by Dawn Clement
November 16, 2008

“What’s the safest way to protect your data?”

“The dog ate my homework” used to be a common excuse for students. These days, educators are more likely to hear “my hard drive crashed.” The sad part of the story is that, too often, it’s true! Losing data is a given when working with computers. Eventually, your computer’s hard drive will fail; a hard drive is merely a piece of machinery that will wear out. Once the hard drive goes, recovering your data becomes a difficult (sometimes impossible) task.

Of course, there are other ways to lose important data—a power failure (or spike) can result in the loss of whatever document you are currently working on, a computer virus can destroy random data, or the data can simply become corrupted. It all amounts to the same thing—data loss.

You might think you don’t have any irreplaceable data on your home computer—but you’d be wrong. Take a minute and really think about what’s on your hard drive. Do you use e-mail? Would you be able to recreate your address book from memory? How about your bookmarks? Do you really remember the URLs of your favorite Web sites? How about music? How many MP3s do you have on your hard drive? Are you prepared to lose the saved game that took you three months? How many digital photos do you have? The list goes on and on. You don’t realize how irreplaceable your data is until you’ve lost it.

Rule number one of computer use is “always back up your work.” At the very least, have a copy on your …

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Nov 13, 2008 12:00 pm

By Robert Lemos

Encrypting your hard disk to protect your data doesn’t have to be a daunting task, thanks to a large number of practical tools.

October 31, 2008

By David Fried, Carbonite Online Backup CEO

According to a recently released survey by Compuware, most data loss is attributable to either user negligence or malice. Only 1% of data loss is due to hackers. I loved the headline on this story: “3/4 idiots, 1/4 bitterness.”

I have to confess to being part of the “idiot” crowd. Three weeks ago I left my laptop sitting on my seat when I got off the train in New York. I remembered it just in time to see my train, with laptop still aboard, disappearing down the track. Except for occasionally recovering individual files that I accidentally delete or overwrite, I haven’t actually had a PC disaster since starting Carbonite 3 years ago. So, aside from the pain of having to buy a new laptop, it was fun to use my own product to get everything back. I was really proud of how well it worked.

What I don’t see in the Compuware survey is data lost to hard drive failure. For some reason this doesn’t show up in the survey, even though I will bet you that it tops all the other categories. We use a LOT of hard drives in our data center, and our statistics show that roughly 3% of all hard drives will fail each year. That’s why we use RAID arrays which are 36 million times more reliable than a single drive. Google also publishes their disk failure rate, and it’s roughly the same as ours. Hard drives are a data disaster waiting to happen, in our experience. That’s why you need a LOT of redundancy in your data storage architecture, as we do. We store our customers’ encrypted data on 16 drive arrays. We would have to lose 3 of the 16 drives simultaneously AND your PC would have to crash all at the same time before any data is lost. When you figure the odds of this happening, it’s very very close to zero.

I hope you never leave your laptop on Amtrak, but if you do, you’ll be glad you’ve got Carbonite.

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Source: Carbonite Blog

By Mike Porter

October 24, 2008

Want to get started with an online backup service for free? Find out how in this Mozy review, they offer a small 2 GB account totally free of charge. To compare all of the top online backup providers check out our online backup reviews.

Posted under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license.

Johannesburg, South Africa - October 23, 2008

By Derek Street

dereks@securedata.co.za

Companies around the world that are struggling to come to grips with controlling and classifying the years of data they have accumulated throughout their enterprises, are turning to automated data discovery, collection and classification tools for help.

That’s according to Derek Street, product manager at SecureData Security. He says that the biggest challenges that companies face as they try to control the data scattered throughout their systems is knowing where this data is and then classifying it to enforce restrictions about who may use the data and how they may use it.

Says Street: “Most companies have vast volumes of data spread across their systems, ranging in format from structured information in databases to reams of unstructured data such as documents, image files and even multimedia files. The data may be housed on enterprise systems in the data centre or on hard drives on end-user devices such as notebooks and desktops.

“Not knowing where all of this enterprise data is and what various files contain can create security risks since the organisation may mishandle sensitive or confidential information. Finding and securing this information without automated tools is challenging and time-consuming.

