The services Dropbox and Mozy have been included since they are among the most popular cloud storage providers. They received broad media coverage and may well represent the gist of how cloud storage services are seen today: Very simple to set up, convenient to use and available for free or for a low price.

CrashPlan

CrashPlan received good or very good ratings in registration, encryption, deduplication, updates and server location, but only okay ratings in transfer of files and devices. This is because CrashPlan does not use SSL/TLS to secure the communication between a client and the CrashPlan server and instead uses an in-house solution. This violates Kerckhoffs’s principle, which states everything should be secure even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge.

What seems to be missing about in CrashPlan’s audit is that if you have the family plan, all users who know the username & password can access data from every machine backed up in that one account. Typically this isn’t a problem, but if you want data within a family to be secure from one another, multiple individual accounts are required.

Mozy

Mozy received okay ratings in Registration and Encryption, a bad rating in Deduplication and a “very bad” rating regarding their server location(s).

Unlike some services, Mozy’s account login is not protected against brute-force attacks, meaning an attacker can continually guess at an account’s password until the proper combination is found. Other services would lock an account for a set time, preventing an automated attempt to access the account profile.

When a file is already on the Mozy servers and does not have to be uploaded by the user, a corresponding message is shown in the log of the Mozy client applicant… The user does not have the option to forgo deduplication. Deduplication amongst users can be avoided if the user uses their own personal encryption key.

This study was done by a German institution, so they were looking at Mozy’s European servers when grading them on server location. While the Mozy Privacy Policy says the servers are located in Europe, this study found data being transmitted to Mozy’s US datacenters.

Dropbox

Dropbox received bad grades for registration and encryption, and wasn’t analyzed as a backup solution (which follows our lead that Dropbox is good for sharing files, but not to be used as an online backup service).

Because Dropbox does not verify user e-mail addresses upon signup, they were marked down in the registration section. Without e-mail verification, non-members may fall victim to an Incrimination Attack (in which the attacker registers as the user, uploads incriminating files, then reports the account to local authorities).

Also, because Dropbox informs new users if an e-mail address is already in use, it’s possible to harvest their user e-mail list.

Dropbox transfers files to their datacenters over a secure connection, but the files are not encrypted until they reach Dropbox’s servers. Therefore, users do not truly know if their files are safe from prying eyes.

In addition, when sharing files publicly or with non-Dropbox members, it’s easy for attackers to guess the shared URLs (or just search for them) and access your files. Despite this, Dropbox claims it is unlikely to guess filenames.

Summary

Other services, including CloudMe, TeamDrive, Ubuntu One, and Wuala were also reviewed and each had their own faults.

In the world of online backup and storage, there’s a fine balance between information security and ease of use. Data is most protected using a personal key with the owner of the data holding the key, yet if the key is lost, the data cannot be recovered.

In addition, strong passwords are preferred when setting up an account, but many users find it’s easier to remember their cat’s name, fluffy, rather than a strong password such as US#@Lm#b3mz.

Other precautions, such as locking an account if the password is guessed incorrectly too many times, protects user accounts against brute-force attacks, but annoys the actual account holder if they forget their password and have to wait an hour or more to try again.

It’s important to know what happens to your data when using an online backup service, but don’t let this report scare you into canceling your subscription. An online backup is still one of the safest ways to backup your data.

Backblaze is one of the easiest online backup services: just install and you’re done. It automatically backs up all of your files, without having to choose them yourself. Read our full Backblaze review

Why locateme10?

Backblaze has a feature which can help you locate your computer if it’s ever stolen. While many people use online backup as a safeguard against hard drive crashes, computers are also a popular target among thieves. Unfortunately, this is what happened to Bridgette and her iMac.

Little did the thief know that Bridgette’s iMac had Backblaze Online Backup installed with the Locate-my-Computer feature set to Mapping is On. Using another computer, Bridgette simply used a browser to log into her Backblaze account. Once there she clicked on Locate my Computer and was presented with few simple guidelines, 1) Prepare a restore of her data, 2) Change her Backblaze account password and 3) Report the IP address of her stolen computer to the police.

Backblaze’s Map This feature gave Bridgette, and the police, the address of the thief and her iMac.

Locate my Computer is included with Backblaze Online Backup service at no additional charge.

