Online Backup
Author: Matt Garrett

If you are tired of using CDs or floppies to store your files,
than you will want to consider online backup. Your hard drive
might be crammed full of unfiled documents, and you might be
wondering what in the world you would do if your computer
crashed. Don't leave your important information at the mercy of
your fallible computer which might catch a virus, but if you get
online backup, you can be confident that you will always have
your files available. Online backup is easy to use and to
understand. Once you see how well your online backup program
will work, you will never rely on floppies again.

With online backup, you can choose between full backups and
incremental backups, which will gradually store your files.
These programs will allow you to pick and choose which files
you want to backup and you can also save different versions of
the same files. To conserve space on your online backup
program, you can choose compression levels; the highest levels
will save your files in their smallest form and will give your
more space to store many more files.

An important feature in online backup is security. It doesn't
make any sense to back up all your files only to discover that
a hacker has gotten his mitts on you and your customer's
personal information. A good online backup program will offer
encryption, which will make it impossible for outsiders to read
your documents. Even the file name can be disguised, and various
versions of a document will also be encoded. This coding,
however, does not make it more difficult for your to retrieve
your documents from online backup; only interlopers are
prevented from accessing your files.

With online backup programs, you can backup your files
automatically or schedule backups. You might want to schedule
these backups for times when you are not using the computer,
since excessive activity usually slows down a computer. You
will receive a detailed log of these jobs and an e-mail
notification of a scheduled backup. This will enable you to
organize your information and to confirm that a file backup has
actually taken place.

For computer users who are concerned about how online backup
will affect their bandwith, space-saving technology is one way
to preserve bandwith and to store documents more efficiently.
In addition to compressing files, many online backup programs
only transfer altered portions of a file to save space. You can
select which files you want to backup quickly and easily using
drag and drop features.

If you are looking for online backup for a large business, you
can find programs using API technology. This technology is
designed to handle larger amounts of information and have
heightened security features which make the files absolutely
impenetrable. Of course, more sophisticated online backup costs
more money, but given the importance of preserving files and
keeping them secure, it is worth the investment, especially for
growing businesses.

The kind of online backup program you choose depends very much
on the size of the files you want to backup and your
priorities. Do research with different companies before making
your final decision. It is definitely worth it to take
advantage of trial offers and demos, and these opportunities
will give you a better idea of which online backup programs are
right for you.


About The Author: Matt Garrett http://www.XoftSpy.co.uk
http://www.online-server-backups.net