Backing up files on your computer is an important step in ensuring you do not lose precious information.  A question we received asked if it is better to use an online data backup or an external hard drive to back up data. The short answer to this question is: if you really care about your keeping your documents and data, use both!

External hard drives are a very quick and affordable way to backup your critical data. But, just like the hard drive in your computer, an external hard drive can fail, get stolen, or ruined in an accident or natural disaster (think tsunamis, volcano eruptions, locust plagues). Online backup services are very affordable these days and can protect your data from a lot of the physical dangers...but they have their own list of downsides.

External Hard Drives

Here are some questions you will want to consider when choosing an external hard drive:

1. What is the capacity of the drive? These days you can get 100s of gigabytes for under $100.

2. What is the reliability of the drive? Check consumer review sites (amazon.com, epinions.com, cnet.com) to see how others feel about the drive you are considering.

3. How will the drive connect to your computer? USB 2.0 and Firewire are the standards here.

4. Will the drive require power or is it powered by the USB port? Compact, high capacity self-powered USB drives are quite inexpensive.

Online Backup Services

When choosing an online backup service, here are some critical things to consider:

1. Does the service offer encryption of your data? If the data is at all sensitive, you should look for a service that encrypts your data when it is being transmitted as well as while it is stored.

2. Is the online backup company stable? Do some research on the company and make sure you feel comfortable that they are not a fly-by-night operation that is going to disappear or fail, leaving you without your backups.

3. Is the backup system cross-platform? If Mac and Windows compatibility is important to you, make sure you check into this.

4.  How fast is your internet connection? If you don't have a reasonably fast high speed internet connection and you have a lot of data that changes often, you will likely have problems because you won't have sufficient bandwidth to transmit the data to the backup service.

You can find comparisons of online backup services online -- just do a quick google search. Here are some popular companies that you may want to consider:

safecopybackup.com

mozy.com

trackmyfiles.com

backblaze.com

spideroak.com

This list is by no means exhaustive -- you should search online and weigh the best offerings against each other.

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