On the face of it, subscribing to a cloud backup service as a means of storing your computer data is a great idea.
Such a service allows automatically save copies of files on your hard drive, encrypts them for security purposes and upload them to offsite servers.
When a subscriber desires to retrieve the information, he accesses the data server via the internet with his login credentials.
The server then either send the files back to his computer or allows the subscriber to access or add files on the server itself.
Plus he can easily share those files with friends or colleagues from various computers or mobile devices.
If the subscriber's house is burglarized or destroyed in a fire, he could rest easy knowing that his files are safely stored off-site.
So far, so good.
However, there are other factors to consider before using a cloud backup solution as the sole means to backing up computer data: i.
Some services allow users to have files or folders on scheduled backups so that any changes to those files are automatically backed up.
However, the act of continually backing up data will result in greater resources usage and could slow down one's computer.
ii.
You could lose your data if the cloud backup service deleted it by accident or on purpose because you did not pay your subscription.
If your data became corrupted, this could also result in loss.
Even worse would be the potential for data loss should a backup provider go through software changes or go bust.
Thousands of paying customers would lose their data.
Canadian freelance photographer Ryan Pyle lost thousands of digital photos when Digital Railroad abruptly closed down in October 2008.
Many customers were also adversely affected when Streamload closed down.
As a precaution, complement cloud backup with an onsite device for storing data such as an external hard drive (EHD) or CD-R discs.
iii.
Having data stored on multiple datacenters across the globe is a great security feature of some online storage providers.
But in some situations, where the data is stored may not make any practical difference.
Under the terms of the Patriot Act, the American government can get access to data that is stored by a US company.
Ditto for a company that does business in America - even if that company is a European one.
You may decide to join an online backup service in a country that wouldn't be required or willing to give your data to the American government - say a company in China or Russia.
However, would this be a satisfactory solution? iv.
Large files can take a long time to upload to the cloud and to restore to your computer if the need arises.
It's much faster to restore data from an external hard drive to your computer.
If your hard drive crashes, you could use a restore partition, if available, or a drive image, after booting Windows from a recovery CD, DVD or thumb drive.
Using these methods would likely recover your data faster than recovering it from an online storage service.
v.
There are a plethora of cloud storage services available and consequently, many offer very competitive prices.
For as low as $8 per month or $96 per year, you can get 75 GB of online storage - lower too if you prepay for a year or two.
Considering that my PC's hard drive is 29 GB (gigabyte) and I 'm only using 50% of it after 5 years, 75 GB of online storage is more than adequate for me.
However, when you consider that with $100, you could buy a 2 TB (terabyte) external hard drive, you realize that paying for a cloud storage service over years will add up.
For that sort of money, could buy several TBs of hard drive storage.
To put things in perspective, 1 TB = 1024 GB.
Whether you back up in the cloud or with an external hard drive is a matter of personal taste.
But for maximum accessibility and protection, use both methods as they do complement each other well.