Reviewed Mar 2, 2012
SOS Online Backup rated 2.30 stars based on 23 votes
SOS Online Backup, established in 2001, is a pioneer in the online backup industry. Named Editor's Choice for personal online backup by PC Magazine three consecutive times is no small feat, either. Being able to backup multiple computers on a single subscription is a major selling point for this online backup service.
Upon installation, the first thing SOS Online Backup does is scan the computer for files it thinks should be backed up, and then comes up with a list of potential backup candidates: documents, images, videos, music, and others. In most cases, the list is spot-on on what the user does need to backup, although you may also opt to add or delete to this list. This process constitutes Step 1.
The next two steps are fairly straightforward. In Step 2, you will be given options on how often you want the back up done: hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. Other Settings, which comprises Step 3, allows you to enter the email address where SOS Online Backup will send a summary upon completion of the backup.
While backing up, SOS Online Backup gives the user tons of feedback to mull over. Some of the information can be quite helpful, although all of this data may be daunting for some users.
In Step 1, SOS Online Backup provides a status of how the compressing of files and encryption is going. During file transfer in Step 2, you are shown how many more packages still need to be backed up. However, it doesn't give you a time frame of how long the entire process has been running or how much longer it would take to complete.
As the files are transferred to the SOS Online Backup servers, the program then confirms the files were successfully transferred. What this essentially means is that SOS Online Backup checks if the uploaded files can actually be recovered. This is the ultimate test for any computer backup solution: how good it can deliver come crunch time - in this case, when the data really needs to be retrieved from the servers. This is a feature we've only seen in SOS Online Backup.
SOS Online Backup also offers Live Protect, a useful feature that does real time backups. The software will continually monitor your critical files, and backs them up as soon as any changes are made to them.
Speed-wise, SOS Online Backup boasts of an incredibly fast speed. At 7669 kbps, it is nearly 50% faster than Mozy.
Another feature of this facility is its Local Backup option. While Mozy, which also offers this, copies the files for local backup, SOS uses its exclusive file format. The good thing about this is compressed files, as the format SOS utilizes, do save disk space. On the downside though, you would need the SOS Online Backup software to restore your data from local backup.
Also, while this service can come in handy, setting your PC up for local backup, whether full or incremental, requires some knowledge of backup terminology. And with local backup saving all versions, be sure to have ample disk space reserved.
SOS Online Backup has made its Restore function superbly easy as well. If you opt for Online Restore, you can just choose which files to restore and what dates to start from. You can even have a calendar view of all files backed up to ensure that you retrieve the right files. After all, SOS saves unlimited versions of files; even those previously deleted are kept indefinitely. So even if you delete a file now and change your mind later on, SOS has you covered. Then, you also have the option to restore the files to their previous location or to a new one.
The Local Restore, on the other hand, isn't as elegant or comprehensive as its online counterpart. For instance, you can only select a single backup to restore from. Still, it does gets the job done.
Web access with SOS Online Backup makes it convenient for you to share your files. It's just like sending a link to someone. You can't however, share entire folders. File sharing does not exactly work like collaboration, so the people you send the files to can't upload them back to you. If you need something like this, you're better off going with SugarSync or DropBox.
Recovering files via web access is also handy and can, in fact, get your file quickly sent to your computer. However, you can only restore one file at a time (and the latest versions at that) so you might want to use this option only when you have a few files to retrieve.
Much has been said about the salient features of SOS Online Backup in this review and a lot of them have been good. While it does have its drawbacks, such as the absence of Mac and Linux clients, and a Blackberry app (although one is said to be on the way), the bottom line is, SOS Online Backup is a feature-packed, user-friendly backup solution, especially if you have multiple computers to backup, but don't have a lot (more than 50GB) of data.
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Whoever reviewed this product doesn’t seem to have used the product…and simply relied on the marketing team’s presentations for this review.. try using it first before posting a review!
I’m sorry you think this, but you can clearly see from the screenshots we did use the product, and the review is based on our findings. Is there something specifically you disagree with?
Get a life dude..!!
The new promotion for home users by SOS Online Backup has been a great treat, 100 GB Backup Package for $99.95/Yr ($8.33/mo) is really great. Now with 100 GB account size, I can backup upto 150,000 documents, 30,000 photos and 30,000 songs. I adore this program as it gives me peace of mind knowing that all my important data is backed up safe off site.
