Microsoft is offering a new solution for business data backup at a price that it hopes companies will not be able to refuse. To protect 1 terrabyte of data, it would only cost the user $5,000 versus ten times that amount for competing backup services. A beta of the software first debuted last September.

The backup solution will be disk-based rather than tape-based as most are today.

Microsoft announced on Friday that within the next month it plans to release the Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager, which will allow companies to replace their tape backup systems with a less expensive hard-disk based solution. DPM will also allow the end user to retrieve files on their own, eliminating the need for IT personnel to assist users in data recovery.

The service will have an estimated retail price of $950, which will include licenses for one server and the protection of three file servers. Microsoft says this is much cheaper than other competing disk-based services and will allow more businesses to take advantage of data backup solutions that may otherwise have been priced too high.

"We think this is an exciting shift in the market, away from tapes and toward disk-based backup," Microsoft's Ben Matheson, group product manager in the Management Division said. He said the declining cost of hard disks have also made such a service possible.

The company had been publicly beta testing the solution since mid-April, and said the software had been distributed to 100,000 customers and downloaded 50,000 times.

Matheson also said customers were very pleased with the beta release of DPM, especially for it's speed.

"With tapes, you're moving the entire file every time you do a backup, and that's very slow because you have massive files such as Access databases, Microsoft PowerPoint files and Outlook .pst file," he explained. "Some customers have told us that their backup process has gone from two days with tape to 10 minutes with DPM."

Microsoft is aiming for general availability of DPM sometime later this year.