Review: Dmailer Backup and Dmailer Online
Posted by Jon Lee in Efficiency, Reviews, Sponsored, tags: backup, dmailer, mozy, portable, portable-apps, review
On multiple occasions, I’ve stressed the importance of backing up your files and documents. I’ve also reviewed Mozy as an online backup solution. However, there’s a new competitor in town called Dmailer backup and it gives Mozy a good run for its money. Well, it’s not exactly new as the company has been around since 2001 but I’ve just recently found out about it.
What is Dmailer Backup?
Dmailer Backup is a piece of software that lets users automate the backup process, providing continuous incremental backups for specified files. Incremental backups means that you can ‘go back in time’ to previous versions of a file, not just the latest one. This is especially useful for anyone that does any sort of programming as debugging is made tons easier by comparing old versions of files to current ones. Now Dmailer Backup itself is used to manage backups, but you still need to provide a destination to backup to — for example, an external hard drive or usb key.
A handy feature is to select only specific types of files to backup. For example, for most people, the important files that require backing up are .doc and .txt files. For a web developer, one could simply add .php, .html, .css to the mix. This avoids wasting valuable backup space on those large HD movies (unless you wanted to of course).
Also, Dmailer Backup is a single executable file that does not require installation and works perfectly with U3 usb devices, perfect for that portable web development usb key.
What is Dmailer Online?
Dmailer Online is essentially an online storage space that can be utilized by Dmailer Backup. Upon sign-up, you are provided with 2GB of online storage. Rest assured, the storage is both password protected and encrypted with one of the strongest encryption algorithms available, 448-bit Blowfish. Like some other backup services, the first 2GB is free. In fact, Dmailer were the first ones to offer 2GB for free, setting the benchmark for backup services everywhere. Although this is enough for most people, those that have a lot of multimedia to back up may prefer to pay $35 per year for 30GB or $70 per year for unlimited storage. That works out to less than $3 and $6 per month respectively!
The great feature about Dmailer Online is that the files can be accessed simply from a web browser, so you can access your backups from any computer without having to install any software first. The web user interface for file access is a search engine that’s intuitive, fast, and easy to use.
Mac Compatibility
There aren’t many online backup solutions out there that support platforms other than Windows. Cross-platform support is greatly appreciated by myself and other Mac users. There’s no Linux support yet, but I’ve been told this is a feature in the works, so Linux users can feel included soon.
Mozy vs Dmailer
There are a few similarities between Mozy and Dmailer. Both offer 2GB of online backup storage for free, both are automated and encrypted, and both run on Mac. Unlike Mozy, Dmailer are the pioneers of “‘dual backup”, which can provide you with an offline backup solution in addition to an online one, all from a single interface. Online backups are safe from things like break-ins and local disasters, but offline backups are easier to access and quicker. If you accidentally deleted a large file that you want to recover, it may take a while to download the backup from an online server, so it is always handy to have an offline backup as well. So I think Dmailer provides a good integration of both types for maximum ease of mind.
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