Online Backup Guide

If you’re not in the habit of backing up your computer data perhaps now is the time to consider using the services of an online backup system, to both secure your data and increase your internet security. In a recent survey it was revealed that up to 40% of SMBs don’t backup their data and in excess of 90% of individual users, both casual computer users and even those working from home, never backup their data at all. If you’re amongst the people that don’t backup your data, or don’t back it up regularly, here are some of the reasons why you really should look into having a regular online backup.

Online backup is like an insurance policy.

Sadly, some people see having insurance policies as a waste of money, after all to have an insurance policy you’re spending money on something you might never need. Taking that sort of view is fine whilst you don’t need to make a claim, but as soon as you do need to claim - boy will it cost you more than the amount you might have spent on the insurance policy. Seeing online backups in the same way as paying for an insurance policy is every bit as short-sighted.

So long as your computer is working fine and your data is there - why would you want to pay out for an online backup service, or indeed any sort of backup system, even if it was buying a few blank DVDs to copy your data to? Well it’s as simple as this - once it’s gone, it’s gone. No matter what has caused the loss of data, be it an online security breach or a computer virus, you won’t be able to get it back without spending an awful lot of money on a data recovery service - which even then will have limited success. Whether that means as a business user you’ve lost work and client/customer data or, as a personal user, all of your precious digital photos or music collection - hard luck, you won’t get it all back!

How data losses occur

Perhaps you think you’ll never suffer a data loss and so not need any online backup or to worry about your internet security? Well the biggest risk to losing your data is a hardware failure on your computer, which is responsible for 44% of all data loss. Thinking you’re immune to the risk of hardware failure data loss because you’ve got a high-end machine is a risky approach to take, even if it’s a brand new machine you really should check the terms and conditions of the manufacturers guarantee.

Of course you also need to consider how stable your software is, as software corruption is responsible for 12% of all data loss. 30% the reported data losses are due to human error, inadvertently deleting data or even wiping a whole drive. With 7% of the losses being due to catastrophes such as theft fire and flood the final tranche of 7% is down to poor internet security whereby things like PC viruses cause data losses.

Why choose online backup?

So, why should you choose to use an online backup system, even if you do already backup your data to a disk or tape backup system? Firstly there’s the fact that once it’s been set up you can in effect forget about your online backups, until such time as you might need to retrieve any data. The reason for this is that the backup will be automatically carried out - without you needing to remember to change disks or tapes etc. Also, you won’t have the inconvenience of storing and sorting through backup tapes and disks or worry about having at least a master backup stored off-site - as all your online backups will automatically be stored off-site! An online backup service will also be another useful tool in your overall internet security armory - in the event of being the victim of an internet attack.

However, for me, the key significance of having an online backup system is - that being stored in ‘the computing cloud’ I can access the data anywhere and anytime. Imagine you have a conventional backup system, but the computer fails and you need to install all your data on a new machine. Not only have you got the hassle of setting up the new computer but also all the backup routine as well. By using an online backup service - once the new computer is operational a few mouse clicks and all your data can be being restored to the new machine in seconds - getting you back up and working all the faster.