”Some digital forensic tools help enterprises manage this challenge by reading and recording information about the files in the IT environment – including elements such as the type of file, when it was created and last accessed, and who has access to the file. This information allows companies to manage their data according to clearly defined risk management policies.

“Some digital forensic tools help organisations find classified data according to metrics such as type, age and value so that it can be managed according to business rules,” says Street. “Organisations can then assign a level of risk or a topic to each document, so that access and use of the documents by end-users can be managed according to company policies.

”E-discovery and digital forensics tools and data classification are important elements of sound information lifecycle management (ILM). ILM is a set of processes and technologies that help companies to manage data from the moment it is created to the instant it is no longer needed and can be discarded. These tools have a host of side benefits, in addition to tighter security. The tools can help IT administrators to match data to the right storage medium, get rid of duplicate files and put sound disaster recovery and back-up policies in place.

Concludes Street: “Companies are under pressure to put processes and systems in place that allow them to protect sensitive information from unauthorised access in the wake of high-profile security breaches around the world and new regulatory requirements. Against this backdrop, data classification tools, digital forensic and e-discovery tools and processes are among the most important investments they can make in protecting the integrity of their data.”

Derek Street is a Product Manager at SecureData Holdings Group, a South African based company.

BURBANK, CA — October 08, 2008 — On the surface, an accidentally deleted file can seem like a minor problem. An employee calls the help desk in a panic, the IT person on the help desk checks to see if the file is recoverable from the Windows Recycle Bin (it’s not, because it was saved to a file server, and the Windows Recycle Bin only captures files saved locally), curses at the “dumb user,” then does a search of backup and restores the file. End of story.

But let’s take a closer look at how this story can really unfold. First, that accidentally deleted file could very well be a major report or a quote to a customer that the employee had been working on for a week or so, and had even put in overtime on. So the employee naturally goes into a panic when he deletes it — all that effort seemingly down the drain.

On the IT end, it’s also a bit more than just a “dumb user” curse and search through backup. That backup search will take hours, and that IT person must monitor the search the entire time, then restore the file as soon as it’s found. There are most likely higher-priority tasks for that IT staffer to be engaged in.

The fruit of the backup search can yield two different results. One possibility is that yes, the file is there and can be restored. The bad news is, it is an earlier version of the file. Depending on when in the work progression the file was backed up, it could mean hours or even several days worth of work that must be performed by the employee to bring that file back up to the state it was in when lost. How much will that cost, and how much will it endanger the client relationship or what other serious ramifications will the lateness have?

But the other possible result is, the employee created the file and began work on it since the last backup, which means that no version of that file was ever backed up. The long search through backup is simply wasted time, and the employee has to re-create the file from scratch. Not only is that considerable wasted time and money, that might even mean the loss of a client and that employee’s job.

All of this considerable aggravation and cost can be avoided by a very simple and relatively inexpensive software solution. Providing real time data protection and filling the gap between backups, this solution replaces the Windows Recycle Bin with one of its own — one that will allow instant recovery of a file saved to any location within the network.

Put real time data protection and real time recovery to work in your company — and permanently avoid the lost time and profit from accidentally deleted files.

Contact:
Bruce Boyers Marketing Services
Email: info@boyersmarketing.com

September 05, 2008

By David Friend, CEO of Carbonite

As reported by By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post Staff Writer, on Friday, August 1, 2008, Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed. An increasing number of international travelers have reported that their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices had been taken — for months, in at least one case — and their contents examined.

Personally, I’d be pretty bent out of shape if Homeland Security took my laptop the next time I came through customs. But apparently this is happening with increasing frequency and with no explanation and no requirement that it be returned in any reasonable period of time. Putting civil liberties and privacy issues aside, I’ve got a lot of valuable stuff on my laptop that I need for my business, not to mention family pictures and all the music I love to listen to while traveling. Plus, I’d have to go out and get a new laptop because I couldn’t be sure when I’d be getting the other one back – that would set me back $1500, not including the software that I’ve purchased.

So a word of caution for anyone traveling outside the US – back up your PC online. If you have Carbonite and you open your laptop in the Hong Kong airport, Carbonite will automatically back up the work you’ve been doing while you’re on the road. At least then you can be back in business quickly if your computer gets taken by our government on your return.

