ElephantDrive.com

ElephantDrive.com combines online data storage with online backup features, which means that you can use it for both tasks. As an online data storage tool, it comes handy as you can store as many files as you need online and access them from wherever you need it. As a backup tool, it will allow you to keep a copy of your important files stored securely online and to access them from your local PC.

ElephantDrive’s services rely on ElephantDesktop, a Java based software for Windows based PCs (2000, 2003, XP and Vista) and Mac OS X workstations. This small piece of software will allow the user to select which files he/she wants to backup, which can be organized by folders or file types. When selecting folders, ElephantDesktop will create a backup of all selected folders and the folders within them, however the file type option does a smart scan of the entire hard drive looking for files matching the selected file types. Let’s say that you don’t care about all those boring office documents (who needs them anyway, they’re just important to your boss), but would like to keep a safe backup copy of all your music, well you can select “mp3” as a file type and ElephantDesktop will look for every single mp3 file in your hard drive and will back it up to ElephantDrive’s servers. Backups can also be automated at the users’ convenience.

ElephantDrive uses Amazon’s web services for data storage. It’s important to mention that Amazon was a pioneer in cloud storage technologies which provide reliability and fault tolerant storage space distributed among several servers.

ElephantDrive also offers another feature called TrunkDrive, which is a simulated network drive that can be mounted in Windows’ Explorer or Mac OS’ finder and you’ll see it just as a network drive so that you can upload and download files from it with just a simple copy and paste combination.

ElephantDrive provides 2 different account levels for home users and 2 account levels for Pro users. Starting at $4.95 a month for home users and $34.95 a month for Pro users, ElephantDrive proves to be one of the most affordable online backup solutions that is easy enough to use for the non-experienced user but powerful enough for the most demading ones. For large networks and businesses, ElephantDrive offers custom tailored Enterprise edition plans, which provide larger storage space blocks and faster transfer speeds.