SpiderOak Review

SpiderOak is an online backup solution that focuses primarily on privacy. They offer a zero-knowledge backup solution keeping their users data and logs completely private. Privacy is really their main concern when it comes to you and your data. I myself got more familliar with them after hearing none other than whistleblower Edward Snowden suggest the service for privacy conscious cloud storage users.

Price Plans

Price wise the service offers a free trial with 2 GB of data storage on a 60 day trial is available for you to test out and use the service without paying, this is great for any new users as they provide a sizeable amount of storage with this free plan so you can try out the service they provide and see if it meets your requirements for absolutely free! The personal plan comes in at a steeper $12 a month however considering its available across all devices it’s highly worth it. This personal plan also incorporates 1TB of data storage, so you get plenty of storage for the price. They promote their 1 TB plan as their best value one on their website. Other plans are available at $7 and $25 monthly. Lastly the business plan for enterprise/small business solutions ranges from $12 per month to $5 per user depending on your needs, this plan is great as you can tailor it to suit your enterprises requirements.

Features

SpiderOak provides the following:

• Secure Backup
• Sync Anywhere
• Share Files Privately
• 100% privacy (Zero-Knowledge)
• Unlimited Device Support

SpiderOak is one of the strongest names you will find in the cloud based services industry. They offer a vast array of features to help differentiate themselves from competitors. They put an incredible amount of emphasis with privacy in their service and this is one of their best features. The service also provides the user with the ability to use an unlimited amount of computers to one account, meaning your data is accessible to you wherever you are. They also include features such as file syncing and great customization options for the backing up of your data. The set of features they provide overall proves popular with users of their service who like to have a great degree of control.

Security

As mentioned above security and privacy is the number one priority when it comes to SpiderOak. They offer fully encrypted storage when it comes to their backup solution. This means encryption on both ends of data transfer from transit to storage, and the service they provide some solutions do not offer. All data such as account passwords are protected and never stored anywhere on the service/servers, making it so that you minimize the risk of your account being compromised. The biggest thing when it comes to their privacy settings is their zero knowledge policy. SpiderOak cannot see your name, files, folder details, or any other data stored on your account. All this acts as a shield and means only your details are known to you as the user.

Speed

I wasn’t too pleased with the speed of SpiderOak’s service. In fact, I found their transfer speeds rather slow. This is, in part, due to the fact that data is encrypted locally before being sent to the server, which adds a tremendous amount of overhead. To compound this issue, I only have a DSL line with 5Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload. I tested backing up a 135MB video file, and it took about 55 minutes before it successfully completed. However, there are two main factors that will help increase transfer speeds for other users – namely the speed of their Internet connection and the processing power of their device. The faster the processor, the faster the encryption process will complete. That said, slow speeds are just a necessary evil of services that perform local encryption. It’s the classic tradeoff between speed and functionality.

Data Backup Capabilities

SpiderOak supports all file types for backup so you have no worry as far as limit goes be it for video, photo, etc. Automatic backup is a part of their software and service meaning you don’t have to worry as a user manually backing up your data, this will save you time and is a great aspect of the service they provide. You can even set schedules to backup so your files can get backed up at a time that suits your personal needs. Of course the service they provide makes it incredibly easy to share your files with friends.

Data Restore Capabilities

As far as restoring files goes you can easily restore your data back no matter what happens to your device. Any data backed up using SpiderOak is available for one click restore, this means that it takes a matter of seconds to restore any data you may need. You can access all that data on multiple platforms including mobile and desktop, this means that you can restore your data in whatever location you happen to be at.

Support

Their support center is split into many categories providing varieties of help across the service. Furthermore the site offers e-mail, physical office address and contact forms to get help. However SpiderOak doesn’t have a phone line that they can be reached on or live chat which may be a problem to some users, if you have a problem with their service and require instant help you are unlikely to get it.

Conclusion

In conclusion SpiderOak provides a highly reliable and affordable service for backing up your files, they even provide you with the ability to share and use them across multiple devices. The most promising feature in itself is their privacy policy. SpiderOak believes in 100% privacy when it comes to its users and protecting their data, they protect your data at all ends from encryptions, account security, and data storage. This in itself is one of the major benefits of using their service as they don’t even have access to your data, using them you can rest assured that only you have access to your data. If you want something a step beyond other cloud based services when it comes to security and privacy; than SpiderOak is definitely for you, they take extraordinary measures to ensure the security of your data whilst providing an efficient and affordable service to their customers.

Pros:

• Zero-knowledge security through local encryption
• Does a great job of combining syncing and backup features
• Support all the major operating systems with their own apps

Cons:

• Some may feel that the interface is rather convoluted
• Local encryption slows down transfer and sync speeds significantly – it’s just a necessary evil
• Not the cheapest provider available

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