Review of On-line Back-up & Recovery Services

You are going to lose data sometime or the other unless you are prepared and arranged for proper back-up and recovery. The question is never if you’ll los data but when. Most often mechanical failure or human error can be blamed for data loss. Software bugs, viruses and natural calamities have correspondingly smaller probabilities of destroying your data. In a business scenario, deliberate acts of disgruntled employees could be a major reason. Theft of your machine or the hard disks also can lead to the problem. Hackers can steal valuable data if you are open to security breaches. Regular backups can help you get back to the point where most of the lost data can be restored. If the back up is done continuously and incrementally, you can probably save most of the data prior to the disaster striking you. Back up to a remote location is also one of the safest as natural and other disasters can affect all the machines in a given location.

While this is such a vital activity, it is possible one of the most neglected. Only solution seems to be if the back up is automatic without requiring any intervention from the user.

Several services have come up that strive to provide this ideal in a subscription based model. Additional benefit is that in exchange of this subscription, you do not have to invest in anything extra, not a single disk or media even. All you need is an internet connection. Depending on the type of service, it may need to be a always on connection. The ones that are not always on, usually need some user intervention. By storing data on a remote machine, possibly a remote data center, additional benefits you derive are that the data is available from anywhere in the world. If you travel a lot, this a convenience which is quite useful. Variations in services are many but fall in a few broad classes. The first type is you download a batch uploader from the service provider and keep uploading your files. You can usually have on-line access and manage the organization of the files/folders. Come time for a restore, for whatever reason, you can simply download a specific files or the whole lot, if required. Similar features, but through the browser access, is another variation on the theme. A particularly convenient form is the services just require an Internet connection, whenever there is a connection on, it will do a back up of the identified files. An interface is provided for restore. This is truly hands-free service. Once set up there is nothing that a user needs to do.

There is a range of services available. The mention of a service here does not necessarily mean endorsement of it but as a representative service. Also by no means it is a complete list. You should look at the service offerings and judge the cost benefits for your specific situation. In general though, for individuals, home offices and SMB businesses this is one of the most effective means of protecting you data assets.

Well known brands such as Dell and HP provide these services in the form of Dell’s Data Safe and HP’s Upline services. HP service has since been discontinud last quarter of this year. Well known provider of the Zip software provides the Carbonite services. Mozy is a similar service. Spare Backup Inc is a company that was started to address this space only and over the years have stabilized to a quality service. KeepIT, iDrive, Data Deposit Box , SwapDrive and Memopal as also F-Secure are some more representative services available. SwaoDrive has since become a Norton/ Symantec company. There are whole lot of other services available that are file repositories really speaking. You have to ensure that the repository has the latest back up copies. Their main reason for existence is for file sharing and as download services. They are remote and has the advantages of remote services. Recovery is as effective as any of the other services mentioned earlier.

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