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Brief Overview of Online Backup

Online backup is possibly the most convenient form of backing up files, leaving you with few excuses not to do it. Losing your files is something that is going to happen to you one day, not something that might happen, and if you do not backup your data it will be a disaster. Files can be lost in many ways, most of which are beyond your control. The most common reasons for data loss are:-

1) 42% Mechanical Failure

2) 34% Human Error

3) 15% Software Failure

4) 6% Viruses

5) 3% Natural Disaster

How Online Backups Work

Instead of storing your backup files on magnetic or optical media, you send your data over the internet to another computer, and this other computer acts as a remote backup. When you lose a file, you connect to that remote computer to restore it.

In addition to the great advantage of 'disaster proofing' your business with a remote backup, online backup is also a very convenient way for businesses to store critical, high-value, information that they can then download from anywhere in the world. For people who travel, work from more than one location, or want to share files with colleagues, online backup is the ideal solution.

Varieties of Online Backup

Basically, there are two forms of online backup. In the first option, you download software provided by the online backup provider and install it on your PC. This done, you connect to the online backup provider's server, select the files you want to back up, and transfer them over the internet. When the day arrives when you find you have lost everything, you simply connect and restore all your files back onto your computer.

If there is a lot of files that could take a long time to backup, or you have lost your internet connection, some services will send you your backups on your choice of media.

Option two is to use a web-based backup service. You do this from your browser window, and you can access all your stored files from any computer assuming it has an internet connection. Generally, web based online backups cannot back up quite as much as the first option, but they are more user friendly and make file sharing easier.

Advantages of Online Backup

It can cost you less to set up and run than other options.

There is no hardware to buy, maintain, or repair and no consumable media to manage.

Online backups can be made completely automatic, releasing time for more productive tasks.

Simple to manage, all that is required is to turn it on.

No need to arrange for storage of media, either onsite or offsite.

No worries about media degrading or becoming obsolete.

Some online data backup programs can offer features unavailable in media based backups, such as remote data access and synching.

All your backup files are available online, from anywhere in the world, at any time.

All your backup files are encrypted by your computer before sending, and stored in that format ensuring a very high level of security.

Your backup files can be accessed from anywhere in the world.