And if you’re really worried about the privacy of your files, encrypt them on your laptop (I wonder if they can force you to give them the key?) and when signing up for Carbonite, choose to keep your own encryption key. That way, if they come to us with a court order, all we’ll be able to turn over are your encrypted files. With the kind of encryption we use, these would be pretty useless without a huge effort. (But, if you choose to manage your own key, don’t lose it, because there’s no way to get your files back without it.)

Me personally, I’m going to write to my representatives. I don’t like the idea that the government can go on a fishing expedition on a US citizen without probable cause. It’s chilling!

David Friend posts online backup related articles in his corporate blog

September 05, 2008

By Daniel Frank

The move to digital photography has created both opportunities and challenges for photographers. While there is now the possibility to present clients with greater choice and selection due to the reduced cost of shooting digital, photographers must grapple with how to deliver and manage ever increasing numbers of large files. This article gives a quick overview of the key issues that photographers need to address when deciding how best to share files online with their clients.

1) Security: Hey, those aren’t my files!

All file sharing solutions emphasize security when it comes to physically safeguarding your files, that however is just the start. There must be a way to handle sharing among multiple clients where each client has access to their files and no others; this requirement is one good reason why FTP servers should be avoided. Security levels should be configurable by client; requiring the use of passwords can be a potential roadblock for clients the first time they use your solution, it’s therefore best to make password protection optional. Files must be automatically encrypted when uploaded or downloaded to ensure that nobody can snoop as to their contents.

2) Ease of use: this bar has a two click maximum

There are two points of view to take into account when you consider whether a file sharing solution is easy to use – yours and your clients. From either perspective the learning curve must be minimal. Requiring clients to signup or create an account in order to participate in sharing files with you should be viewed with caution. The process of sharing or receiving files should be straightforward and simple, hopefully wizards will provide step by step instructions and a few clicks of the mouse will be enough to receive and download shared files. A notification system that alerts you and your clients as to when files are shared, received or downloaded will help streamline jobs and avoid unnecessary follow up emails. The ultimate test for ease of use comes when you share files for the first time; if you run into problems chances are your clients will have similar issues on their end.

3) Cost: If it costs an arm and a leg how can you take a picture?

The days of paying large sums of money up front for software are thankfully coming to a close. Your file sharing solution should let you get started with no setup fees or at most a minimal one. The cost to you should reflect your usage; when you are busy it stands to reason you pay more, when you aren’t you pay less. The best way to achieve this mix is with a pay as you go system that bills you monthly (or quarterly) based on your actual usage. Avoid plans which require you to guess ahead of time how storage you will need, you will likely end up paying for storage you don’t use.

4) Collaboration: Let’s all work together

Sharing files online opens the door to a whole new way of collaborating with your clients and you should take full advantage. Clients should be able to browse online the files you share, this can help streamline the selection process and speed up your workflow significantly. At some point you will need to receive files from your clients (maybe feedback or a marked up image), your file sharing solution must seamlessly provide this functionality. Advanced features, such as tracking versions or revisions, should be available but forced upon you right from the start; after all you need to walk before you run.

5) Marketing: Put your best foot forward

Photography is a very competitive business, you need to constantly remind your clients of the great work you are doing for them. The ability to add your corporate branding to your account and have it prominently displayed is vital. Remember that when choosing a solution you need to carefully consider your needs as well as your clients’ needs. Ad supported (or supposedly “free”) file sharing solutions, which inconvenience and annoy your clients with banners or other forms of advertising roadblocks, can save you a little money up front but will lead to client dissatisfaction.

Conclusion

There are a multitude of file sharing solutions for the photographer available today thanks to the internet. When making your decision keep in mind the issues mentioned above. Ultimately your success as a photographer will be impacted, in either a positive or negative way, based on how you decide to share files with your clients.

======================

Daniel Frank is the President of Single Wrench Inc. (www.singlewrench.com). Single Wrench offers a file sharing solution that is secure, reliable and easy to use. Built to replace FTP servers, Single Wrench is designed to save you money while improving your network security.