Backupify

While some people call Google Drive Google’s online backup service, the reality is that it’s an online storage service, meaning you can keep original versions of documents on Google Drive (versus an online backup system, where the original file is on your local machine, and the copy is stored in the cloud. If the primary file is stored on Google Drive, and it’s the only copy of the file, it’s smart to have a backup of your Google Drive data.

Along with Google Drive, Backupify can also backup your Google Apps data as well as your Facebook, Twitter & other social media data.

Cloudster

Kickstarter is an online crowd-funding service which links entrepreneurs and donors. Individuals give towards a project, and in return receive a token of appreciation (bumper sticker, t-shirt, or something related to the project).

Cloudster is a 1 TB NAS drive, which automatically backs up the data to the cloud. When I asked Matthew De Remer, one of the engineers behind Cloudster, where the data was to be backed up, I found out it’s being housed with LiveDrive.

The idea behind Cloudster is a good one, but really, a CrashPlan+ Family plan can do the same thing. 1 year of CrashPlan+ Family Unlimited backup is $119.99, while Cloudster (via Livedrive) will run $180. A 1 TB NAS Drive from Buffalo Technology is currently $121.23 on Amazon (no word on what a Cloudster drive will cost, but they claim you can get a discounted one for $399 by funding their Kickstarter project (which includes 1 year of service), so the drive may run about $219?).

So why go with Cloudster? Well, for one: you don’t have to leave your computer on all the time. This is especially important with portable devices, such as an iPad or laptop. The NAS drive does the uploading, so once the data is saved to the drive, you don’t have to worry about it uploading.

Second, some online backup services have a resource-heavy client, which can bog down your machine. With Cloudster, the drive does all of the processing, so there’s no speed hit to your PC.

It’s a new approach to online backups: passing the backup task to the NAS drive. If you’re interested, check out the Cloudster project on Kickstarter.

Keep everything. Share anything.

The first feature of Google Drive is the ability to Create & collaborate. However, this sounds like nothing more than Google Docs.

You now no longer have to add attachments to emails in Gmail. Instead, upload your file to Google drive, and the link to the file gets sent with the email. Also, if you’d like to share a file with Google+, you can now do so.

Google Drive will read text in your scanned documents, making it easier to find that file you’re searching for. Plus, you can view over 30 file types (including Adobe Photoshop) right in your browser.

You can also go back and get an old version of a file – 30 days of a file’s version are stored with Google Drive.

An Enterprise version launched as well.

Developers can use the Google Drive API to use Google Drive as the storage mechanism for their projects.

The first 5GB is free, and pricing starts at $2.49 / month for 25 GB.

Who are they targeting? Why does Google want to get into the online storage market? How will they monetize it? What impact will it have on existing services such as DropBox, Mozy, Carbonite, etc?

Huddle recently launched the first enterprise-ready file sync platform, which was characterized as Dropbox for the enterprise. Alastair Mitchell, Huddle CEO and co-founder says,

With 5GB of free storage to keep and share music, videos and pictures, consumers not familiar with Dropbox are bound to be ecstatic about the launch of Google Drive. There’s no denying that Google and Dropbox are revolutionizing how individuals access and share content, but let’s not draw immediate conclusions on how this is going to change the way we work. I’m a massive proponent of consumerization of technology in the workplace, however a thousand instances of Google Drive doesn’t make enterprise software; security and IT control aside, we are talking about one thousand silos of enterprise content: non-searchable, non-discoverable and pretty useless if you are interested in effective knowledge sharing and corporate agility. Content management software in the enterprise needs to smarter. I’m talking about universal access, the end of search and automatic push of relevant content to a user, and as easy to use as Dropbox (jury out on Google Drive). It’s the only way forward.

Jordan Hudgens (@jordan_hudgens), Senior Software Engineer from MCW Services, chimes in:

With Google constantly attempting to ‘drive’ enterprise customers away from Microsoft, the Google Drive service could essentially replace a vital feature that Windows Enterprise clients use on a daily basis: shared hard drives. Google Apps already is offering a more robust and customizable feature set for small to medium sized companies in terms of email, it makes perfect sense that they are making a foray into internal file sharing.

Backupify is an all-in-one archiving, search and restore service for the most popular online services including Google Apps, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Flickr and more. Rob Stevens, Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing, answered our questions:

Who are they targeting?

