Cloud-based backup provider Carbonite Inc. has splashed out $14 million in cash to take Seagate Technology Plc’s Evault cloud backup service off its hands, the companies announced yesterday.

Carbonite, which is named after the mysterious substance in which Star War’s flyer Hans Solo was frozen by the bounty hunter Boba Fett, specializes in backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service for small and medium businesses. It offers its own hardware for companies to create a hybrid backup system, or alternatively its software can be run on bare metal servers.

The acquisition is a pretty straightforward deal that will see Carbonite add the best parts from EVault’s solutions to its own portfolio, helping to fulfill its aims of expanding its lineup of data protection and recovery tools for small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, the acquisition also gives Carbonite a boost in the lucrative SMB market, which the company says is worth more than $13 billion in the U.S. alone.

EVault’s offerings are pretty similar to Carbonite’s, and so were Wuala’s, another Swiss-based cloud backup vendor that was operated by Seagate’s French subsidiary LaCie until it shut down last August. What with EVault now being offloaded, it becomes clear that Seagate has totally lost interest in providing cloud-based backup services.

“With this acquisition, Carbonite is taking a big step forward in meeting the data protection and business continuity needs of the entire SMB market from home offices to medium-sized businesses,” said Mohamad Ali, Carbonite’s president and CEO. “EVault’s proven technology… enables us to round out our portfolio and immediately provide the features and functionality larger businesses require to support their complex environments.”

At least Carbonite’s investors seem pleased – after yesterday’s purchase was announced, the company saw its stock rise by 5.07 percent to $0.46 per share.

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