My heart sank, and I felt the sting of tears streaming down my face as I realized all my files were gone! I frantically searched my computer looking for any sign of hope, shaking my head trying to wake up out of what had to be a nightmare.
Sound familiar? Have you ever experienced that sinking feeling when you realized that your hard drive or External Hard Drive (EHD) had crashed? Were you one of the lucky ones who had backups of all your files on another EHD or on DVDs. Or was it on your to-do list? It can’t be stressed enough how important it is to backup your files, but it can be such a time-consuming and daunting task. It’s easy to put it off and say you will get to it tomorrow or the next day. Like so many of you, I am stretched to the limits of available time, so after trying a myriad of different strategies for backing up, I finally hit upon something that really works for me.
It is highly recommended to have at least two copies of your important files.
For instance, I have the following:
- Original files: All my business files, like documents, are usually kept on my computer’s built-in hard drive. My original design files are kept on my main External Hard Drive.
- Backup 1: I try to make copies of all my important files as I create them to a second EHD that I keep hooked up to my computer. At the least, I back up to this every week.
- Backup 2: This is where the online backup service comes in. I love this! I use Backblaze, which just runs in the background whenever my computer is on, saving all my files for me! My files are backed up to a secure offsite server so if something were to happen to my computer, I can still get to my files from another computer!
Let’s talk about a few online backup services:
Backblaze
http://www.backblaze.com/
Features:
- Unlimited storage
- Backs up your External Hard Drives
- Military-grade encryption
- Free web restore
- Free customer support
- Continuous Backup – By default, Backblaze backs up all the time so you don’t have to remember to do it, but you can schedule backups, if you wish.
- Automatically finds all your photos, music, documents, and other irreplaceable files and compresses, encrypts, and backs them up
- Backblaze backs up Mac & Windows files.
- Access to your files from any web browser anywhere
- $6.00 a month or purchase a full year for $60 or $110 for 2 years
- Free Trial
- Your files on the go – With the Backblaze mobile app, you can access, download, and share any of your files backed up from your PC or Mac to Backblaze on your iPhone, iPad & Android.
- Easily view or restore files. You can also request your files be sent to you on a USB Flash Drive or USB Hard Drive – the price depends on how much data you have. But I found that it was a pretty reasonable price.
This service was easy to install and was backing up my files in minutes! One of the best things about this company is that it features unlimited storage. I was using Mozy before, and they changed their pricing structure so much that it priced them right out of my budget. I have been so happy with this service, I totally forget it’s running on my computer!
Carbonite
https://www.carbonite.com
Features:
- Unlimited storage
- Encrypted files
- Easily restore files
- Access to your files anywhere
- Backsup photos, documents, music and most user-generated content, compresses and encrypts files
- Free customer support
- Supports Mac & PC
- $71.99 a year for the Basic Personal Plan (Unlimited cloud backup)
- Free Trial
- Sync and Share and access files remotely with free apps
- Personal Plus ($111 a year) & Personal Prime ($149 a year) accounts also back up EHD’s
I have heard good things about Carbonite. The biggest drawback is that it costs almost twice as much as BackBlaze to back up your EHD’s.
Mozy
Mozy is now part of Carbonite
Keep in mind that these online backup services are not meant to be an additional storage system. My point is, if you delete the files off your computer, these companies will delete those same files after 30 days.
You might want to try out the free trials from these companies and get a feel for each one before deciding. I just love the peace of mind having an online backup service affords me!
Happy Backups!
Article updated March 27, 2019
This was very helpful! I appreciate the list of on-line backup systems along with the features and pricing. Thanks for investigating this for all of us.
Glad you found it helpful!
Excellent and helpful info, thanks!
You are welcome!