August 19, 2008

Online Data Backup – Simpler than you ever thought
By Steven Rodin
President, Storagepipe

In case of a crisis, your medical practice’s data backup and recovery plan needs to be taken very seriously. Unfortunately, most medical facilities are woefully unprotected in this – one of the most critical IT areas.

In recent years, increases in U.S. regulatory mandates like HIPAA and the high cost of human resources continue to constrain physicians’ practices. If you combine those constraints with limited resources and daily growth of databases, a secure and reliable backup process becomes critical. Despite these growing concerns, many practices are still backing up their data manually on tape or disk in an unsecured manner.

According to a recent statement by the Realtime IT Compliance Community, there have been over 32,000 reports of complaint about HIPAA to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) within the past 5 years.

Now more than ever, it’s clear that physicians need to pay attention. Here are some things you need to know about data backup:

The biggest threat to my data is not a natural catastrophe, theft or fire.
Fires in California, hurricanes in the Gulf, and blizzards anywhere get the big news coverage, but the truth is that technology failure like crashed hard drives or operator error are the biggest threats to business data.

According to study by Carnegie Mellon University, your hard drive faces up to a 13% chance of failing within the next year. If you have multiple hard drives, the dangers can quickly multiply.

Solution – Backing up your data automatically, securely and off-site will protect your company from these major threats.

Regular backup processes does not protect from data loss.
Regular backup processes only have value when they are monitored and tested. The process may be performed but some files are skipped. Also, the backup media such as tape or CDs could become corrupted with time or the backup media could be lost.

Since time is money, speed of recovery is also important. You can’t afford to have paid staff and patients waiting hours or days for the data to recover. You need to provide your staff with instant access to critical files so they can get back to serving patients fast.

Solution – Check your backup regularly by retrieving files back to their original locations. This will confirm the correct files are being backed up and the data is indeed retrievable. Also, store the backup media offsite and make sure the data is appropriately encrypted.

Better yet, align your practice with a firm focused exclusively oin online data backup, storage and recovery.

With respect to your computer tech, he/ she likely does not have backup under control
Conversations with physicians and IT professionals reveal the best way for physicians to gain insight into their own backup is for them to check it themselves periodically.

One of our clients related how they had set up an automated backup process for their medical office. When she was called in to retrieve that data after a data disaster, she found that the file locations had been changed over time, rendering the backup useless.

Solution – Select a firm, knowledgeable with the medical business and their complex data backup and recovery requirements. Personally test the quality of the backup. Ask yourself: How quickly can I access the data? Is it in a usable format? Can you retrieve it in case the IT professional is not available?

Steven Rodin is President of Storagepipe and can be reached at steven.rodin@storagepipe.com

June 23, 2008

By Soren Overgaard

A few days ago I wrote a post on Mozy Inc.’s privacy policy (posted below). A Mozy Inc. employee then decided to go ahead and tell me that I “just don’t get it”. So, to determine whether Mozy Inc.’s draconian privacy policy is representative of online backup solutions, I decided to take a closer look at some of Mozys competitors’ privacy policies.

So, without further ado, a summary of online backup solution privacy goodness (again, I would like to remind you that I am not a lawyer, simply a concerned luser):

Carbonite

The Carbonite privacy policy looks a lot friendlier than Mozy’s. Carbonite distinguishes between …

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==========================

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Mozy, update

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June 04, 2008

Editor: A little girl helps her Mom with the dishes, and washes more than what Mom bargained for.

What would you do if your laptop ended up in this situation? Have you backed up all your files?

This short (21 seconds) video really reminds us all to backup all our important files.

Watch the “dish” at the end of the video.

Click here to read this Guide to Online backup

As our world becomes more digitized, the files we store on our computers are becoming increasingly more important. Instead of keeping handwritten letters in a shoebox, we correspond with family members using e-mail. If we use digital cameras, we often keep our photo albums on our computers.

Unfortunately, computers (and particularly the hard disk drives that hold your files) can fail. Your computer might run for a decade with no problems, or it could fail tomorrow—there’s no way to tell. To make sure you don’t lose important files if your computer stops working, you should back up your computer on a regular basis. The backup process copies your files to a safe place so that even if your computer fails, you won’t lose them.

