Ever since the hard disk drive became the mass storage medium of choice for computer users, the need for a fast, effective and efficient means of backing up mountains of data has been rather apparent.
First, we PC users backed up the precious data on our hard drives onto stacks of floppy disks. When that became too cumbersome and time consuming we switched to streaming tape drives. Next came CD-R’s, DVD-R’s and external hard drives.
Unfortunately, each of these methods of backing up a drive on-site shared one huge, glaring flaw: If disaster such a a fire or tornado struck the building, all was lost. But now there is something better…
Online backup services take away both the hassle and risk of making local backups of your irreplaceable data. They automatically back up your data on the fly, then if the unthinkable happens you can easily restore it back onto a new computer. All of those photos of the grand kids, your emails, Office documents and more – literally everything on your computer – is safely tucked away on a faraway server (that is itself typically backed up multiple times a day).
Sure, you can still make local backups if you want. In fact, modern external hard drives make the process extremely easy. But if you truly value the data and memories stored on your computer, there is no substitute for the ultimate safety provided by an online backup service. There are a number of online data backup services available at reasonable prices, including Carbonite, Mozy, Norton Online Backup and a host of others.
About the author: Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE.COM. He is also an A+ Certified Computer Technician with over 30 years of experience in the industry.