McAfee launches online backup service

McAfee Online Backup has a lot of options and a rudimentary interface that could be intimidating for novices.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)

McAfee, one of the world's largest Internet security providers, wants to go one step further in keeping your data safe. It now offers to store your backup data for you.

The company 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.

I tried the software out briefly, and it was, indeed, easy to install and get the first backup up and running.

Once you have registered an account with McAfee, you can download the software and install it on your computer, much like you would do with the company's security software. When the install is finished, the software tests the speed of your Internet connection, which later helps determine how long it will take to get the first backup done.

The software offers a lot of options, such as Bandwidth Throttle that limits how much of the Internet connection is used for the data upload, and Backup Speed that lets you choose either fast or slow backups, to lessen the impact on the computer's performance.

McAfee Online Backup can automatically detect and find important data, including bookmarks, e-mail, contacts, documents, photos, and so on, to back up for you. You can also manually back up any folders of your choosing. Once everything is set, the software will take care of the backing up on its own. Depending on the amount of data and the quality of the Internet connection, the first backup can take a very long time (perhaps days), but after that, only data that has been changed will be backed up.

It's worth noting, though, that even when you set the backup speed to optimize for fast backup, the software seems to upload data rather slowly. If you have a cable connection and have tens or hundreds of gigabytes, expect the initial backup to take days to complete. Also, the software's unfriendly interface and the overwhelming amount of unexplained options could be intimidating to novice users.

Nonetheless, overall, this seems to be a decent backup solution and could be the most affordable for those who have a lot of data to back up. If you don't have already have a reliable backup service, consider trying it out, as it comes with a 30-day money back warranty.

[nreddyk]

Spelling mistakes galore, did Cnet fire all the editors and hire cheap talent?

[polaris20]

Carbonite is unlimited too.

http://www.carbonite.com/how_it_works/

[gworley]

Carbinite doesn't backup external drives.

[John-D]

As you mentioned this is a rebranding of Mozy, so why not just use Mozy which is available at a lower cost?

It should also be noted that Carbonite offers unlimited backup at a lower cost and their UI is among the easiest to use.

I have found the real differentiator in backup services is their ability to backup mapped (network) and external drive data. In my opinion, IDrive is the best value if you require this. And I prefer its Explorer-like UI.

[CraigC2000]

Why is this news?

So McAfee is reselling Mozy online backup, for $5 more per year and no option to pay month to month or to choose the free version, all of which are available if I went directly to Mozy.com instead.

I can't possibly imagine how this is useful to anyone, but being as how the author is already aware that it's the same service as mozy, and yet recommends that people try the higher priced version from Mcafee anyway, his true motivation for posting this appears a bit suspect, as an impartial author would certainly recommend the lower priced version when you consider that there is absolutely nothing value added by Mcafee to justify the additional cost, other than the name.

this post is horrible. both Mozy and Carbonite are unlimited. CNET is getting bad!

[shellcodes_coder]

I use Windows Live Skydrive, it even supports encryption

[gworley]

Limited to 25 Gig -- I have over 300 Gig of music and not upgradeable to any more space and several of my music files are over 500 Meg -- that is 10 times of 50 Meg per file. MS doesn't have a clue on the real needs of the users. My Inbox for 3 accounts in Thunderbird is almost most 3.5 Gig. One service I was considering looking at and saw that they only backed up to 2 Gig files.

[jlmcscanner]

Mozy..Carbonite are services to beware of...they maybe "ok" for home users with not much data to back up but business users would be well advised not to use these low end "unlimited" $5 month services.First they are NOT unlimited as claimed because they count on users that do not back up more then say 20-30GB.I have tested these guys out and they are lacking by having inconsistent bandwidth speeds (I clocked them on two totally different internet facilities and they "bandwidth throttle" you so if you have 500GB or even a Terabyte...forget it. Restoral times are even worse for both.The killer recipe in all of the is the very poor customer service they BOTH have...if you just had a complete loss of a hard drive or even the whole computer after hours then you will have to wait to speak to a rep the NEXT day and have them SHIP you your data that YOU then have to load YOURSELF.Imagine just having critical documents for your business to operate lost and have to rely on Mozy and Carbonite to get it back for you...you could be down and out for up to 2-DAYS and as stated that is AFTER YOU restore your systems and then your invaluable documents.$5 a month ??? You get what you pay for...

[timelpatel]

I use Livedrive (www.livedrive.com) who also offer UNLIMITED storage.

Whats the point of backing up my files on McAfee when I can access them through the web portal, desktop software and my mobile on Livedrive..?

[gworley]

but how is the pricing? It says unlimited but when I get down to the pricing the give 2 prices what is comparable pricing to Carbinite and Mozy is not unlimited. The unlimited is $150 a year which is about 3 times the cost of Carbinite and Mozy.

[MemeoFan]

Great article Dong. Online backup is certainly popular right now. At Memeo we believe that a combination of online AND local backup is the best option. Not only is your data safer in two locations, but when local hard drive storage is incorporated users are able to protect and restore files in a matter of hours - not days or weeks.

robert@memeo

[gigamike]

Yeah, this is just rebranded Mozy. Sign up for a year using promo code MPC15 and you get this exact same service for $46.29.

[matthewkrieger]

Hi Dong -

Both Mozy and Carbonite are unlimited already and cost essentially the same price. I don't agree that this is possibly the best deal for online backup, given that Mozy and Carbonite are already the leaders and have the same functionality/value and are trusted.

Also, not clear what McAfee is adding here if the price is the same as Mozy and they in fact use Mozy.

Regards

[krosafcheg]

It's better to use Mozy directly since you can get discounts if you take their 1-year or 2-year subscription offfers.
Also, by using this code you get 256MB extra to the free 2GB account: https://mozy.com/?code=NN32HH

[Jess_Paul]

My experience with Mozy was not good. I installed MOZY FREE Backup software on my computer as per their instructions. After installation, my computer kept freezing and it CRASHED my computer. Thanks god I have one additional backup of data. I need storage space, but a more organized approach. Does anybody provide with
automated backups?

[netcdp]

NetCDP is much easier to use, almost no manual options. it supports encryption.

http://www.netcdp.com

[Jess_Paul]

For online backup I would recommend backupandshare.com to all home users, it is the easiest and available with cheapest rate. I have seen so far but with almost everything you need as an online backup application. They are also providing Windows mobile backup solution free for their users. So far very good experience, no wonder they are the current topper in http://top10onlinebackup.com

[gworley]

Carbinite is the worse backup service that I have run into they don't do external drives. Mozy on it unlimited account, I cannot over 1.0 mbs down and up even thought I have 8 mbs down and 1.5 mbs up. Keep getting connection errors to further limit bandwidth. I just took me 4 hours deliver something that should have taken 15 to 20 minutes to restore. Plus why would anyone use McAfee's instead of going directly to Mozy.