CONSIDER ONLINE, OFF-SITE BACKUP AS SAFER ALTERNATIVE

For years I have extolled the virtues of making backups. The mantra is "It's not IF your hard drive will fail, it's WHEN it will fail." Sooner or later you will experience the inevitable agony of some kind of system crash.  How badly you will suffer from this event is directly proportional to how effectively you have backed up the data on your computer. Anticipation of this disaster will be your salvation. Ignore it and suffer the consequences.

When most of us think of making a backup, it typically consists of taking all of your information on the hard drive and making a copy of it onto some other kind of mass-storage medium. Optical media like CD and DVD discs can hold large amounts of data at a low cost. But you still need lots of these discs given the large capacities of hard drives. Flash drives are good for quick, minimal backups but their capacities are relatively small and they're still expensive. So given the low cost of hard drives these days, many of us just make our backups to another hard drive. The cost per megabyte used to make such backups prohibitive but multi-gigabyte hard drives can be had for around a hundred bucks so it's a viable alternative. Even removable hard drives are fairly inexpensive so it's really not such a big deal to plug one into an available USB or FireWire port and have at it.

But there's one major problem with all of the above backup methods. When you're done, the backup you just made is usually where your computer is located. Yes you can pack up the discs and store them somewhere else but that's just one more objection to a process that's already objectionable to so many. So if your place burns down or your office is robbed, there goes your backups. But there is another solution and it's really coming into its own now that broadband connections to the Internet are fairly commonplace these days and it's called online or off site backup. Online backup lets you backup any or all of your data and safely stores it at a remote location. Typically online backup works in the background or works overnight when you're not using the computer. I recently discovered one that I really like because it does all of the above but it does it by seamlessly integrating with your computer's operating system.

Carbonite.com is an automatic, online backup utility that installs on your Windows-based PC. The yearly fee of $49.95 gives you what the company calls unlimited backup storage. After installation, Carbonite's online backup service automatically begins to backup all of your computer's data via your broadband Internet connection. Carbonite has safety in mind because no one can see your data since your files are encrypted before they leave your computer.

Personally I like how Carbonite works within Windows. The folders that are backed up have a small blue dot on the lower left corner. If a folder is not backed up but contains subfolders that are, a small grey dot appears in the same location. Files work in a similar fashion. Files with a small green dot means they have been backed up. A yellow dot means it's awaiting backup.  No dot means it's not backed up.

As you continue your normal computing day, Carbonite monitors what has been changed and updates your backups. Changing a file's backup status is quick and easy. Just right-click on a folder for example and you'll see a Carbonite sub-menu. If it has a blue dot, the option will be to change its status to not being backed up. If no dot is there, you can add one. If a file has a yellow dot and you want to back it up immediately, there's an option that lets you do so at that moment. Carbonite's really very simple and intuitive.

All of the backing up goes on in the background and never interferes or slows down your Internet connection. It only does its thing when you're not using the bandwidth it needs. But whenever you add or modify files, Carbonite keeps track of everything and will make its backups automatically.  It's always on. Restoring your data works pretty much the same way. Just right-click on the drive or folder you wish to restore and select the options you want.

Currently Carbonite works with the Windows platform but a Macintosh version is in the works. If you're looking for a neat, safe, inexpensive, easy and secure method of backing up your computer, then check out Carbonite at their website for a free 15 day trial. Here's a tip. Enter the coupon code "America" and you'll get the trial extended for 30 days.

www.carobnite.com

 

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