Price When Reviewed

$49.99 for stand-alone shopper I $59.99/yr for software program subscription and on-line storage, 5 PCs

Best Prices Today: Arq 7 Backup

There are a lot of good choices for native and on-line backup, however Arq 7 Backup (each an internet service and shopper) stands out because of its assist for myriad third-party on-line backup providers.

Arq even sells the shopper individually to be used with mentioned third-party on-line repositories. Due to our flawless testing expertise with this system, that’s one thing we are able to really suggest.

Further studying: To find out about competing merchandise, see our roundups of the best cloud backup services and the best Windows backup software.

Arq 7 Backup plans and options

The Arq 7 backup program by itself (single-seat, perpetual license) is a tad expensive at $49.99. But, the choice Arq Premium subscription plan covers 5 seats, together with 1TB of storage, for $59.99 yearly.

That’s $10 lower than I’m at present paying for OneDrive by way of Microsoft’s Office 365 service. Of course, that has the Office apps, however I opted for it predominantly as a result of it was the most affordable 1TB on-line storage choice on the time.

Note that the shopper software program supplied with the net storage plan turns into restore-only, not perpetual, when you cancel the service. Additional on-line storage is accessible at $6 per TB per thirty days.

The prolonged checklist of storage locations and protocols that Arq 7 helps consists of: Amazon Drive AWS S3, S3-compatible providers, Glacier, Google Cloud Storage, Backblaze B2, Dropbox, Google Drive, Minio, OneDrive, SharePoint, Storj, Wasabi, SFTP, Network quantity (SMB or AFP), and direct-attached storage. Whew.

Arq 7 helps a number of jobs (or backup plans) you could tailor to every specific service or system—e.g. you possibly can again up simply your very important paperwork to a free cloud service, and all of your information to a extra capacious account, a neighborhood onerous drive, NAS field, and so forth.

The checklist of choices supported by Arq 7 Backup is in depth: granular scheduling, community switch throttling and interface choice, in depth retention guidelines, e mail reporting, encryption settings, immutable information (object locking), and a number of energy/alert/efficiency choices.

One minor nit I’ve with Arq 7 (and with many different backup applications) is you could’t assign a number of storage places to a single backup job/plan. Most customers have a single information set that they need to again as much as a number of places. There is, nonetheless, a workable various supplied—exporting of your information picks as .json (Java Script Object Notation) information information you could import into subsequently outlined jobs/plans.

Another minor quibble about Arq 7 Backup is that there’s no plain file backup choice, i.e. merely copying information to a different location. You want Arq 7 to revive your information from their proprietary containers (which do make many duties simpler and sooner); you possibly can’t merely browse the vacation spot utilizing your OS and pull them off as you please.

Arq 7 is a little bit of a one-trick pony (straight backup), although it does that trick extraordinarily properly. But there are not any goodies corresponding to partition or drive picture backups, cloning, catastrophe restoration through boot media, sync, and so forth. That’s not a dig, simply an FYI—although it’s why I contemplate the value to be a bit on the excessive aspect.

If you need one thing extra versatile for native backup, strive the top-ranked R-Drive Image. But for leveraging a number of on-line providers for pure backup, Arq 7 is exclusive.

The Arq 7 Backup interface

One of Arq 7’s greatest attributes is its clear, concise interface. The backup chore may be intimidating to new customers, so a logical, intuitive interface is a crucial consideration.

Arq 7 steps you thru the vacation spot and information choice, then leaves you by yourself for superior settings, providing a collection of tabs with the associated choices. Hint: You’re probably fantastic with out adjusting the superior settings. If not…

Just faux you’re the wizard, click on on every logically organized tab in flip, and also you’ll be okay. I promise. That mentioned, when you’re a whole neophyte you would possibly need to bone up a bit on the ideas concerned.

Various info is displayed in a tree to the left of the principle window (proven under). This consists of outlined jobs (plans), dates of the backups, and so forth. There’s a separate restore part with entries for every storage vacation spot, although you’ll must drill all the way down to the precise backup and date for the restore choice to look.

While it might take you some time to rise up to hurry on Arq 7’s workflow, as soon as you’re, it’s extraordinarily environment friendly. I’ll take that over the type of hand-holding that slows you down in the long term any day.

How does Arq 7 carry out?

Arq 7 carried out flawlessly in my assessments. Specifically, I used Arq 7 to again up information units to OneDrive, Dropbox, and the corporate’s personal storage service. I additionally backed as much as a neighborhood SSD and my predominant NAS field, and once more, OneDrive. All proceeded shortly, with out failure, and with out impacting my total system efficiency unduly.

Jon L. Jacobi

Backup is a process with no room for failure and there have been no glitches of any sort to shake my confidence in this system. It’s a matter of religion and Arq 7 impressed that.

Note that whereas I discovered Arq 7 notably speedy, on-line backup durations at all times rely on the pace of your connection to the distant server.

Put succinctly, Arq 7 works, and it really works very properly.

Is Arq 7 Backup price it?

I can’t emphasize sufficient how vital flawless efficiency is when selecting a backup resolution. Data security isn’t one thing to mess around with, as anybody who’s tried to revive a foul backup can let you know.

I rank Arq Premium top-tier as a storage service, and the standalone backup shopper is a boon for customers of different on-line storage providers. That mentioned, I’d be extra emphatic in regards to the latter if it had been a bit cheaper.