By Desire Athow

Data backup is one of the most lucrative slices in the storage markets. Research Outfit IDC reckons that Online backup itself will be worth $715 million by 2011, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 33 percent

Backup is big business because more and more revolves around business service processes which generate a great amount of data and also due to legal requirements enacted by governments and regulating bodies compel businesses to keep track of every byte they produce.

Backup? What’s that?

Before planning for a backup plan, let’s make sure we actually understand what backup means. Wikipedia defines backup as “the copying of data so that these additional copies may be restored after a data loss event”.

People tend to confuse between backup and archiving and while similar, they are …

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As a storage manager, you have an increased responsibility of being able to efficiently protect your organization’s data no matter what. If somehow this data is stolen, lost or destroyed, the results will be catastrophic — not only in terms of lost customers and money, but the company’s reputation as a whole.

›› Continue reading White Paper: The Benefits of Online Backup

All third party online backup service providers will pretty much guarantee secure data protection for your business. You can expect 100% reliable backup and recovery for your business - computers and servers while eliminating the risks and burden of tape.

›› Continue reading Online Backup Services Explained

By Mamush Heayie, editor

Originally posted on October 01, 2004

Last updated February 13, 2008

With hundreds of companies offering seemingly the same service, choosing the best online backup provider could be challenging.

Prices and features vary quite widely from company to company; therefore an understanding of ones need is important.

›› Continue reading How Do I Choose the Best Online Backup Provider?

Creating backups of your data and files is a very important way of staying on top of disaster and missing data. Both small and large businesses, including individuals, always look towards a backup of information to keep them going in the face of disaster. Even though backups are a great way to keep your data safe and protected, there are some flaws with the traditional methods.

When you create backups of your data, you must store them somewhere where they cant be damaged or someone else can access them. For businesses, offsite backup is a well known and popular way to backup files. It offers you several different advantages when compared to other ways, such as CD, DVD, external hard drives, and even servers. One of the biggest advantages to offsite backup is the fact that the backups arent stored in your office or business.

Offsite backup companies store your data in state of the art safes, to protect them against fire, flood, and even prying eyes. This can be extremely beneficial if unexpected things have a habit of occurring around your office.

Another great thing about offsite backups are the fact that they can be used as stores for your data. You wont need to rely on online space, as you can easily go to the company who is storing your data and go through it anytime you wish. You can also use online space with most companies as well. You simply upload your data to their online storage area, then go back anytime you wish and view it. This is a very handy feature, similar to a hosting company.

Another benefit of offsite backup is the fact that your data will always be protected, and you wont have to use CD or DVDs to do it. CD and DVD storage is great for individuals, although there will be quite a bit of them for most businesses. This can get somewhat costly, but more importantly, it will use a lot of space to store the backup files. They can also become damaged or lost, unlike offsite backup storage.

Offsite storage is also great if your business is in a bad area. If Mother Nature has a habit of bashing your area with floods, fires, or hurricanes, you should look into offsite backup storage immediately. They have ways to protect your information from harm, including anything Mother Nature can dish out. There is no need to worry about natural disasters, system failures, hard drive crashes, or data failure with offsite backup storage.

Even though you may not realize it, the data will be available anytime you need it. Online backup services are available anytime, day or night, and can be accessed anywhere you are. Most are easy to set up, and offers you very impressive security measures. They are also fast and very efficient, which is great for those who need to access their files immediately.

When it comes to offsite backup, you can store virtually any file you need to, such as text files, e-books, contact record, pictures, music, and anything else you can think of. The storage for online backups are virtually endless, capable of storing everything you need.

All in all, offsite backup storage is ideal for any business or corporation. You can store your data with an online offsite backup, or choose to do it physically in an offsite safe. The choice is entirely up to you. No matter which method of offsite backup you choose - your data will always be protected, and best of all - it will always be there anytime you need it.

John Ugoshowa. You are welcome to use this article on your website or in your ezines as long as you have a link back to http://www.quickregister.net/partners/Adelino Blog30151

Online backup is the process of backing up your data offsite through the Internet.

