A new way to back-up your data…

Let’s just admit it.  Most of us don’t think about losing digital pictures, documents, home movies, etc. until after something happens.  A computer virus, fire, power surge, or a toddler with a juice box in one hand and a screw driver in the other are all examples of things that can cause you to lose computer data.

     Unfortunately, losing the data isn’t something that can be treated after the fact.  Once it is gone, it is gone.  Yes, a hard drive can be recovered if it fails.  But expect to pay $200 for such a service and it may not work if some of that juice box made its way inside the hard drive.  So was Ben Franklin referring to data backup when he said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” ?

     Do you remember your first data backup?  I do it was amazing!  I was 8 years old in the computer lab when the teacher handed me a 5.25” floppy disk.  I saved a picture of a truck to disk.  As I hit ‘save’, the drive clicked and gowned as it saved the file.   Later, a similar sound came from my dot matrix printer as I backed up a document onto paper I created in middle school.  All of this evolved into other similar forms such as the cd, dvd, usb thumb drive, etc.   Many of us use a secondary hard drive or raid array to backup data locally.  Some of these solutions can be complicated to the average user so isn’t there an easy way?

     Yes.  Upload your files to the “cloud”.  There are a variety of services designed for data backup but also file sharing with other devices and/or people.  By uploading your files to a safe place on the internet, you can share and restore files easily.  There are a number of popular solutions such as Amazon cloud drive, Mozy, and Carbonite.  But also some services you’ve probably never heard of such as idrive, drop box, back blaze, and jungle disk.  Each service comes in a variety of flavors.  Some even offer service up to a certain amount of gigabytes for free.  

     An important aspect of online backup is a healthy and robust internet connection.  Because these services rely on your connection to keep your files backed up.  Specifically, your upload speed is crucial as the files are sent up from your computer to the cloud.  Most of us spend time using the Internet the other way around.  But not so with online backup.  Check out which service is right for you.  Never lose data again!