Iris Online Backup at £5 for 500MB/Month

Business and practice software group IRIS has launched IRIS Backup an online data backup service.

IRIS Backup runs daily backups and encrypts data prior to transfer to the central servers, which are themselves mirrored across three UK-based data centres. The service will work with Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems and can handle all data types including e-mails, databases, images and documents.

The service starts at £4.90 a month for 500MB of space, which can take up to 1GB of compressed storage. The service is paid monthly by credit card and can scale up as your requirements go. But as it does grows, so does the monthly fee, up to £25.50 for 5GB a month and £4.92 per gigabyte thereafter. A Microsoft Exchange backup module is available for £15 a month.

Multiple computers can be run off the same account for no extra fee and the user can run multiple restores for no extra cost. Optional monthly support fees cost £1.50 for a single system, or £3.00 for server/multi-computer installations. In comparison with some of the free services listed in our 2008 online backup guide, IRIS is a premium service – a firm using up to 5GB of storage, with Microsoft Exchange and full support, for example, would end up paying more than £500 a year for the service.

"But HMRC requirements for companies to show they can restore data immediately are becoming increasingly stringent and the average cost of serious data loss incidents is estimated to be £30,000," said Catherine Venus, Managing Director of IRIS SME Solutions.