So far, I’m 0-for-2 with SOS Online Backup. I recently installed it on both my Win7 x64 system and XP. It seems that x64 support isn’t there. Problems included bizarre multi-minute delay of the client to appear after launch, no drag-and-drop or right-click to select files (Win7), errors in the backup process with a sample set of JPG photos, a NET 2.0 Runtime Error (on my XP machine), and many more. The final amusement had to do with their Knowledgebase. The published one on the website seemed to be more of a “How To” than actual reported problems with the software. With a Google search, I managed to find what appeared to be the “real” Knowledgebase, but when I clicked on a sample reported problem, it came back with an ASP error. (It looks like the entries had older dates, so this might be something that SOS posted in the old days and decided not to keep up but left up buried in their site.)
Very poor. I dont know if it’s an incompatibility with Win7 64-bit, or it’s just their servers are overloaded, but the software is very unreliable. It often starts up with various error messages, or you click on it and nothing happens at all for 10-20 minutes and it then opens a window, but none of your data is there…you have to do a refresh from the server, which again takes ages and often fails. Also, when I have managed to get it running, it seems that a significant proportion (5-10%) of files fail to be backed up, with just a vague error in the log. There is no obvious difference between files that fail and those that succeed. Support is slow. I’ve now emailed to cancel and request a refund.
I have had terrible service from this company. I am using the Business backup. I can’t even get anyone to answer the tech support phone number! Are they out of business? My backups have stopped and I can’t get anyone to tell me why. We paid for a year in advance, so I know that’s not the problem.
I used this product and I was unable to download files larger than 1GB. I also had problems deleting certain files within the program that got backed up. Their tech support is only in India and it sucks. I don’t recommend this place. I am looking for another place now.
Agreed with frustration. I’ve been trying to get in contact with for three days and it’s been impossible.
The small business version of the popular SOS Online Backup service, SOS offers a powerful and easy to use software interface and robust capabilities of information. The service automatically detects andcopies new or changed files, and supports bandwidth, file versioning, and multiple dining options.
SOS backup may be a fine product and worthy of consideration among the many competitors, but when you start this review by calling them “a pioneer in online backup,” it loses credibility.carbonite coupon code
Misled into purchasing a data plan at a higher price then I wanted.
Stay away from this product.
Whatever you choose, whatever type of online storage you used, what is important is we can access our files anytime and anywhere.
Buggy software causing annoyances to the users. A simple version update for example messed the whole backup history.Often also extremely slow servers at their end, making file uploads VERY slow. And while trying to browse / recover files, a server timeout from their end is nothing unusual.There are better choices than this.
DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT.Software is extremely buggy, basically lost the entire backup history forcing to back up everything again – which takes a week or two if you have more data.Their servers are extremely slow often. Upload (on automated backup) fails on timeouts and at the end nothing gets transferred.Several complaints to their support have not fixed the issues in the software and they have refused to say anything else than “sorry for trouble”, even when the backups have been practically down for two months now due to their bugs. I have paid for a service that is not working, and they have offered no compensation of it being basically unusable.
Did you review this a long time before you posted it? I’ve been using SOS for a while and it has a Mac client. Btw the Ultrasafe Gotcha is complete utter Bull****.
I have this product and it has one major flaw:
It never stops backing up. The support team have explained this is technical terms: one changed file to the ‘backup set’ means it will re-upload the entire backup set. As it takes 50 days to complete an entire backup, and it keeps restarting, there may be files that are NEVER backed up.
Apart from this, I like the product, but I will have to cancel and go elsewhere because this flaw is a show stopper.
I purchased home version $99.95. Mac version. The software does not transfer your folder organization with your files. I am lost when trying to find my docs. Big one: the mobile apps appear to be broken. Cannot access my docs from iphone or ipad. When I asked for support they reminded me that they will not refund my subscription. SCAM.
Not so happy with SOS. After tooling along fine for months all of a sudden my backups are so large they require an upgrade. I’m not sure why but I bit and selected 150GB button that said the cost was $99. The actually charged me $146 and change. My customer service experience after that was horrible and is still unresolved. They finally did turn on the service anyway with the 150GB cap and I started playing with it to see what the capability is. Soon got frustrated. Their is no documentation on how to use it. Sharing a file through email…I got a file but it wouldn’t open. The search on the site was useless. I have no confidence that if I really had to restore something that I would be able to or be able to get any help from them. I’m now trying to cancel the service and get my money back. They have asked me to explain why and review the customer agreement. Their zendesk customer service system actually has the email dialogue between me and some guy in India where there is plenty of documentation. They suck, the customer service sucks and I would NOT recommend SOS to anyone.