Insight Publication

Backup On Line and Protect Your Data

Nearly everyone has experienced the problem of losing data.  For instance, you may have been working on a big presentation for school or work and your power cuts out and you lose the entire project because you had not backed up the data.  Other issues come when people don’t have any place to back up their data.  Using cds or dvds is one way to backup information as a one-time operation.  Other ways include using an external hard drive and arranging to back everything up on some sort of a schedule.  Most people do not have the time or energy to back up their data on a daily basis, which leaves them vulnerable to data loss.  However, you can actually backup on line and have it automatically done on a daily basis. 

When you backup on line, you don’t have to have large amounts of storage, such as extra hard drives or stacks of discs.  The online storage service handles all of that for you, and takes that burden off of your computer.  There are many online services that are available, so it is a good idea to look at the different ones before making a decision.  There are free services, inexpensive or cheap services,  and more expensive paid services.

To backup on line with a free service, you need to have only a small amount of data that requires backing up.  Companies that offer a free service often do so to help you see how valuable this service is and convince you that you should upgrade to a paid service which will backup more of your data.  However, if you have minimal data you could use these free services for free online backup.  For instance, if you have less than 2 GB of pictures or data that you need to have backed up, you can do it for free.

Paid services that are relatively cheap will charge a monthly fee of about $5 or less and may offer an unlimited backup on line type of plan. They will include software for the client that must be downloaded to your machine to facilitate their automatic data backups.  The backup is done as an automatic default.  There is a certain amount of encryption and safety included with these services.

The more expensive backup on line services are still quite inexpensive, beginning around $10 per month.  However, the services offered may better fit your needs.  Rather than a default mechanism, they usually offer online interface so that you can see your data and download it when you want to.  These online services also offer such things as filesharing.  If you are using large files that cannot be emailed to clients or other co-workers, this is a great benefit of an online data backup service.  You can share and access these documents through the service with the proper passwords.  The data is secure and encrypted, so only those you want to allow access will have it.  If you have the need to backup your data but don’t want to maintain all the hardware that is necessary, you may want to try one of these backup on line services.