing data is absolutely not an option as that typically would mean lost billing. Data compromise is equally unacceptable as that can lead to a loss of reputation and a painful legal settlement.

A key problem we found over the years when dealing with doctors, though, was that everyone seems to think they are rich and should therefore be charged inflated prices for the same products everyone else has access to at lower prices. Computer software is certainly one of those items.

Fortunately, when it comes to HIPAA compliant cloud storage, the same reputable online backup vendor we use in every business and industry offers their service to doctors at the same price as everyone else.

IDrive Provides HIPAA Compliant Cloud Storage

There actually are no clear cut specific guidelines for HIPAA compliant online backup of data files. Yet what needs to be covered is pretty clear to anyone with knowledge of data security, and IDrive is more than willing to help you make sure that your cloud backup and storage plan with them meets all necessary requirements.

There are a number of reasons we trust, recommend and use IDrive for medical data that falls subject to HIPAA:

  • IDrive has been in the cloud storage business for a long time, and..
  • Their reputation is not only impeccable, they have always treated us right
  • The encryption options they offer have always been industry leading and ahead of the curve
  • The cost of IDrive online backup is both reasonable and affordable
  • IDrive support is second to none in the online backup industry

Backup Options That Are NOT HIPAA Compliant

In the “old days” a business, including those in the medical profession, would backup their data – probably unencrypted – to a backup tape (diskettes in the “older yet days”) – and someone would throw that tape or tapes in a pocket/purse/briefcase or other carrying device and take it home so it would be off site.

Yes, still others would backup and leave the backup media on-site, others yet had no backup at all. Some paid the price…

None of these methods is HIPAA compliant and the advent of online backup, now often called – correctly or not – cloud storage (read the difference between online backup and online storage) makes for a much more complete data security solution.

There have been just way too many natural disasters that wipe out large areas that could easily encompass both company location and the home or other off-site backup location that may be used to provide data restoration in case of a building specific event.

In addition, as data has grown in volume it is no longer practical to have 30 days worth of backup tapes plus a tape sequestered after the end of every month and every year for permanent archiving. Even my clients who did go along with such a complete data backup regimen were still at risk, over time, of not being able to restore data due to obsolescence of the tape hardware required to perform a prompt restore when the data might be needed.

Is IDrive Your Answer For HIPAA Requirements?

With IDrive, your HIPAA compliant cloud storage protection plan can include ways of expediting your entire data set, if necessary, such as in the case of catastrophic hardware loss or failure.

As for pricing, naturally it depends on how much data you need to store online in the “cloud”. But if you have priced, or been “pitched” on other HIPAA compliant online backup options that can start at several hundred dollars per month we think you will be pleasantly surprised at the affordability of IDrive considering what they deliver versus the competition.

IDrive is a professional level online backup solution, and even has not just a free trial, but permanent free account (5GB).

We think you will find it to be what you are looking for and be a happy customer of theirs for a long time.

Check out IDrive for your HIPAA compliant cloud storage needs.

..

P.S. We would love to hear back from you after you give it a try – thanks

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TresorIt Gives LifeHacker Readers 50GB Free Online Storage

New Cloud Backup Firm Emphasizes Security

Tresorit

TresorIt is the new kid on the block and wants to make a splash by offering Lifehacker and GigaOM readers a free 50GB cloud storage account if they signup by May 20th, 2013. Free 5GB cloud storage accounts are offered to everyone who doesn’t know about the special deal.

Because everyone wants free, (before they even know what they are getting), TresorIt is being a bit overwhelmed and you may have to try multiple times to logon to their servers.

But free 50GB is free 50GB, right?

Not always.

At this time, how could we in good conscience recommend a new service with not all that much known about it? We can’t. And won’t.

Oh, and it’s Windows only for right now. Mac, iPhone, and Android are on the way.

That said, why not lock in your free 50GB account and find out what you have later. Fine. Just think carefully about trusting your data to a new and as yet unproven service that is thin on every detail of what they offer except for the security.

What Does Tresor Mean?

Before you try and figure out why in the world a cloud backup service would name itself “TresorIt” it might be helpful to know a few things:

  • The firm is Hungarian
  • Tresor, in German, means “vault” or “safe”. So now it means something to you when they say “Tresor It”, right?
  • Data security is what these people are known for

At this point we have no reason not to believe the integrity or security of TresorIt’s cloud storage service.

What we do need to know, though, are many things, like what is your service, backup, storage, both, hybrid, what? Details are pretty thin right now and one reason we wouldn’t count on this new service for anything other than testing and perhaps some “extra” backups of data.