›› Continue reading What is Online Backup?

Storage systems have been in use from ancient times. People have used boxes, trunks, filing cabinets, safety deposit boxes, computer serves, floppy disks, external drives and so on to store important personal and business data.

Safe storage now has new avatar online storage facilities that will securely store important information and protect the data from natural, physical, or mechanical disasters. Since the information in online storage systems is stored away from the home or business premises the security is multifold.

Online storage systems are both practical and cost effective ways of storing data. The files are stored after SSL encryption and this ensure protection of privacy. Files stored online can only be retrieved using a password and log in. Reputed storage is offered by Acpana, NovaStar Online Backup Service, connected Data Protector and Data Deposit Box.

When selecting an online storage system consider:

1. How much space you need and the frequency with which you will be accessing the stored information.

2. Find out what system the online storage facility uses. Check reliability of the system.

3. Find out whether they charge a fixed amount for storage or charge depending on the amount of space you actually use. Fixed costs are ideal for large storage but if your storage needs are 500MB or less then a pay per storage plan is more feasible.

4. Always comparison shop for an online storage solution. Compare prices as well as features.

5. Read through the terms and conditions carefully and always conduct a reliability check.

6. In case the online storage offers free storage for a limited period take up the offer as this will help you understand the system as well as its pros and cons.

All computer systems big or small should have a data protection plan in action. Ensure regular local back ups and a second back up in the form of an online storage facility. Log on to the World Wide Web and read unbiased reviews as well as expert tips on online storage facilities and its pros and cons. Always be an informed user of any system.

According to IT experts online storage solutions are superior to traditional back ups. The main advantage of an online back up system is that files can be accessed from anywhere. However to be effective the online back up system has to be understood and implemented properly. Whether or not online back up is cost effective for every individual depends on the amount of space needed. An important concern is of course security of the data files and whether the encryption process if efficient.

Before selecting an online storage system ask about: encryption methods and frequency; security measures and guarantees; whether only files that have been changed will be stored in back up or all files; how will data transfer take place and its regularity.

Choose an online storage facility that is most suited to your needs and cost effective.

January 18, 2008

Online File storage are provided by many vendor some of them are free and some of them are paid service. Storing all your data which is vital on the Internet and on the server is more beneficial. Whenever your PC or your system gets corrupted or your Operating System fails all your important data is lost. There are cases when your hard-drive stops working all of sudden or it crashes, at that moment of time you cannot retrieve your data, and your data is lost. For this solution you can USB flash drives and other sorts of thing, but online file storage is one of the safest, secure, virus-free service available.

Online File Storage

A file hosting service, online file storage service is an Internet hosting service specifically designed to host static content, typically large files that are not web pages. Typically they allow web and FTP access. They can be optimized for serving many users (as is implied by the term “hosting”) or be optimized for single-user storage (as is implied by the term “storage”).

Most online file storage services offer space on a per-gigabyte basis — some offer the service for free, relying on advertising revenue. Some services require a software download which makes files only available on computers which have that software installed. Some services allow users to retrieve files through any web browser. With the increased inbox space offered by webmail services, many users have started using their webmail service as an online drive. Some sites offer free unlimited file storage but have a limit on the file size.

Increasingly organizations are recognizing the benefits of collocating their mission-critical equipment within a data centre. Colocation is becoming popular because of the time and cost savings a company can realize as result of using shared data centre infrastructure. Significant benefits of scale (large power and mechanical systems) result in large colocation facilities, typically 50,000 to 100,000 square feet. With IT and communications facilities in safe, secure hands, telecommunications, internet, ASP and content providers, as well as enterprises, enjoy less latency and the freedom to focus on their core business.

Additionally, customers reduce their traffic back-haul costs and free up their internal networks for other uses. Moreover, by outsourcing network traffic to a colocation service provider with greater bandwidth capacity, web site access speeds should improve considerably.

Major types of colocation customers are:

• Web commerce companies, who use the facilities for a safe environment and cost-effective, redundant connections to the Internet

• Major enterprises, who use the facility for disaster avoidance, offsite data backup and business continuity

• Telecommunication companies, who use the facilities to interexchange traffic with other telecommunications companies and access to potential clients.

