Overall Rating

Exacep uses a somewhat unique approach in the Online Backup Service market by focusing their services in niche small business markets that have unique requirements such as the Dental Practitioner marketplace which captures and stores large amounts of sensitive digital imagery files.  Their product has proven itself successful within these niche markets providing a reliable online backup solution for their customers since 2007. Of course, if you are an individual you may also engage Exacep for their online backup services as well, and as a whole they certainly have a very nice offering.

Exacep Online Backup Features:

-Firewall Friendly: user friendly software is made simple so all you have to worry about is selecting which files to backup, not opening ports and messing with the firewall.
-Multiple Versions: multiple backup set feature where you can keep incremental copies of your data and restore only the files that are needed.
-Smart Upload: will only upload new or modified files to ensure maximum speed and performance.
-Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service: Exacep Offsite Backup integrates with Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service. This allows you to open and work with a file that is currently in use or left open. Such files include databases and Microsoft Outlook.
-Failure Notifications: Exacep Offsite Backup will alert you by email if your scheduled backup within 12 hours of it’s scheduled time.
-Automatic Scheduling: Schedule your backup to run day or night so your backup is working even if you are not.

Exacep Online Backup Security:

-Data Encryption: Exacep Offsite Backup has designed a data security system that guarantees to keep your files safe and secure offering military grade encryption of your data
-Exacep Offsite Backup Storage Servers are hosted in one of the largest, most secure data centres in North America. Biometric security access ensures that only the right people will have access to the buildings your data is located in.
-Before transmitting your data to our servers it is first encrypted by a private encryption key chosen by you, or a randomly generated encryption key. The encryption algorithm we use to protect your data is also used by the United States and Canadian government to protect sensitive information. In order for us to achieve ultimate security a private encryption key cannot be reset or recovered. Therefore if you misplace your private key, your data will be inaccessible.
-Console Security: Locking the console will prevent a shared computer from having its backup schedules removed or modified. The console security can also prevent additional computers in your account from accessing a list of the backup sets on your computer.
-Account Pooling Security: Every computer within a shared account can have its own password to prevent another user from restoring their data.

So we gave Exacep a whirl using a 5gig Test Account and overall we were very impressed with it ease of use and reliability.  It appears that Exacep has adopted the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principal in their backup offerings, so you won’t see the bells and whistles of some of the other online backup services features such as file sharing (say of SugarSync which is pushing into the business marketplace). What you will see is performance, support and ease of use which for a small to mid-sized business might be a tad bit more important.

Downloading the Admin Client, Installation and setup of the software was simple and took just a few moments including setting up a firing off our first backup. Although the Admin client did not offer a true WYSIWYG style process for creating our first backup, it was simple and intuitive enough that we were easily able to easily figure it out.  It is also likely that for those small businesses out there they will have a representative give them a complete walk through the first time they create a backup.  One thing that we would like to highlight was the speed in which our backup occurred.  Based on the amount of data we had set for our initial backup we fully expected it to take potentially a full day for backup to be successful (not uncommon with many backup services) we were very pleasantly surprised that our backup took far less time than expected.  Always a good feeling to know that your data will not only get to it’s resting place securely, but with Exacep apparently it will get there quickly also. The time to backup data, the backup occurred easily and flawlessly.  After our backup we started tinkering around with the admin client.  Backing up your information with Exacep software is as simple as choosing the files and folders on your computer and clicking “Go”.  It is worthy to mention that Exacep does use windows plugins for backing up servers, open files, MS Outlook and database backup for open/running databases.  This gives Exacep honors for those looking for a reliable business infrastructure backup solution.

Of course we are never done with our review until we try to get our data back and do a restore.  With our test Admin client we were able to maneuver through the restore process and actually this was the best part of our testing.  Our restore failed (not due to Exacep service in any way).  We were quickly alerted of the restore failure via email that the device we were restoring to was out of space which was 100% correct.  This was intentional on our part as our testing of their failure notifications benefits. Other than our one misfortune, restore was very quick, efficient, and  direct (No push to folder first and download restore). Just pick the folder where you want your restored data on your computer and wala your files are there (although you will have to wait a bit to see them), and this is the name of the game in internet backup.  Successful restore, always a nice feeling when you get your needed data back.  Based on security specs provided above, data seems plenty secured, and don’t foresee any security related issues with Exacep. Even in the event of data loss, the data would likely be useless without you providing the recipient with your private Encryption key (don’t do that of course) as well as military level encryption (don’t forget that key).

Exacep Online Backup Pricing:

Each package varies depending on the amount of computers the package encompasses. If you wish add additional computers you can do so through account pooling.