Google is likely targeting the many consumers and businesses that have realized they live and work across many devices, most of which are online. This used to be a small group, but today a huge number of people are within reach of a web-connected device most of the day. This includes knowledge workers as well as anyone with a smartphone or tablet, both rapidly gaining adoption.

Why does Google want to get into the online storage market?

Google has always said that their goal is to organize the word’s information (not an exact quote). Historically they’ve not really addressed information stored on personal machines, instead focusing on shared information. An increasing amount of what used to be personal is now becoming shared – Google docs are a great example of how information that used to be only accessible by one person can now be shared. My guess is that they view the Gdrive as a way to move more silo-ed information to a
shared world where it can used to collaborate.

How will they monetize it?

Other “web drive” models have famously used a “freemium” approach, allowing users access to a basic service for free and enabling more storage and additional features for a fee. It’s likely Google will pursue a similar strategy, since they use it today for a number of other services they offer (Gmail for example).

What impact will it have on existing services such as DropBox, Mozy, Carbonite, etc.?

That’s the big question, isn’t it? I suspect that Mozy, Carbonite and other online backup providers may offer a choose your backup target approach for the low end, like Crashplan does, allowing the users to send backup data to whatever destination they wish. Online backup providers will likely be somewhat protected by the relatively low storage provided in the free model – most people can’t back up their photo and music collections to a 5 GB (the rumored size) or even 10 GB location, so they will likely be able to maintain the business selling online storage.

Dropbox seems like the real target of this product – their incredibly rapid and viral growth must have been a real shock to the folks at Google, who (it’s rumored) had scuttled a Gdrive idea previously. With more than 45 million users (as of Nov 2011), Dropbox has a strong start. The question will be how they, and other providers like Box.net respond to Google’s entry. Until we see the actual Google product and strategy it’s hard to predict.

For now, it seems that if the rumors about Google Drive are true, online backup services won’t have to worry much. Online document storage services, like DropBox and Box.net, on the other hand, may have something to worry about.

We’re still waiting for the official launch – again, it’s all rumors at this point.

Any user who signs up for a MozyHome account before April 15th will have access to this feature (Stash) free of charge.

Does this mean Mozy plans on charging an additional fee for Stash? It seems like it. But why?

Online backup consumes a lot of bandwidth initially, but then slows down. Only as files are changed or added to they get transferred. But with synchronization, like with Stash, files are transferred more often, and more than once per change. If a file in Stash is updated, not only does it get uploaded to Mozy, but then Mozy pushes it back down to all devices sync’d with that account.

While this could be the reason, it doesn’t explain how Dropbox can offer such a generous referral bonus and not go under (16 GB is a lot of free space!). Maybe Mozy needs to look into LAN Sync like SpiderOak just released.

With Mozy Enterprise, large business backup can enjoy additional features beyond MozyPro, including:

• Custom user configurations
• User groups
• Sub-administration
• Advanced reporting
• Custom installations
• Active Directory integration

SpiderOak

The idea behind LAN sync is that if two computers are syncing the same folder, and a file is updated, the file is transferred to SpiderOak, but then the copy to the secondary computer is transferred via the Local Area Network, instead of the Internet. This saves on Internet traffic on the network.

DropBox introduced LAN Sync back in 2009. Nearly 3 years later, Spider Oak has added it to their service. While I don’t think this was a very popular request, for users in small offices who work on a LAN and have a limited Internet pipeline, it will save on bandwidth.

Previous pricing was per license, plus GB. Licenses are $3.95 / month / desktop, and $6.95 / month / server. Each GB of storage costs $0.50 / month.

Now, MozyPro administrators purchase a bundle of backup space, and can distribute the space between unlimited users. If servers need to be backed up, a Server Pass is added onto the desktop backup price.

How does the new pricing work out for users? Let’s assume a company had 200GB of online backups for 6 desktops and 1 server. Previously, they paid $130.65 per month (6*$3.95 + $6.95 + 200*$0.50). Now, they’d pay $110.98 ($94.99 + $15.99) for 250GB of backup space, unlimited desktops, and unlimited servers. In this case, a 15% savings.

In addition, users can save further with a Mozy coupon to save another 15%!

For more information on business backups with Mozy, read our MozyPro review