Online Computer Backup – Know the Pitfalls

Online computer backup has become much more popular in the past two or three years. The main reason for this is the available speed and improved handling of data on the Internet.

There is a lot of pitfalls that you’d really need to know about though, regarding online computer backup. Many online providers will give you the impression that their online computer backup service is all that you really need.

One thing they normally don’t tell you is that you’re only backing up small subset of the files on your computer. An example of this is when they only back up your my documents folder. The problem still lies in the fact that you can have a lot of data on your computer.

Online Computer Backup – Saving Tons of Data

I know in my case, I have over 300 GB of data within my, my documents folder. This includes video, audio and several documents. In my opinion I wanted all backed up. To use any of the online computer backup services would be a bit problematic because of how much data I do have.

Even if you can back it all up to an online computer backup service, you still have to deal with the fact of recovering the data if you lose it on your local computer. Imagine if I had to restore or 300 GB of data. I’ve got a pretty good Internet connection but to be honest with you it would take well over 210 hours or about nine days to restore all of that data.

I’m not saying that online computer backup services are bad thing, but you have to realize the limitations of these types of services.

Another thing you need to consider when looking at online computer backup services, is how secure your data actually is. Imagine storing confidential files and pushing them to an online service to soon find all your files across the Internet. True this doesn’t happen very often but the minute you pass your personal data from your computer to another there is the risk of security breach. In other words, if it has to stay a secret don’t use online computer backup services.

The final point which will plague all users when using online computer backup services is the fact that you are only backing up a subset of your data. What happens if you lose everything on your hard drive? This isn’t so far-fetched anymore. I routinely replace several hard drives per month for customers because the hard drives have failed.

As a matter of fact I just replace the hard drive on my laptop that is only 15 months old. Hard drives have gotten very inexpensive and also have gotten very unreliable in the process. Now you have to also worry about all your programs, file settings, e-mail and whatever else didn’t make it to the online backup service. You could find yourself in more trouble than not having a backup at all!

Online Computer Backup – Two Stage Backups

When I recommend overcome this problem is to have a two stage backup system. Certainly consider using a good online computer backup service. Allow them to backup the files that you’re changing quite often that are normally contained in your my documents folder.

Also consider using a local backup to back up your whole hard drive. This would include hidden partitions on your hard drive that are part of the computer’s full set up and are required if you do a restoration. There are some great programs out there that are very inexpensive and obtaining a locally connected USB hard drive is dirt cheap too.

You can literally pick up this external hard drive for under $100 in today’s market. So do know what the limitations are when considering online computer backup services.

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