For instance, if they auto-sync, will they delete files on their servers if they disappear on your system – if so, after how long? Do they store versions?

A Little Misinformation

One thing that does not impress us can be seen in the screenshot at upper left, indicating that secure storage did not exist before them. Wrong.

Other companies do client side encryption, also with AES-256, before the files leave your computers. SOS online backup specifically states AES-256, but IDrive, MyPCBackup, Carbonite and SpiderOak are among those that use varying levels of client side encryption also. Mozy uses AES-256 by default but you can use 448 Blowfish if you use a private encryption key.

What may be new is the use of public key encryption that allows you to share files securely without your key ever leaving your computer. But I’m not betting on that without more research.

Again, we have said many times that for whatever reason these online backup vendors often make it time consuming to get the nitty-gritty details about what they truly offer. Why is a mystery to us, other than to say MOST people really don’t care.

As evidence to the above statement, look at how many are flocking to the free 50GB TresorIt offer without knowing hardly anything about the service.

Bottom Line On TresorIt

The bottom line on TresorIt is that we feel this is a company to watch. It will be very interesting to see the product officially launch, announce pricing and hopefully give us more details on what is actually offered.

We presume that will be on or after May 21, 2013 when the free 50GB account offer expires; though we expect a free 5GB account may be a permanent offering.

So grab a free 50GB account, it could be all you need from a company that will likely be among the most secure cloud storage providers moving forward. But don’t gamble on them with your data just yet, let’s let someone else take the risk with their data.

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MyPCBackup Complaints

Should You Steer Clear Or Subscribe?

mypcbackup-complaintsThe subject of MyPCBackup Complaints comes up fairly frequently because old stories on the internet never die, they just get embellished.

When MyPCBackup first came on the scene a couple of years ago they did, like most other young companies, encounter some growing pains.

But remember, even Google has lost people’s data and no one has more access to resources than the big ‘G’.

Our Readers Complained About MyPCBackup

In the early days of MyPCBackup we did have some of our readers compain about MyPCBackup and even complain that the customer service was not responsive.

However, a slightly different tale emerged when we contacted the company directly to find out about some of these.

One user in particular actually seemed to refuse help by customer support, and the company provided me with the details of what was offered to him.

Some other complaints were tracked down to competing companies wanting to give MyPCBackup a bad online reputation.

So, while there were some issues, the worst complainers seem to be not genuine. In the process, though, we found that the people at MyPCBackup were actually then – and continue now – to be the MOST responsive to those of us at OnlineBackupSpot.com who have reached out to them on a number of issues over the years.

Real MyPCBackup Complaints

There have been, as we have stated in many posts, some legitimate issues with the online backup service itself. Overall, none more so than other vendors.

To a degree, since SO MANY PEOPLE have chosen to use MyPCBackup, one has to keep in context the PERCENTAGE of problems (number of complaints / number of users) and with the number of users so high, the number of complaints will grow and still have a low percentage of problems.

Some of the early complaints were about upload speed. Those have been corrected long ago and now the upload speed is quite decent.

A few did have some trouble getting a response from support initially, but that too was corrected and chalked up (on our part) to the company growing so fast.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that MyPCBackup uses solid server technology to protect your data, has customer service that will respond and that you CAN get your data back when you need it.

Therefore we do have, in part because of the insane low cost of the service – especially considering that it is unlimited online backup – MyPCBackup rated highly in our online backup reviews listing.

We just posted yesterday, in fact, how MyPCBackup increased our free trial account just a couple of weeks of our request for them to enlarge that account capacity; coincidence? Don’t know 😉

Start your Free Trial to MyPCBackup right away – click here now

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The Most Important Feature Of Online Backup / Cloud Storage

Geographic Diversification Of Your Backup Data

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Geo Diversification Of Computer Backup Data

I was watching an episode of Season 8 of 24 a few days ago (yes, I was late to the Jack Bauer thing, but at least I can watch the episodes whenever I want) and had to smile when our buddy from the movie “Mad Money” showed up and wanted some video footage regarding a crime that would just happen to incriminate an employee of CTU.

Fortuitously for the bad apple employee, a terrorist EMP device wiped out CTU’s servers just in time (miraculously didn’t affect the big TV screens on the wall).

Naturally, our bearded authority figure asked about backups when told of the video footage destruction.

The answer?

“Naturally we have backups, unfortunately they were stored on-site and were wiped out also”.

Hmm. Yes it takes big data pipes to move video, but I think CTU has them.

If nothing else, it underscores a primary reason for an online backup service: Geographic diversification of your data.

