Pensacola Computer Help Technoblog

Here in the Florida panhandle, although it rarely if ever snows, we do have to contend with the yearly threat of …. shhhhh….. Hurricanes. Although the prediction and tracking has improved greatly over the years, the hurricanes can and still do shift at the last moment. This is just one of many reasons why it is vitally important to have a backup system for all your important data on your computer.  Computers crash, hard drives die, accidents happen every day, and many people are unprepared when it comes to backing up their computers. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me “I was going to back it up this weekend”, or “I knew I should have backed it up but I forgot” – this usually after a hard drive has crashed or other computer disaster.

It used to be that doing backup’s was a real pain – either you had to use some tape backup system, or copy files to a CD or DVD, and even setting up the newer external hard drives, while easier, is still no good if the computer and the external hard drive are in the same location. Now though, with most everyone on high speed internet connections, Online backup is becoming the preferred solution. With ease of setup, and the ability to restore files from anywhere that has net access, Online backup solutions are the best solution for most home and business users.

There are a number of free backup services that offer a limited amount of space such as idrive (2 GB, or 12 GB if you refer your friends). There are also some great paid solutions such as Carbonite (Click Here for a free trial ) that offer unlimited backup space for only $55 a year. These online backup services have you download a small application that allows you to choose which files and folders to monitor for backing up – then any files that are in them and any files that are changed or added to them are automatically backed up on a schedule that you decide. These files are stored on secure servers with file encryption to ensure that your data is safe and protected.

With data recovery services often charging $500 or more to recover data from a damaged hard drive, and the possiblity that you could lose everything in a fire, hurricane, or other disaster, it just makes smart sense to have a good backup plan in place for peace of mind and security.