I am going to start this article with a simple, yet extremely powerful statement: backup your data or you will lose it at some point. If there is one piece of advice you must take to heart, it’s that statement. Even having an anti virus program is not as important, because if you have your data backed up then even a virus will not be the end of the world.

So the first fact we have is that we need to backup our data. The question is, what is the most effective way to backup your data.

You could easily go out and buy a thumb drive or external hard drive and backup your data on to that drive. This is a little tedious as you need to select the files each time. A bigger concern is the fact that you need to remember to do this on a daily basis and if your drive dies or computer gets lost in between backups then you are in deep trouble. Another issue is that if your computer is stolen or lost or damaged (fires do happen) then the chances are your external drive could be lost along with it. External drives are also prone to getting lost themselves.

So what’s the alternative?

Online backups are the way to go. Anytime your computer is connected to the Internet, which is almost all of the time for most of us, your backup software will automatically be backing up any chants you have made. Storage space is abundant, data is encrypted for security purposes and you have piece of mind. This is hands down the best way to backup your data. Read the rest of this entry »