Storage in the sky

MIS Systems Engineering Ltd
Disclosure: I am Business Development Manager for MIS

 One of my accountant clients has asked me to post this information, he suggested that I inform the readers of the solution he uses. Following requests from accountants, over the last 12 months we have been developing a unique backup solution for Accountants. Most accountants assume that the backup process that has been set-up by their IT support company is working, but in reality, when we have tested them, the solution has not worked. Off-site backups are the best solution. We have solutions UK wide, that have been specifically designed for that practice. Our servers are in a Manchester Data Centre with a backup held at our Northwich office. Some accountants have visited the sites, we recommend this, to confirm the location of the critical data.The automatic solution, runs in the background, with the no user interface, also sends an email confirming the validity of the backup, also details of the last personal / business tax and postings on the system.philc@mis-se.com

We use Zymanda which works well

 At Quick File we have developed our own cloud storage system that utilises the Amazon S3 storage API. We send out a pre-paid envelope to our clients and they fill it with their receipts to be then forwarded on to our scanning facility. The digital images actually end up on a server in Ireland and get periodically backed up to a seperate location. One of our bookkeepers will then run through the receipts and extract the pertinent information enabling the receipts to be indexed, searched and archived. As you might expect our clients often like to send us a whole manner of different things, including bank statements, ATM slips, letters, etc. Everything they send gets digitised and organised into an online document manager.

More about Amazon S3

We offer cloud storage as part of our hosted desktop service to firms of accountants and other SME’s. See http://www.hosteddesktopuk.co.uk/

-- Steve

 The following US government website seems to confirm which companies have certified that they are within the EU Safe Harbour: https://safeharbor.export.gov/list.aspx

Lots more backup options described here: www.onlinebackupdeals.com

MOZY gives you affordable UNLIMITED storage - great for backing up every single file & folder on your PC.

Doesn't currently give you the file sharing abilities of DropBox, Yousendit, etc., as it's more for continuous backups. For home users it works out to £3.71 / mth for unlimited space.

Try Jungle Disk (Workgroup Edition).  Cost seems to be lower than most of the others noted in this article. Speed is not as quick as having your shared files stored locally but ideal for a small office if staff are working from different locations.

It can be used as shared storage or backup. I have not compared it with other products, although I understand that it is similar to Drop Box. It would be interesting to read any comments from members who have compared it with other products.