Spare Backup is an online backup service for Windows (MCE/XP/Vista) machines that is targeted primarily to home or small business/workgroup users. Pricing is on a monthly or annual basis (with discounts for annual purchases), and starts at $6.99/month ($4.99/year) for up to 50 GB of non-commercial use space. A 14-day free trial is available.

The service is a combination of two primary components: A downloadable client that runs on the customer's computer, and the backend software and servers which run in the vendor's data centers that handle the communications and data storage for the customers. When initiating the software, the customer selects a user name and password for access to their online account; as well as receives a generated encryption key (the "Spare Key") that will be used to encrypt the data stored for the customer. The vendor states that only the customer can access their encryption key. Backed up data is encrypted on the customer's machine prior to delivery to the vendor's data center for storage; and Spare Keys, if lost, can be retrieved by the customer via a challenge-based mechanism.

A key feature as touted by the vendor is the product's ability to automatically select which files on the customer's machine should be backed up; including both applications and supporting files which contain key attributes or configuration data used by the applications. According to the vendor, the automatic selection process relies on vendor-defined "presets," which are designed to select both specific files and file types as well as their related data. Among the applications and locations specifically listed by the vendor as recognized by the preset logic are Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Outlook, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and files located on the desktop, in the My Documents folder, or in the My Pictures folder, among others.

Other features include a system tray icon that changes colors and/or spins to indicate activities; reporting that details the number of files backed up (and file details) over the last 24 hours, 7, or 30 days; the ability to backup up to five versions of each file; a file search utility; and support for CD/DVD-based backups (also encrypted).

Spare Backup is available for individuals with a single computer or in the "Workgroup" edition (Spare Workgroup) with support for 2 to 25 team members (or single users with more than one computer to back up). The Workgroup version in particular allows for the central management of the backups performed by all computers in the group as well as the ability to protect all data in the group with a single Spare Key. Spare Workgroup pricing is listed at $14.99/month or $149/year for up to 40 GB of storage; with volume discounting scaling up to $189.99/month or $1,899/year for up to 1 TB of storage.

On tap from the vendor is Spare Corporate Edition, due in the 3rd quarter of 2008, which is expected to offer a choice of onsite or online-based deployment. The Corporate version is also expected to boast a Web based management console, client and administrator function enhancements, and an increase in the number of supported clients. Base Corporate Edition pricing is expected to be $179.95/month, which gets you 50 GB of space for 10 copmuters (Hosted version), or about $100/year per client (plus support and maintenance) for the onsite version.

Spare Backup is available now. Contact the vendor for further information.