First of all, let’s define what I mean by online backup. Online backup is a method of offsite data storage in which files, folders, or the entire contents of a system are regularly backed up on a remote server or computer with a network connection. A number of companies provide online backup services for subscribers whose computers are connected to the Internet, automatically copying selected files to backup storage at the service provider’s data vault.

Six advantages of online backup services include:

›› Continue reading 6 Reasons for Online Backup

What’s the #1 catastrophe that can put your out of business? It’s not competition. It’s not the economy. It’s not even a fire, flood, or hurricane. It’s the almost-guaranteed failure of that little magnetic disk spinning away inside your computer. If you’re not prepared, you may be cooked.

›› Continue reading What’s the #1 Killer of Small Businesses?

Trusting important corporate or personal data to an online backup provider can be unsettling.

Typically, secure data backups have resided on local tapes, CD’s or floppies that stayed under one’s physical control. With online backup, the data is sitting in someone else’s server.

›› Continue reading How Secure Are Online Backup Services?

Insurance

The same way you buy life insurance for yourself, your family and your properties, you need to insure your data from unforeseen incidents, like: virus, theft of your computer, accidental human error, fire, flood, tornado, mud-slides, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane or other disasters.

›› Continue reading Why Do I Need Online Backup?

September 20, 2006

Online backup services are relatively new but they are gaining popularity at the speed of light. This is hardly surprising because the advantages they offer are really a lot and it does not require any technical skills in order to use online backup services.

What is Online Backup?

Online backup services are a variety of web hosting services, where you register with a provider and then you are given space on their server where you can store your data. This is the most basic form of an online backup service but almost always you have additional functionalities you can use, such as the ability to schedule when backups are to be performed and 1-click backup restoration. Many online backup providers offer real-time backup and/or backup of locked files or files in use as well. Generally you pay a small fee (could be in the single digits) per month and it gives you the right to use a couple of gygabytes on their server. Since prices are dropping all the time, it is possible to find offers for 20 or more GB for less than $10. In any case, the monthly fee you pay for online backup is just a small toll for the peace of mind you get in return because as you will see next, online backup services do have many advantages.

Why Should I Use Online Backup?

Online backup has many advantages and if you haven’t tried yet, you should do it. Online backup requires a fast Internet connection but since nowadays broadband access is becoming the norm, chances are that your connection is fast enough to accommodate all the traffic between the online backup server and your computer. In any case, if your broadband connection is still your bottleneck, you can resort to backing up only the most important 1-2GB of files (rather than your whole 500GB+ hard drive) and still enjoy the numerous benefits of online backups. Here are some good reasons why you should use online backup:

• With online backup your files are always accessible. File accessibility is one of the unbeatable advantages of online backup. When you store your backups locally (on your hard drive or in a drawer next to your desk), you can’t access them remotely. Online backup is another story – you can access your files remotely from any place, where an Internet connection is available.

• Online backup provides protection against hardware/software failures, theft and natural disasters. The second most important advantage of online backups is that your backups are physically safe. When you make a backup and you keep it on the same hard drive, this does not provide any protection because if your hardware and/or software becomes defunct, your backup dies together with your original data.

A step ahead is to keep your backups on CDs, DVDs or tapes instead on your hard drive but in case of theft or natural disasters, this provides no protection at all. There are many stories (for instance the disaster that happened to Mr. Coppola) when thieves or natural disasters deprive you of your backup and you lose the last copy of important documents.

While there is never a 100% guarantee that this will not happen with your online backup, the fact that online backup service providers employ rigorous practices to physically guard your backup (including a backup of the backup), the chance that your backup will be physically destroyed is one in a million.

• Online backup is more reliable than CDs, DVDs, tapes and other traditional backup media. Keeping your backup on CDs, DVDs and tapes is still more than nothing but compared to online backup it is a poor man’s choice. Even if you don’t get robbed, or hit by a fire, earthquake, hurricane and other natural disasters, CDs and DVDs are very easily destroyed. It is enough to scratch the surface or to drop it on the floor, and a CD/DVD is gone forever, together with your important data.

