A familiar name in the backup industry, Connected offers a variety of online backup service options for single computers, SMBs and servers. It also markets a fully licensed version of its DataProtector product, which provides the back-end tools necessary to support either an enterprise-level private or standalone public online backup service. For its own online services, Connected operates two pairs of mirrored data centers, one in the United States and one overseas, that are based on disk arrays of the company's own design, with each pair currently capable of storing more than 1.8 petabytes of data.

We found the DataProtector agent easy to install, and the user interface was very navigable. Download and installation took only a few minutes; as part of the information-gathering process we entered a key string for the encryption process and provided contact information for support. After installing the agent, our system automatically connected to the remote server to confirm the account and then proceeded into a configuration wizard, which walked us through the initial file-selection and scheduling process.

The default file-selection rules did a good job of choosing relevant data files and excluding swap, temp and other unimportant transient files. We could manually request backups or schedule them to run automatically on a daily basis, with the option to black out specific days or times. The DataProtector agent provided us with tools to manage backup of open files, but no support for open database backups--we would have to use application-level backup methods independently for databases or mail services and then archive those flat files online. Another limitation was its lack of support for OSs other than Windows. The service provider says it will address these issues in future versions.

Connected uses two proprietary techniques for reducing the amount of data that must be sent after the initial full backup: Its Delta Block technology examined our files and selected only those blocks of data that had changed, while the SendOnce technology logged a pool of common files across multiple agents by file name, size and date, and stored only one copy of identical files. After initially populating the pool with a full backup, all future backups use a pointer to reference the existing pool copy rather than storing a new copy--much better than paying to store multiple iterations of identical application and system files as well as duplicate data files.

We could do restorations at file- or folder-level, and we were allowed to choose from as many as 10 historical levels of restoration for files modified between backups. We could also retrieve files between machines and across accounts, or restore to a remote online target using Connected's iRoam technology, an optional Web-based utility that supports remote file management. We administered our server backup accounts remotely using Connected's handy online support center; available tasks included reviewing logs, managing user access and editing configuration of agents on each of our servers.

Connected lets you write file restorations to CD-ROM, at a cost of $24.95 for three CDs, plus shipping and handling. Disk restores are not selective, so if additional CDs are required to hold your total backups, there's a charge of $20 per CD.

The cost of the Connected service for our scenario is $35 per month per server for up to 10 GB, based on a 90-day retention policy with 10 levels of historical data. User support is available online and through e-mail, and free telephone support is available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET. Premium after-hours configuration support is also available for $1.95 per minute, but charges do not apply for billing, account or password-related problems.

Connected DataProtector Subscription Service 7.1.5. Connected Corp., (800) 934-0956, (508) 808-7300. www.connected.com