Zoolz Cloud Backup is a flexible and inexpensive cloud backup solution for big businesses. However, if you only have a handful of employees, the service can be overly complex.
For
Inexpensive pricing
Excellent user management features
Against
Complex for small businesses
No mobile app
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Zoolz Cloud Backup offers flexible plans that include an unlimited number of users and devices. The system is somewhat complex, so it’s best suited for larger businesses with an in-house IT department. However, storage plans start as small as 1TB.
So, is this the best cloud storage for your creative business? Our Zoolz review will help you decide.
Zoolz Cloud Backup: plans and pricing
All Zoolz Cloud Backup plans offer the same features, including an unlimited number of users on your account. They differ only in storage capacity.
A 1TB plan costs $14.99/£7.49 per month or $99.99/£74.99 per year. For comparison, Google One costs $9.99/£9.99 per month or $99.99/£99.99 per year for 2TB of storage. However, Google One only supports a single user and doesn’t offer server backup. iDrive, which offers a business plan that more closely resembles Zoolz Cloud Backup, charges $99.50/£90 per year for just 250GB of cloud storage.
A larger 5TB Zoolz Cloud Backup plan costs $74.99 per month or $499.99 per year. Plans are available up to 50TB. All plans include a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Value for money: A
Zoolz review: features
Tribrid backup
Zoolz Cloud Backup offers a unique “tribrid” backup system to keep your data on hand and ready for a quick restore in case you need it.
Your files are flexibly distributed between three locations: Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 servers, which provide nearly instant access to your data; AWS S3 Glacier servers, which offer ultra-secure cold storage for files you don’t need to access very often; and your own local servers, which offer faster recovery for large amounts of data.
To be sure, having three different types of storage available is more complicated than just having a single storage type that you can access on-demand. However, the tribrid backup system is what enables Zoolz Cloud Backup to be so cheap compared to other business cloud storage services.
You have full control over what data is sent to what storage type, and you can easily transfer files between storage types at any time.
User management
One of the key features of Zoolz Cloud Backup is that it enables tight control over which users and which devices are accessing your business’s cloud storage.
Administrators can decide how much cloud storage to allocate to individual users and even limit which devices those users can connect to Zoolz. In addition, it’s simple to set different limits for a user’s AWS S3 storage capacity and their Glacier storage capacity.
Zoolz Cloud Backup enables administrators to limit each user’s storage capacity (Image credit: Zoolz)
Zoolz also makes it easier to manage users in multiple offices around the globe, which is a plus for large businesses or studios that allow remote-work. Administrators can see how many users are accessing storage from different countries as well as organize users by country or office.
Physical data delivery
While users can upload data directly to AWS S3 or Glacier, Zoolz also offers physical data delivery to speed up the backup process. You can ship a hard drive of data to Zoolz, and they’ll upload it for you. This is extremely helpful when getting started with Zoolz or when your business wants to archive a large project.
If you have more than 10TB of data to transfer to the cloud, you can request an Amazon AWS Snowball hard drive. If you have less than 10TB, you can send your own hard drive to Zoolz and they will return it after the data is transferred.
Zoolz review: interface
Zoolz offers a web-based dashboard for users to manage their backups. The interface looks a little bit outdated, but it was straightforward to use. All of your devices connected to Zoolz Cloud Backup can be viewed in a menu on the left, and you can easily switch between AWS S3 and Glacier storage vaults.
Zoolz Cloud Backup enables you to manage your files via a web dashboard (Image credit: Zoolz)
The web dashboard enables you to preview files, download or share files in bulk, and reorganize files into folders. It also has a search function, although there aren’t filters to help you narrow down your search.
It’s also worth noting that Zoolz Cloud Backup does not have a mobile app.
Zoolz review: security
Since Zoolz Cloud Backup is built on AWS, you get all the security of AWS. That means your files are backed up in multiple locations around the world in closely monitored data centers. In addition, all files are encrypted with 256-bit AES encryption before they leave your business’s devices and are encrypted at rest on AWS servers.
Zoolz stores your files with Amazon Web Services, and all files are encrypted before they leave your devices (Image credit: Zoolz)
Zoolz Cloud Backup is also compliant with Europe’s GDPR laws, which is important if your company does business in Europe.
Zoolz review: support
Zoolz offers technical support by email only. This is okay, but we’d like to see phone or live chat support so that your business can get help instantly. The company also has a comprehensive online knowledge base where you can find solutions to most common issues.
Zoolz Cloud Backup has a lot to offer for large businesses with dozens of users and servers spread around the world. However, if you’re running a small creative studio with just a handful of employees, this cloud backup service can introduce more complexity than is worthwhile. Zoolz Cloud Backup is very inexpensive compared to other business-specific cloud storage solutions, but you do need to be comfortable managing file transfer between different storage types.
Zoolz Cloud Backup is a flexible and inexpensive cloud backup solution for big businesses. However, if you only have a handful of employees, the service can be overly complex.
Michael is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Bellingham, Washington. His interests span a wide range from business technology to finance to creative media, with a focus on new technology and emerging trends. Michael's work has been published in TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Business Insider, Fast Company, Salon, and Harvard Business Review.
