ANTenna Blog -- Storage

Online backup service provider Carbonite has launched Carbonite Pro, a version with pricing and administrative tools designed for small business use.

Carbonite is one of several online backup options, and even though it's primarily aimed at consumers, the company claims that more than 100,000 small business already use the service, which has been described as "solid and simple without being simple-minded." The company has now introduced Carbonite Pro, a version intended for business use. The new version incorporates numerous features that, the company says, its business customers have requested.

"Now we have a version of Carbonite that incorporates everything that these small-business users have been asking for: no per-PC fees, administrative tools that are simple enough for any office manager to use, the ability to back up external drives and priority support," according to the company's CEO and co-founder David Friend.

Regular Carbonite costs $54.95 per year, but each computer requires a separate license (and yearly fee). Carbonite Pro, on the other hand, is priced at a flat rate according to how much data is backed up, regardless of how many computers it comes from. The monthly rates range from $10 for up to 20 GB up to $250 for 300-499 GB. Pricing for greater quantities is available from the company, just not on the price list. The company offers a one-month free trial.

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The Pro version offers the same security features as the consumer version: data encryption on the local computer and on the company's servers. But it adds a centralized administrator feature that provides a dashboard view of the backup status for every computer using the service and lets an administrator track how much data is being backed up; the administrator can also disable someone's access to backups, for example if an employee leaves the company. Carbonite Pro provides a Restore Wizard for disaster recovery and supports recovery of files to a remote computer. Administrators can get unlimited phone, e-mail, or chat support.

Carbonite Pro works with Windows XP, Vista, and 7, plus Windows Server 2003 and 2008. The consumer version works with Macs, too, but not the Pro version at this point.