online backup service

Where’s the best place to keep your data? Online backup services will keep your data safe no matter what sort of disaster strikes your local computers. Online backup services work much like regular backup software. With an online backup service, however, your important data is transmitted over the Internet and securely stored on a server in a professional data center instead of being stored on your own CDs, DVDs, or backup tapes. Most of us still waste time doing this manually which means we often don’t have a backup of our most recent work.

Ten of the top choices for online backup service are:

1. Mozy

Mozy offers reasonably priced unlimited online backup that’s highly configurable, but it could stand some usability improvements.

2. Carbonite

Carbonite tries to make remote backup simple and affordable. Setting it up is a breeze, and restoring a file here or there is also a snap. But restoring a lot of data to a different PC presented some obstacles.

3. SOS Online Backup

This is another backup service that offers a lot of additional features for those users who want to do a lot with the service. It tends to be more user-friendly than IDrive according to most people, though, so you may find that it’s the better of the two choices if you’re just starting out and aren’t quite confident in your own tech-savvy skills. It’s received numerous awards so it’s certainly a good choice.

4. IDrive

There are several reasons that you might enjoy this backup service. It’s got some storage offered entirely for free so it’s great if you’re just starting to figure out whether online backup is even for you or not. It’s also got a lot of great additional features (like advanced search functions and drag-and-drop restoration) that can be used by people who do already like online backup and who want to be able to do more with it.

5. HP Upline

This easy-to-use, reasonably priced online backup service also lets you do local media backups and file sharing, but it lacks important features, like version saving, open-file backup, and the ability to resume interrupted file uploads

The type of online backup service that you want to get is really going to depend a lot on what you need it for. If you’re storing a lot of media then you want a service with a lot of storage. If you’re storing documents that you share with others then you want a backup service that has collaboration features. These five choices are a good place to start in your search for online backup options.

Where’s the best place to keep your backed-up data? Somewhere far, far away. Online backup services will keep your data safe no matter what sort of disaster strikes your local PCs.

Backing up your files online is a safe alternative to using regular backup software. However, finding the best online backup service to use isn’t as easy. This post will help you choose the best online backup provider that will be easy on your pocket book and provide the services you want.

Backing up your computer, or choosing an online backup service, is one of the most important things you do to insure data and files are not compromised or terminally lost during unforeseen “disasters,” which, according to “Murphy,” can, and probably will, happen at some point.

How do you shop for the best online backup service for you? How much space do your files need? How many user accounts do you have? Who can you trust with your data privacy? How much can you afford?

Security
Companies advertising more than one data center offer simultaneous duplicate backups of your data. Look for warnings from companies about your passkey. They will tell you if you lose your passkey, you cannot access your data backup account. This is a good thing! It lets you know that no one can randomly access your backup account without your permission or passkey.

Frequency
More is better. You want to get multiple copies of your data, automatically uploaded on a frequent and regular basis. The more often your data is backed up, the more protection you have in the event of a virus or irreparable corruption.

Space
Do you save lots of pictures, videos, and music? These files consume a lot of space and it might be more efficient to use an external hard drive to backup these. However, external and optical drives do not offer privacy and protection afforded by online (remote) backup services.

Price
“You get what you pay for.” Typically low-cost services take longer to complete the initial backup. They reduce their bandwidth costs by slowing your upload speed, which limits the amount of data that can be backed up, thus taking for, what can seem like forever, when you want to get done with maintenance and resume your processing.

Free Trial
If you have a high-speed Internet connection, and know what you want to back up and where the files are located, there are online backup services that allow you to try their service for free on a trial basis.

The best online backup service is the one that fits your needs and pocketbook.