Thursday, October 01, 2009

ElephantDrive Never Forgets Your Files

You know what never forgets, don’t you? The elephant. So, what’s the perfect place to store your important files so that they’ll never be lost or destroyed? How about the memory of an elephant? No, not a pachyderm... an elephant drive!

Elephant Drive- Backup Storage and Anywhere AccessSo what kind of a drive is an elephant drive? It’s an online storage service called, appropriately, ElephantDrive. It’s got unlimited capacity, encrypted storage, easy access, and is very affordable for both individuals and business teams.

Try this. Think of an elephant in a cloud. Too silly? Then consider something more concrete, such as cloud based storage. That’s what we’re talking about here. The reason you’d want to store something in a cloud is to make sure there is a copy somewhere well away from where the data is normally kept. Why? Because disaster rarely strikes two unrelated locations simultaneously. Your office may get blown away by the next tornado, along with your computer, paper files and your complete collection of backup CD-ROMs. But out there in the cloud, your data is still spinning on a hard drive far away. As soon as you have a new computer to restore it to, you can have all your data back just like it was. Too bad about all that paper. It’s probably strewn across three states by now, making you look like a litterbug.

Storing files remotely sounds like a wise move, but is it really safe sending sensitive data over the Internet?

ElephantDrive has two mechanisms for ensuring the security of your information. Before transfer, your files are encrypted with the advanced 256 bit AES encryption, the one the U.S. government has approved for Top Secret files. Is what you are doing more sensitive than top secret? Then you better write it on small slips of paper that you can quickly chew up and swallow when threatened. Of course, using ElephantDrive will keep that nasty taste out of your mouth.

During the upload and download phase when the data is actually traversing the Internet, ElephantDrive uses secure 128 bit SSL or Secure Socket Layer encryption. That’s the system used by banks to secure their transactions.

OK, so your data is secure and you know that remote storage gives you disaster recovery should the worst happen. But how much does this cost and what do you get?

ElephantDrive has two categories of users. Home users order the Home Edition. Business users order the Pro Edition. There are also a couple of levels in each edition. Even the most basic Home Edition service for one computer offers unlimited storage and will maintain a 3 version history for 30 days in case something on your computer goes oops and you have to restore to a previous version known to work. Backups can be manual or automatic. The maximum size of individual files is a generous 1 GB. All this for $4.95 a month or $49.95 per year. There’s a 15 day free trial so you can give it a go and see how well the system works for you.

How about the business plans? For $34.95 a month, you can create up to 10 workgroup subaccounts with shared access. This will protect 10 computers with up to 1 TB of total storage. You’ll have access for up to 20 older versions of each file and automatic backups even include open files. Like the individual plan, you can get a 15 day free trial of the Pro Edition.

Still not enough capacity for your larger operation? No problem. ElephantDrive offers special enterprise edition plans for businesses with large volumes of data. Chances are there’s an elephant big enough to remember any size organization’s important data.

Starting to feel a bit uncomfortable that all your precious financial files, photos, music, correspondence, designs, and other computer based files are at risk for theft and disaster with only one copy stored anywhere? You’ll sleep a lot easier when you put an elephant on the job to remember your information and give it back to you when needed. Get the ElephantDrive free trial offer now, while you are thinking of it.



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