The Pros and Cons of using a cheap backup for your computer files

Keeping a copy of your important computer files makes sense, and how much effort you wish to make and what cost you are willing to pay generally factor in the decision of what backup solution to use. Combined of course with the value of the files you need to keep safe.

The cheapest backup is actually no backup at all. This may sound odd, but there are still quite a few people who when asked where they save their files, they will say they are saved on the computers hard drive – so no copy available when the hard drives crashes, dies or anything else happens to it.

Next up are free services and these range from free email systems like hotmail or Gmail whereby people will email themselves important files so they are stored as copies in these accounts. Other solutions will be cloud based backup where you do not often know where the data is being saved, if your files are being encrypted and what backup systems these services have in place.

Over the years there have been a number of cases whereby cheap backup providers have gone down preventing the service from working, gone bust and closed down for good, lost data as they didn’t have a backup in place of the data they were protecting for customers.

It should be noted that such cases have been reported by some major brands and companies who we put our trust in. The point being is that just because a company may be very large and we consider them popular and therefore trustworthy these firms can often be the worst offenders.

You can also backup to an external hard drive. These vary from the small USB disks to very large capacity drives, however most are not very robust and may become easily damaged. Also, they are often stored alongside the machine so in the event of a fire, flood or theft everything will be lost at the same time.

For low risk information the above solutions might be fine, however when backing up critical business files which are often the lifeblood for a company a more robust, secure and proven business continuity service should be selected. Businesses should first check what regulations they need to adhere to, for instance do they need to ensure a backup is carried out daily, does it need to be encrypted, and does it need to remain within the country of origin to comply with data protection rules?

It is worth seeking an online data backup provider that has been trading for some time, encrypts files and stores multiple copies. Also check where possible the support available as this will offer a huge relief on your stress levels when you do need to use the service to recover lost data.