Symform Online Backup at $0.15/GB/Mo.

Symform, Inc., a distributed cloud backup service, unveiled new pricing.

Under the new packaging, users can receive unlimited cloud backup for free as long as they contribute local drive space to the network.

Symform’s ‘Bytes or Bucks’ pricing enables customers to pay with Bytes by contributing local unused storage space to the Symform Cloud Storage Network. Alternatively, customers can pay with Bucks at $0.15 per gigabyte per month.

"There are over one thousand vendors in the burgeoning online backup market, and it’s getting difficult for end-users and vendors to differentiate the offerings," said Dave Simpson, senior analyst at 451 Research. "Symform stands out from the crowd with a datacenter-less approach to cloud-based backup and recovery. This is an intriguing value proposition that could bring costs even lower while providing higher performance and security via a cloud network where data is distributed globally. And, Symform’s growth figures prove that end users and channel resellers are receptive to the concept."

Symform is able to offer this pricing because it has no centralized infrastructure. Traditional online data backup solutions rely on expensive, power and bandwidth-hungry, centralized datacenters to store customers’ data. With the Symform distributed network, users contribute local drive space to the network, creating a crowdsourced cloud that leverages existing excess capacity on local storage drives as well as parallel internet connections and shared bandwidth.

Symform ensures security by dividing all online data backups into tiny pieces and using 256-AES military-grade encryption before files ever leave the source device, which shreds the data that sits on contribution devices into secured, inoperable, nonsensical bits. The actual data is only restored to its original state back at the source.

"Our message to the market is do not pay dollars for offsite data backup, because there is a better way to protect your data," said Matthew J. Schiltz, CEO of Symform. "Every day we are validating our message that Symform’s crowdsourced approach is the future of secure offsite data backup and storage. This message is resonating, as we are experiencing explosive growth with members of the global network in 150 countries."

Prior to launching Bytes or Bucks, Symform conducted a survey of over 150 SMBs and IT service providers, revealing that over 85% would be willing to contribute local storage in exchange for cloud backup. When customers pay for storage with Bytes rather than Bucks, they power the ongoing growth of the Symform Global Storage Network and gain access to a fast, affordable, secure and reliable cloud backup solution.

Symform also previewed the new pricing model to more than 200 current partners prior to the formal launch. 100% of these partners switched to the new Bytes model and added contribution pledges by the hundreds of terabytes to the Symform network.

"There are no negatives when it comes to the new pricing. We can now back up unlimited data volumes without breaking the bank," said Todd Whitley, CEO at BrightWire Networks. "With Symform, we’re saving over $6,000 a year while utilizing the most secure, reliable and disaster-proof cloud storage solution on the market today."

Common issues voiced by the market include the high cost of cloud storage and low usage of the cloud for data backup. Symform’s research found that two-thirds of business users rank the cost of cloud or backup systems as a significant problem. With no other affordable options for storing large amounts of data in the cloud, many SMBs and prosumers have been forced to ‘life boat’ their data, or pick and choose only small subsets of files for backup to the cloud. 92% of survey respondents who currently store data in the cloud said they would put more data in the cloud if it was more affordable, with over 50% stating they would store more than 1TB of additional data if they could afford it.