Polarbackup provides a complete cloud backup solution, giving you an easy way to offload your data to their online servers. It's packed with features, quite affordable, and appeals to a wide range of people and businesses. The weakness to note is that this is a cold rather than a hot storage solution. This means that you will have to wait a few hours to recover your data when you need to restore it. Those who accept this issue will find that Polarbackup covers most of their cloud storage needs.
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Polarbackup features
As stated above, Polarbackup is a cold storage solution, designed for data that you want to back up somewhere, but don't need to access very often. After you set it up on your computer, it will copy all the files you want from the web, including those on external drives and network drives without any fanfare. In short, it's fast, easy to use, and quick to set up. The reality of cold storage is that when you need to restore a file, it takes anywhere from 3 to 12 hours depending on Polarbackup. When something disastrous happens to your computer, you get all your files and folders back, but you just won't be able to get them back right away. File versioning is also supported, allowing you to save multiple versions of the same file and then choose which one to recover when performing a restore. There are commercial packages, too, and you get additional options to manage users, set data policies, browse activity logs, and manage standards compliance. We like that there are no limits on users, servers, or file size, or extra charges to restore data (you'll just have to wait a few hours to get it back). Once the desktop clients are installed, backups can be run at set intervals (from every 12 hours to every 7 days) or on a custom schedule. There is also an option to limit bandwidth via the desktop client if you need to. You can also ask Polarbackup to run a selective backup on particular file types, like Microsoft Office files, videos, or Office files, for example.
Polarbackup interface
If you think Polarbackup's interface sounds familiar, you're right, as it's similar to another Zoolz backup solution and both services are run by the same company. However, Zoolz offers both hot and cold storage, while Polarbackup sticks to cold storage only (hence the name, we assume). Some of the software styles are the same between these two cloud storage services. The reality is, these aren't the most modern or slick interfaces you'll ever come across. However, they do the job well enough and the software has a lot of useful features scattered around, such as the backup filter that allows you to select files with a particular file name or with a particular extension. Desktop clients for Windows and macOS are easy to use for selecting files and folders. From the web interface, the files you've downloaded can be viewed and downloads can be requested, which takes several hours, and you'll receive an email when the link is ready to download. For business users, you can easily manage all your users and servers from the web portal, as well as get reports on bandwidth usage, file transfers, etc. We'd rate the download speeds as decent, meaning not particularly fast, but adequate for encrypted backup and cold storage purposes. The idea is to leave Polarbackup in the background, taking care of all your long-term backup needs, instead of having you transfer files over the web in an instant. Be aware of what you're signing up for and you won't be disappointed.
Polarbackup security
It's immediately apparent that Polarbackup takes security very seriously. Files are protected with military-grade 256-AES encryption and are stored using an end-to-end (or unconscious) encryption process. This highly secure process means that Polarbackup engineers cannot access your data at all! Also note that it also follows that if you lose your encryption password, you've lost your cloud backup forever...so be careful. One downside is that there is no two-factor authentication (2FA) available on Polarbackup, so be very careful who gets your email address and password from. Apart from the missing 2FA, this is an impressive complete security package. When you access your user account panel in the Polarbackup web interface, there is even transparency of the location of the data center that contains your files.Polarbackup pricing
Polarbackup is based in London. For an individual plan, there is currently a single plan that costs €10 (€7) per month, and is currently on sale for €4 (€3) per month, with unlimited data. There used to be lifetime backup plans with a one-time, always-pay price, but none are currently offered on their website, and that promotion appears to be over. For a business plan, pricing is currently on sale for €63.19 (£45) per year for 1TB of total storage, €126.38 (£90) per year for 2TB, and €315.96 (£226) for 5TB. More space on Polarbackup servers may be available upon request. The plans have a 15-day free trial and we appreciate that no credit card is required. Also, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee.