Remote backups keeps your data safe and saves you time
Your business produces important information every day: Emails, invoices, logos, presentation, …. What happens if your computer decides to quit. If you backup you data to a CD or DVD, that is fine. But you will still loose some data unless your backup your computer EVERY DAY. And what if something happens to your office (which is probably where you keep your backups). All that data is gone.
Outsourcing your backups provides peace of mind, as well as removing one more administrative task from your to-do list. This is done by using remote backup.
Remote backup is essentially a specialized internet hosting provider. Instead of giving you a place for your web page, they have a special program that installs on your computer and will automatically backup your files to a remote backup server.
With some services, you schedule a backup at a certain time of the day. Other services backup files dynamically, whenever you create or update a file. So if you write a proposal at 1:00 and your computer dies at 6:00, your proposal is safe and easily accessible (by you only). I am definitely in favor of the dynamic backups.
Remote backup is not expensive. As of this writing, I found several services for under $10/month. That is not much for the time savings and peace of mind it offers.
Recommendations
Must Have
- Scheduled backup - the backups happen automatically so you do not have to remember to do them
- Unlimited backup - backup as often as you want without having to pay more
- Outlook Backup - backup MS Outlook files even if Outlook is open (only if you use Outlook)
Nice to Have
- Automatic backups - back up when files change - not according to a schedule
- Internet Access - Access to your backup files from any web browser, allowing you to have all your files when you do not have your computer handy.
- Bandwidth throttling - backups are limited to a certain portion of your internet connection, so a backup does not stop you from working on the internet.
- Incremental backup - copy only the changes to a file - not the whole file
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