Zoolz Business Review

Zoolz at a Glance

Our Rating3.5 / 5 stars

Price:

  • 1TB: $360.00 / year
  • 2TB: $720.00 / year
  • 5TB: $1620.00 / year
  • 10TB: $3060.00 / year
  • 20TB: $5760.00 / year

Instant Storage Plans

  • 100GB Instant Storage / 100GB Cold Storage / 10 Users /: $11.95 / month or $119.50 / year
  • 250GB Instant Storage / 300GB Cold Storage / 50 Users /: $49.95 / month or $499.50 / year
  • 500GB Instant Storage / 500GB Cold Storage / Unlimited Users /: $119.95 / month or $1199.50 / year
  • 2TB Instant Storage / 2TB Cold Storage / Unlimited Users /: $349.95 / month or $3499.50 / year

They also offer a make your own plan and pay as you go pricing.

PROS

  • Supports Windows
  • Able to use Amazon Glacier as cost-effective cold storage for files
  • Private encryption key option
  • Offers backup seeding but does cost extra
  • Web and mobile file access
  • File Sharing
  • Backup policies and user management
  • Support for external hard drives
  • Support for servers
  • Can seed backup by sending drive
  • Backs up multiple mobile devices
  • Advanced content search capabilities
  • Secure file sharing
  • Zero-knowledge service
  • Enter your text here…

CONS

  • Instant storage and cold storage can be confusing.
  • Mobile apps access only.
  • No Mac client
  • Servers license extra.
  • Use SSL not default. Make sure to turnit on.

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Full Zoolz Review

Zoolz is the cloud backup service by Genie9 and is one of the few services that take advantage of AmazonCold Storage to help keep their costs for storage low. Zoolz has gone through some rebranding since I first heard about them. In fact, John, who used to write for the site, was close to having his review done of Zoolz when they did a sudden shift from home users to focus more on business users. That initial review was back in late 2012 and I have been hesitant to review them again in the event they decided to make another shift. They have seemed to be content to focus more on business users since their initial rebranding and I think they have decided their business model fits best for business users and not home users but they do offer both a home and business accounts.

Zoolz is an online backup service that is designed to store files from all your external and internal media to the cloud for a lifetime. Your hard drives may expire, but your files and folders will exist on with Zoolz cloud service. Zoolz is a long-term storage space for all data on your external, internal, and network drives. The cloud-based storage is created for storing your data on the cloud for a lifetime, and data retrieval will require 3-5 hours.

Not all data should have similar management. Some should be instantly retrievable, while others are saved for archiving and unlikely to be accessed. The creators of Zoolz launched the unprecedented Tribrid Backup solution. Tribrid allows businesses to secure all files and folders produced and save storage costs without sacrificing any file. Businesses will have all its files and folders protected and restored without any restrictions.

In this Zoolz cloud storage review, we will walk you through the features, installation, processes and everything you need to learn before picking Zoolz as your cloud backup solution.

Zoolz Intelligent Cloud blends with Amazon S3, and Amazon Glacier, giving an exceptional cloud backup for businesses. We will discuss in this full Zoolz review, the backup service’s great features that make it worth a glance.

Zoolz gives you two types of storage: hot and cold. Hot storage is intended for content that you regularly need access to, while cold storage is created for archiving.

The Hot storage utilizes the Amazon S3 network, grants you faster recovery speeds but it comes at a higher price. Cold storage space, sends files to the Amazon Glacier network, has a slower recovery speeds but it also has a cheaper price.

This online backup storage solution provides a series of capabilities that are not common to other cloud-based storage competition, includes optical character identification, facial recognition and the capacity to search the original content of stored files. Zoolz also gives military-grade encryption and secure file-sharing capabilities, as well as a backup for mobile devices, MS SQL, social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and popular cloud storage services like Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive.

Zoolz can transfer copies to local storage as well as send files to your cloud storage. This process is called hybrid backup and is strongly recommended for both SMBs and common consumers. Backup to a local device implies faster restores, while cloud backup is safer in general because your data will be secured in a remote data center on servers.

Getting Started

To start using Zoolz you will want to visit the Zoolz website and create an account. Zoolz offers a free 14-day trial to give it a try to see if it is what your business needs to backup and store your files in the cloud. They don’t ask for much information on the sign-up page only basic contact information. Once you have created an account you can download the Zoolz desktop application and start the setup on your desktop. The website at the time of writing this review focuses on the business service. If you are a home user you will need to hunt in the footer menu for their home options. This makes the Zoolz website and service confusing in my opinion.

Installation

Once you have created your free Zoolz account you can download the desktop software to start backing up your computer. They currently support Windows and Mac but I have only tested the Windows version. Install is easy. Download the application from the website and follow the installer. Once Zoolz is installed you will have to log in using the account information you used to create the account on the Zoolz website. Once you are logged in you can set up your initial backup.

Backing Up

The backup process starts once the initial setup is complete. You can select from a number of file sets and/or select specific folders to select your files for backup. You can also select which files should be in your instant storage or in your cold storage. You can then select how often you want the Zoolz backup to run and if you want to use a private encryption key or go with the standard Zoolz encryption password. Once complete the backup will scan your files and start backing up.

Overall the backup setup is fairly easy to get the majority of your files selected. The addition of files sets is nice and for those that want to backup other specific folders, you have that option as well. Unfortunately, I thought the addition of the cold storage option to be an extra step that might be confusing. Granted for IT people this might not be an issue as to what folders to select for cold storage, but for non-IT people, I thought it could be confusing.

Restoring

In the event of a data disaster, you can easily restore your files from Zoolz. If you are away from your computer you can use the web portal to download your files. Simply log in and select the folders/files you want to download.

If you have access to your computer you can use the Zoolz desktop client to initiate a restore. Simply go to the dashboard and select the restore tab and you can select the files you want to restore, where you want to restore them too and the client will do the rest. I had no problem restoring files that I had backed up. If your files are in cold storage the process might not be as quick, but it is similar.

Mobile App

?Zoolz offers mobile apps for both Android and iOS, you can find them in the either in the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. The apps are both pretty similar and offer access to your backed up files. You can also share your files and save files to your device for viewing while offline. They are currently only access-type of apps. I was a little disappointed in the Android app considering how good the Genie9 G Cloud Backup is. Also seems confusing that Genie9 has an Android backup app and a Zoolz cloud backup. While they serve different purposes I guess I don’t see why they are not part of the same app.

Web Portal

?The Zoolz web portal offers many of the standard web portal options. You can access your files, manage users, even upload and share files. Sharing even offers you some nice business features like adding a password, delivery notifications and the ability to set an expiry date. If you are using Zoolz as your file server in the cloud you can even set policies to limit what users can do and access. Great for those businesses that have a number of users that don’t need access to all the files that are available.

Overall

If you are looking for an easy, economical way to take advantage of Amazon Cold Storage Zoolz can offer your home or business an easy way to do that. Their software is fairly easy to use and works well. Unfortunately for Zoolz, if you are a home user there are better alternatives for cloud backup and storage at better prices than they can offer. Zoolz has since started offering unlimited storage using Amazon Glacier for home users at a very affordable price. Worth looking if you need long-term storage and an easy tool to use it. For a business, Zoolz is more competitive and offers a good option compared to services like MozyProCarbonite for Business and CrashPlan Pro.

Zoolz Home is a good choice for home users if they want to take advantage of the Amazon Glacier storage service. It does get confusing that Genie 9 has multiple backup software solutions.

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