How to Choose the Right Cloud Backup for Your Needs

If you have a Mac or Windows PC and want to ensure the important files and data on it are protected from the most common forms of data loss, both Carbonite Safe and Carbonite Endpoint can get the job done. But there are significant differences between these two cloud backup solutions that you should know about before you decide which one is best suited to your purposes.

Cloud Backup: High-Level Comparison

At a high level, Carbonite Safe is primarily designed for personal use and for very small businesses (VSBs). It’s an easy-to-use, automatic cloud backup solution that protects files and folders from everyday data loss due to things like ransomware, accidental deletion, human error and hardware failure, to name a few.

While the Carbonite Endpoint cloud backup solution also protects you from these adverse events, it also includes several advanced features that help protect small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and enterprises.

Carbonite Endpoint also includes features designed for those who have to administer the solution, making it easier to deploy and manage on up to thousands of devices. These devices are often distributed over a wide geographic area and across many different departments, divisions and offices, each with its own backup and recovery requirements.

A few examples of the kinds of customers who find Carbonite Safe cloud backup suitable for their needs include freelance photographers, contractors, gig workers like graphic designers, and consumers who need a safe place to store their passport photos, family videos, tax documents and other important files. When we refer to VSBs, we’re generally talking about one to three employees with typical digital assets like Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and possibly image files, like JPEG and PNG, to protect.

As they grow, very small businesses often turn into small or midsize businesses. When they do, their cloud backup requirements become more extensive.

The SMB segment includes businesses from dozens to thousands of employees. Once your workforce becomes this large, the amount of data you need to protect also increases. This increases costs, especially when much of the data is duplicated across different users’ machines. If the organization is subject to regulatory requirements, it will need a minimum level of security for data in storage and in transit. SMBs also have much lower tolerances for data loss, so backup intervals need to be minimized as much as possible. Carbonite Endpoint is designed for these types of environments. A few examples of SMB entities that require advanced backup functionality include healthcare organizations, municipalities, school districts, real estate businesses, accounting firms and architects.

Cloud Backup: Feature Drilldown

Carbonite Safe is designed to be simple enough so that non-technical users can easily install it, set it up and perform recovery when necessary. Once the software is installed, there’s not much a user needs to do. The solution will back up continually on its own, using advanced encryption to secure data as it’s being transferred to the cloud and once it’s there.

Users can check the status of backups by clicking on the green Carbonite icon in the task bar on a PC or the menu bar on a Mac. This launches the user interface (UI), showing what’s being backed up and the status of backups. Carbonite Safe also allows users to log in to their accounts from a web browser. From either the UI or the web browser, users can self-restore when they need to recover a file or folder.

Carbonite Endpoint cloud backup is also easy to install, but it includes far more options when it comes to configuring the solution. Administrators can create separate policies for backing up different file types for different departments or users. They can also customize backup scheduling and retention to minimize the potential for data loss and comply with document retention policies. Backups can be scheduled at intervals as low as 1 minute, which means businesses should never lose more than a minute’s worth of data.

Carbonite Endpoint includes powerful and secure deduplication technology that eliminates duplicate copies of data without decrypting the data in the process. Administrators can perform file recovery for users, and users have the option to self-restore. There’s also an admin restore feature that simplifies the process of migrating users from one device to another and restoring files after a ransomware infection. This solution also leverages advanced 256-bit encryption. Customers may choose to supply their own key.

Since SMBs often have employees traveling for business purposes, Carbonite Endpoint also includes geo-tracking for locating company-owned devices and remote wipe for deleting the contents of the hard drive if the device is lost or stolen.

Something for Everyone

Different businesses have very different needs–and budgets–when it comes to protecting their important files and digital assets. While data protection is no less important for individual users and very small businesses, there are some advanced features they can do without and would rather not pay for. These very same features, on the other hand, are essential for other segments of the market.

Carbonite Safe includes all the functionality and ease of use that individuals and VSBs are looking for, without the advanced security features they don’t need. For small and midsize businesses, and organizations in regulated industries, Carbonite Endpoint offers advanced security and administration to minimize the risks of data loss while ensuring efficiency and security at every step.

 This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.