For the last few years, I have favored online backups, such as iBackup, iDrive, and Carbonite. Now, CrashPlan is a clear winner for online backup. For a typical online backup service, I always look for the most space for the least amount of money. iDrive, for instance, offers 150GB online for only $50 for the year. iBackup also has a similar, affordable online service. Both offer cheap ways to back up online. Carbonite allows you to have easy access to your files by mapping a drive. For instance, you can name drive letter E as your Carbonite backup. That way, all you have to do is click on drive E in your computer to access your files. Very accessible.
Crashplan goes the next level by offering unlimited online backup for only $54. That blows away the competition right there. Then, they go another level higher by offering a backupmethod where you can save all your files to another computer. So, if you want to back up your files to you friend’s or family member’s computer, go for it. It can be in a different location entirely. Why would you want to do this? Disaster recovery. If something happens to your place, at least your files are safe. Yes, you’ll have an online backup already, but online backups take a while to restore if you have a lot of files. So, if you back up your files to another computer, it’s much faster to restore important, time-sensitive info. Oh yeah, Crashplan allows you also to back up your computer to an external hard drive or anywhere else.
There is also a special feature where you can perform a free automatic daily backup for personal use. Yes, you’ll get ads and it won’t be as extensive as the continuous, incremental backup, but it’s absolutely free and works perfectly fine. The solution I love is the Family Unlimited Plan – this allows you to back up all of your computers, no matter where they are, for unlimited storage at only $100 / year or $180 / 3 years. This deal is ridiculously amazing and I suggest signing up before they raise the rates. I can’t fathom why the rates are so low. I’m assuming they are just trying to load up as many subscribers as possible, and then increase the pricing. Can you imagine having unlimited space for up to 100’s of computers for only $60 / year with the 3-year plan?! There are also business backup plans too with continuous, incremental backups.
If you haven’t developed a backup plan, do it now! Our data recovery specialists see too many sob stories with family pictures and business presentations that are at the mercy of afailed hard drive. Remember, there is no way to prevent a hard drive on your computer from failing. It will fail eventually even if you work in a dust-free environment and spa-like atmosphere. All you can do is ensure your files are secure in case your hard drive fails; thus, preventing data recovery. And no, viruses and spyware do not cause hard drives to fail. If you haven’t set up your backup strategy yet, check out CrashPlan.
