Labs

The originator of the MobileVault software offers packages running from 250MB through to 30GB, with all the ease of use and power of the software package that's probably the most widely used around.

The 250MB service is priced attractively at $80 per year, and could be a good choice for anyone on a limited budget. At the higher end, DataProtector offers possibly the best price on any large backup as well, with 30GB for $800 per year - a level that's almost affordable to the average user. When you consider this is less than the cost of a high-end cable TV package per year, it starts to look an attractive way of backing up virtually

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every file on your computer in a safe and secure way.

As with the other services based on the same software, setting up and using the system is simple. You're walked through creating a backup, selecting files and setting the time that you want to back up - and that's pretty much all there is to it. You can use the iRoam web access system to get hold of a file you've backed up from any machine, which effectively makes the product useful as a form of online storage as well as backup. And you can order CD versions of your backups if you wish, although it's hard to imagine why you'd do so unless you simply wanted to store a snapshot of your data at a particular time. The service also keeps the last ten versions of your files, allowing you to go back to a previous version at any time - something that could be very useful in business.

However, the service is let down by a 1GB limit on the amount of data you can transfer in one month, and this means we can't recommend it as best of the bunch. After you've done your first backup, you're charged an additional $0.04 per megabyte. Although Connected claims that only 4 per cent of its customers exceed this, it's still something that makes the service less attractive.