DROPBOX

Dropbox is the mayor of Sync Town, working like iDisk but more reliably. And since anyone can have a 2GB account for free, there’s no reason not to try it out. Paid accounts are $50 a year for 50GB of storage and $100 a year for 100GB, so you might decide not to back up your entire hard drive. But the sync and sharing services are the whole point.

Your Dropbox lives in your User folder and acts like any other folder in your Finder. We added ours to our sidebar for extra convenience.

Installing the Dropbox client puts a new folder called Dropbox into your user folder, and any files you put in that folder are synced to Dropbox’s servers. You can access those files through a browser by logging in to GetDropbox.com. You can also install Dropbox on your other computers (even Windows and Linux machines), associate them with your existing Dropbox account, and access your files from there. It’s meant to replace clunkier methods, such as emailing files to yourself or carting them around on USB flash drives.

Dropbox syncs your files instantaneously--we stuck five JPEGs in ~/Dropbox/Photos, and they appeared in our list of synced files on GetDropbox.com within 10 seconds. Your Dropbox folder contains folders called Public and Photos by default. You can share files in the Public folder with friends (even if they don’t use Dropbox) by emailing them a public URL. To get it, just view your Public folder at GetDropbox.com, click the file you want to share, and choose Copy Public URL from the contextual menu. You can email the link or paste it into an IM chat, and your recipient can view or download the file in their browser.

Any photos you add to Dropbox’s Photos folder also appear in an online gallery.

Drag some photos into the  Photos folder within Dropbox, and Dropbox creates an online gallery. It’s not as attractive as MobileMe’s online galleries, but it’s an easy way to share photos online—just email friends the link to the gallery or right-click any photo and choose Copy Link Location to get links to specific pictures.

You can also set up Shared folders from which other Dropbox users can upload and download files. You invite friends by email address, and they’re required to sign up for Dropbox accounts. And if they don’t want to install the Dropbox client on their computers, they can stick to the Web interface only. Referring friends to Dropbox gets you each 250MB of extra free storage; grab your referral link from GetDropbox.com > 
Account > Referral Status. You can earn up to 3GB of free space from referrals. Joining other people’s Shared folders does affect your quota, since the files in that folder now show up in your Dropbox as well.

In our tests, Dropbox was smooth and stable. And it’s convenient: We added the Dropbox folder to our Finder window’s sidebar, plus put an alias on our Desktop. Status updates appear as Growl notifications, or you can see them by clicking the menubar icon.

We especially liked how Dropbox deals with conflicts. If two users are working on the same file, whoever uploads it last “wins,” but the “losing” file is synced to Dropbox and time-stamped with the name of the computer that did the edit, so you can figure out which version you want. And we loved browsing our files on our iPhone: Head to m.getdropbox.com on your device, and log in to view recent Dropbox activity, browse your files, and view images and documents right in Mobile Safari.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
Dropbox is incredibly convenient and useful, especially if you have multiple computers and are constantly shuffling files between them. The robust 
forums (forums
.getdropbox.com) and wiki (wiki
.getdropbox
.com) are great resources for 
help and tips.

COMPANY: Dropbox
CONTACT: www.getdropbox.com
PRICE: Free for 2GB of storage. 50GB is $9.99/month or $99/year. 100GB is $19.99/month or $199/year.
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4 or later

Super-fast syncing across as many machines as you like. Easily share photos and files with friends. Great Web interface, plus a client that integrates seamlessly into Mac OS X. Universal binary.

Joining a Shared folder affects your quota.

SPIDEROAK

SpiderOak is flexible enough to back up anything, to share files easily with your friends, and to sync files between Mac, Windows, and Linux machines. It installs as an actual application, but it’s Flash-based, so if you use it on two or more platforms, the experience will be the same.

The Backup tab lets you select categories (to the left) or specific folders to back up.

You can back up as many computers, external hard drives, and network volumes and servers to your SpiderOak account as you want. The other services we tested don’t allow you to back up network volumes, but since SpiderOak sells storage in 100GB increments, you’re encouraged to back up as much as possible. You select the files and folders to back up in the Back Up tab of the SpiderOak app, or you can just click the checkbox for a preset category, including Dekstop, Documents, Email, Movies, Music, and Pictures. The preferences let you exclude files and folders by wildcard (filenames including *.zip, for example) or exclude files based on their size or age.

SpiderOak keeps all versions of your files, in case you want to restore an older one.

Once files are backed up to your SpiderOak network, they appear in the View tab, where you can browse the folder structure for each of your backed-up devices. Select a folder to highlight the Changelog and Merge buttons. Merge does a one-time merge of all the files in any two folders on your SpiderOak network. The Download button restores your selected files to a location you specify in the preferences.

Your files are encrypted with a combination of 2,048-byte RSA and 256-bit AES and compressed, so you’re not paying for more storage space than you need. When you change a file, SpiderOak only saves the changes, so the data blocks for the parts of your file that didn’t change aren’t backed up again. And if you have a file on two machines and back up both to your SpiderOak network, the file will appear in both machines’ View list, even though it’s only stored on SpiderOak’s server once. You still see all versions of your files under the View tab, and clicking a file with more than one version displays the date each was updated, so you can find the one you need.

Share sets, which are set up in the Share tab, make chosen files and folders in your SpiderOak network available to anyone via their Web browser. You choose a Share ID and Room Key, which are combined into a URL you give to friends. And the Sync tab lets you set up Sync sets, choosing two folders in your SpiderOak network that will always stay in sync on the local machines. We used one Sync set to keep our ~/Documents/Receipts folder synced between our home iMac and work laptop, or you could sync a local folder to an external hard drive.

SpiderOak even encrypts your encryption key. The company doesn’t know your password, although you can set up a hint. SpiderOak employees can never access your data—and if you forget your password completely, neither can you.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
We loved the Sync feature, as well as the ability to archive files to the SpiderOak network and delete them off the local machine. If our only complaint is that the SpiderOak icon stays in your Dock when the app is running, you know there’s not much to complain about.


COMPANY: SpiderOak
CONTACT: www.spideroak.com
PRICE: 2GB free. Additional storage sold in 100GB increments, $10/month or $100/year.
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4 or later

Back up as many computers, externals, network volumes as you like. Combine two folders with a one-time merge or a constant sync. Keeps all versions of your files without duplicating data blocks. Doesn’t delete files from your backup unless you tell it to. Universal binary.

SpiderOak app must be open all the time.

Home Sweet MozyHome
We reviewed MozyHome in our Dec/08 issue (4 out of 5 stars, p67), and we’re still using the service a half-year later. It provides unlimited storage space, flexible backup options, strong encryption, and you can order DVDs of your backed-up data, if you can’t restore files by downloading them. We’ve included MozyHome in the chart below for comparison’s sake. To read the full review, see www.maclife.com/article/reviews/mozyhome.

Online Backup Services: How They Stack Up

You’ve read the reviews. You’ve oogled the screenshots. Now we offer this handy side-by-side comparison of each service’s features and fees so you get a clear view of how they differ. Happy shopping!