Flush with cash from a $75 million funding round last November, backup and recovery service provider Datto Inc. is taking on the heavy hitters in cloud file storage and synchronization with an offering aimed at small and midsize businesses (SMBs) that’s priced at $10 per terabyte per month for an unlimited number of users in an organization.

Datto is promoting the new Datto Drive service with a giveaway that offers the first one million organizations to sign up a free account for one year.

The Norwalk, CT-based company already claims to perform more than 1 million backups per day in its 200-petabyte private cloud. It’s known for a snapshot capability that enables data to be backed up and verified instantly for rapid recovery in the event of a failure.

Unlike rivals Dropbox Inc. and Box Inc., Datto sells its services exclusively through business partners. The one-free-year promotion will be offered directly by the company, but customers will thereafter be transferred to a partner.

The company is distinguishing its offering from competitors by doing away with per-user pricing and providing administration, security and management services through ownCloud, an open source file sync and application sharing platform that has amassed a base of more than 8 million users since 2010, and which Datto has offered as an option for two years.

The service provides universal file access, control and management from any device with sharing across all popular desktop and mobile platforms. Users can also collaborate on files in real time using ownCloud and store data where they want with backup and protection in the Datto Cloud.

“We think this is a large, commoditized market that’s overpriced,” said R. Brooks Borcherding, Datto’s chief revenue officer. “We can leverage our own cloud and partnership with ownCloud to bring a rich and scalable product to market at a disruptive price.”

How disruptive the price is, however, depends upon the features you need. Box and Dropbox both offer business services priced at $15 per month per user for unlimited storage. That adds up to $900 per year for a small business with five users, compared to just $120 for Datto Drive with a one-terabyte storage cap.

Microsoft’s Office 365 Business plan is priced at $8.25 per user per month for one terabyte of storage, but Microsoft throws in the Office 365 application suite as part of the deal. Very small businesses or those with just a few users can opt for the Office 365 Home version, which provides up to five users with one terabyte of storage space as well as a full set of business apps for a single $9.99 monthly fee.

File sync and sharing services carry a lot of bells and whistles, however, depending on an organization’s needs for security, compliance, restore times and other administrative features. These add up to make apples-to-apples comparisons difficult.

Borcherding said administration is simple with ownCloud: “You can assign whatever rules you want.” Datto’s value comes in 24X7 support, an online help community and a full hosted environment. The company’s business partners will be charged a discounted fee per month and may mark it up as they wish. Datto also plans to offer premium-priced editions with greater storage capacity and white-label branding.

Photo by Pierre-Yves Beaudouin via  Wikimedia Commons CC