Backup - in-house or outsource?

NovaStor markets NovaNet Web as a point product and as an online service. If you purchase NovaNet Web, you install it on one of your servers and handle backups yourself. If you don't have the staff to devote to the back-up system, if you don't have the connectivity to let your road warriors connect to you, or if you don't want the hassles of a back-up system, you can let NovaStor Online Backup handle the backups for you.

The online service functions almost identically to the enterprise version with the only difference being you have no access to the administration portion of the program. We gave NovaStor's online back-up offering a workout, backing up and restoring several large files while connected through a DSL connection. Not too surprisingly, it worked just like the NovaNet Web product. Where NovaNet Web lets you create your own restore CDs, the NovaStor Online Backup service will ship your data to you on CDs for $24.95 per disk.

Some system managers have reservations about letting backups rest in someone else's hands. While all online back-up services let you encrypt your data in transit and in storage, that's not enough comfort for some system managers. Another issue is the price. NovaStor charges $17.95 per 500M bytes of storage per month. If you have a lot of storage for a lot of employees, this could be reason enough or you to move to an in-house system.