Backing up is easy, with USB hard drives, thumb drives, etc. And many argue this as a reason they haven’t signed up yet for a quality, top rated online backup free account even (Get 5GB free here).

The problem, which we have written about before, is what happens when:

  • A flood submerges your entire town/city/area
  • A hurricane wipes out your entire town/city/area
  • A fire detroys your entire town/city/area
  • A tornado blows away a large swath of your town/city/area
  • An EMP device goes off (thankfully, only in the movies so far)

or, if you don’t even have a USB backup at your bank, relative or friends house, but store all the backups in YOUR home or business:

  • fire
  • flood
  • plumbing leak
  • burglary
  • sink hole (hey, that’s been happening!)
  • tornado (sorry, used to live in the MidWest and feared the darn things)

Having another backup (or your only backup) on redundant servers in a geographically diverse area from where you live makes a LOT of sense and could even prevent you and your employees from losing your livelihood in the case of your business data.

This is called off-site backup, and to us is one of the most important features of online backup and the reason you don’t want to delay to get your data stored SECURELY (careful of those free services out there) in the cloud.

If you live in a large metro area it might make sense to make sure your online backup service does NOT have all of your data stored in your area; and MOST of the big names are geo-diversifying, though some cannot tell you exactly for sure that your data is redundantly spread out.

SugarSync is one of the few that makes a point of claiming that they DO geo-diversify your online backup data in the cloud.

Either way, though, it’s highly likely that you will be fine with any of the big names; check out our online backup review page and pick one that has the features that matter to you most.

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SOS Online Backup Service For Home Video Overview

Here is a new video screencast we just uploaded giving you an overview of SOS Online Backup and highlighting some unique features. For a full review of SOS Online home edition click the link.

Here is the link for a free 14 day 50GB trial

 

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3 Essential Features Of Your Online Backup Strategy

Inspired By SOS Online Backup White Paper

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Article Inspired By SOS Online Backup White Paper

 

Online Backup Essential Feature #1

Online backup, aka cloud storage means different things to different people. (And, oh by the way, those terms are actually different even though they are often used interchangeably – learn more about that here)

To some, online backup software is an automated backup system with:

  • What can be, unlimited backup media “size”
  • Anywhere access to my data
  • An ability to sync data between devices

And to others it might simply be:

  • An offsite backup that may or may not complement an onsite backup media

Additionally, your backup media, whether tapes, disks, DVD’s or cloud servers, need to be encrypted in case that media falls into the wrong hands.

To home users, many think that unimportant with their music collection and we would probably agree. But with family photos? It’s just creepy to think of someone else having access to and perhaps modifying and then posting those pics online for their amusement.

And financial data? Hopefully that goes without saying.

Make sure your online backup service is encrypting your data, before it leaves your computer, with strong industry accepted methods. Whether you want to have a private key that only you know is for you to decide; only certain online backup services offer that option.

By the way, having a copy of your data offsite is essential to protect against fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, theft, earthquake, SINKHOLE (been in the news recently)…you get the idea, right?

Essential Online Backup Feature #1 is Securely Encrypted Offsite Storage of Your Data; encrypted BEFORE it ever leaves your device

Online Backup Essential Feature #2

For individual home computer users, an actual data backup and recovery disaster plan might sound a little too intense. But in practice, you still need it for the day when a hard drive crashes and you want to KNOW that you can get a copy of your data back.

For businesses, this is crucial. In today’s world, losing company data can mean going out of business, even a lawsuit.

So in addition to signing up for a quality online backup service like IDrive, SOS, Mozy or one of the others we review on Online Backup Spot, you need a verification and testing plan that you carry out at regular intervals; in a way, the same as you check the oil and tire pressure on your car (you do, right?) even though what you want to be able to do is just jump in your car, hit the key, and go!

Essential Online Backup Feature #2 is Verifiable Plan Of Ensuring Your Data Backups Happen and are Recoverable

Online Backup Essential Feature #3

Test your plan that you came up with for ensuring your data really is there and that you can retrieve it when and where you need to.

Preferably even test on a totally different computer so you can overcome the disaster of losing a computer altogether and still be able to restore your data.

Do the testing on a regular schedule.

Compare samples of files against the originals to make sure there has been no data corruption.

Essential Online Backup Feature #3 is Testing The Recovery Process and The Data It Retrieves

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SugarSync Lowers Prices

SugarSync has gotten “in sync” with the market and realized that 30GB – the size of their smallest cloud storage plan – was just too small.

So they have eliminated the 30GB plan and reduced prices on the 60GB and 100GB plans.

Checkout the new, lower pricing of the premier mobile device specialist in online backup – click here

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