• Best Practices recommend data vaulting. Online backups are important for individuals but for businesses they can be vital. There are many Best Practices, which strongly recommend to make periodic backups and to store them in a physically protected space. In some cases you might not even have to decide whether your company should use data vaulting (this is the technical term for online or remote backups) because company regulations dictate you to do it.

• Online backup can provide real-time protection. Maybe you are not a bank or another institution for which real-time data protection is a must but in any case, the more recent your latest backup, the better. Many online backup providers offer real-time backup protection at no additional charge, so you should seriously consider using it.

• Online backup is secure. Probably one of the fears many people have in regards to online backup is that their data is exposed to risks when not under their control. Usually such fears have no grounds (unless you choose a really amateurish online backup service provider). On the contrary, online backups are very secure because they include traffic encryption and password protection of the stored file and in many cases secure file sharing (i.e. you can choose whom to share your backups with).

• Online backup is easy to use. Last but not least, comes ease of use. Most online backup services require just basic computer literacy in order to use them. Additionally, compared to onsite backups, there is less hassle when you have to restore the contents of the backup.

What to Look For When Choosing an Online Backup Provider?

As you see, online backup does have many advantages. But all these advantages can easily turn into disadvantages, if you choose the wrong provider. While many online backup service providers are professional, still it is possible to choose a bad one if you are not careful enough. Here are some things to consider while choosing an online backup provider:

• Reliability. Reliability is the single most important feature you should look for. If the online backup provider you choose is unreliable, this makes all other fancy features obsolete. All providers claim they are secure but you mustn’t believe it. Ask for recommendations from experts or ask your friends, acquaintances or business partners if they can recommend you a reliable provider.

• Security. In addition to reliability, security is also of paramount importance. Check at least if your would-be provider uses encryption and password protection.

• Free trials. Check if your would-be provider offers free trials. A free trial can give you a real-life impression of what the service is like and if it is easy to use.

• Price. As already mentioned, the prices of online backup services are constantly decreasing, so price becomes less of an issue, especially for corporate users. Choosing the most expensive package is hardly a guarantee for incredible service, so, all equal, choose a cheaper package, unless it is ridiculously cheap and you suspect this service is not reliable.

• Backup frequency. For corporate users it is a must that backups are performed real-time, or at least once a day but even for personal users it does matter how often backups are performed. Again, the smaller the interval, the better. You can also ask if incremental backups are possible because if incremental backups are possible, you must backup only the files that have been changed since the last backup instead of all the files. This saves time and effort, though sometimes it is riskier than a full backup.

• Storage space. If you want to backup only some of your files, then you don’t need many GB of storage space. Still, the more GBs of space your online backup provider offers, the better.

Introduction

A Harris Poll of senior executives in Fortune 1000 firms this summer found:

• After the wake-up call of 9/11, one-third of executives admitted their companies were still no more prepared than they were that day.
• Also, 40 percent of the executives fear that only a handful of their employees (less than 10 percent) even know what to do to recover data and get their businesses running again in the event of a catastrophe.
• One in three companies are operating today without a formal disaster recovery plan.
• Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of the companies surveyed also admitted that their data backup and disaster recovery plans have “significant vulnerabilities,” according to the poll.
• One third of the companies with a formal plan reported they don’t test it regularly, and two-thirds said they do not conduct regular external audits of their data storage and backup systems either.

Yikes, if that’s the scenario in big businesses with lots of resources and staff, what do you suppose is happening in small and SOHO businesses?

›› Continue reading What All Small Business Owners (and Individuals!) Need to Know About Backing Up Data

“If you don’t have a backup plan to cope with a hard drive disaster, you’re living dangerously. Our survey helps you devise the right strategy, whether it involves a tape drive, a CD-RW or DVD-RAM drive, or an online backup service.”
- Stan Miastkowski, from the October 2000 issue of PC World magazine

Chances are you don’t think much about your PC’s hard drive, but what would you do without the precious data it holds? Your financial records, your appointment calendar, and maybe that multimegabyte, ticket-out-of-middle-management side project you’ve been working on for years — all stored as billions of magnetic, microscopic points on metal platters spinning at thousands of revolutions per minute.

›› Continue reading Hassle-Free Backups