Guest Author - Debbie Jacobsen

Regular data backup is extremely important, yet most people rarely (if ever) perform this precautionary task. Many people don’t backup their files because they feel it’s time consuming or too complicated. For others, the idea of data backup never even enters their mind, either because they feel they have nothing of value to protect, or they assume that nothing will ever happen to their files.

It’s easy to “forget” about backing up data files because human nature causes us to assume that when our computer is working fine, there’s nothing to worry about. Computer hard drives crash without much warning every day though, and it only takes one instance of a nasty computer virus or spyware infection to kill an operating system or corrupt every file you have. When this happens, most people find that their data is totally irrecoverable or end up paying well over $100 to have their files restored by a local computer repair shop – if they can be recovered.

You never know when hardware failure or file system corruption will occur, and the files you have today can easily be gone tomorrow. It’s easy to back up data yourself by copying all your photos and documents to CD or a secondary hard drive. The only problem with this is that it has to be done every time a new file is added or a document has changed in order to have a “current” backup. If you backed up your computer two months ago, and last month’s vacation photos or last nights homework is on the hard drive when it crashes – well, you know what that means….

The quickest and easiest way to ensure your data is never lost is to use an online backup service. With online backup, a current copy of your data is securely stored on a backup server, and can be recovered any time. If you have a broadband internet connection, you can have your important files automatically backed up for you whenever you’re connected to the internet. With online backup you never have to remember to back up new files, and never have to worry about losing everything when your computer crashes. Online backup is easy to use and more affordable than you might think. The backup service I recommend for home and small business computer users is Carbonite.

Carbonite Online Data Backup Service

Carbonite online backup service is a subscription-based service that is free to try, and costs only $5 per month to automatically back up an unlimited amount of data. Carbonite is the least expensive online backup service available, and all data is secure because it is encrypted.

After downloading and installing the Carbonite backup software, simply choose the folders you want to back up from Carbonite’s easy to use interface. The initial backup starts immediately, and may take a couple of days to complete, depending on how much data you have. After the first backup, changes are automatically backed up whenever you are online. You can choose to back everything in your My Documents and Desktop folders, or select only specific folders to back up – it’s up to you.

If you should have a system crash or accidentally delete an important file, just use the Carbonite interface to select the item/s you want to restore. You can easily restore files to your existing computer or to a different computer whenever you need to. At only $5 per month for ongoing “set it and forget it” data backup, Carbonite offers security and piece of mind at an affordable price. You can try Carbonite for free for 15 days to see for yourself how easy it is to backup your files online.
Carbonite Online Backup Service