Yesterday, we reported that BT was to launch a service which would allow users to securely access an online location where they could safely stash personal files. There are to be two versions of this service - one is a free version that allows users to upload photos, emails, music, video files and contact information up to a storage capacity of 2GB. There is also a paid version of the service which costs £4.99 a month and will provide you with 20GB online storage capacity.
US firm Carbonite has now announced that they are to offer a rival service. Their "Online PCBackup service" will afford users the ability to access unlimited storage online for the reasonable price of £30 per year (versus BT's £59.88 per year.)
David Friend, CEO of Carbonite, believes that applying a storage limit will hinder users from fully exploiting this new kind of service. "The user is forced to decide what he does or doesn't want to back up," he said. He believes that this will cause problems for users that will make the service less useful.
This kind of service definitely has a future in it. Currently, it is believed that the majority of PC users do not make regular backups of their data, but that they are slowly coming round to realizing that it is imperative to do so. Greater hard drive capacities and a revolution in digital multimedia has made the storage demands of the average user greater, and thus the need for an effective backup solution that ordinary mortals can use has become paramount.
Carbonite's service is expected to be available early in the New Year.