Importance Of Using Cloud Backup Services For Your Home

If your idea of a backup plan for your home computer or personal laptop is copying important files to a thumb drive attached to a key ring along with your car and house keys, your data is probably at risk. Backing up data to local storage media, such as that thumb drive you’ve been using, protects it until the storage media is lost or damaged and your backed up data is gone. Making cloud back up services part of your backup plan adds another layer of protection to ensure the safety of your computer’s data. There is a reason why the workloads of 83% of global enterprises are expected to be cloud-based within a year and why the U.S. Department of Defense has adopted cloud computing technology.

Protecting Data: What Could Go Wrong?

Backing up the data on your home computer or laptop to an internal hard drive might appear to be safe until a virus corrupts your hard drive and you lose all of your data along with anything you might have backed up to it. The harsh reality is that backing up your computer to its internal hard drive defeats the purpose of storing data.

Backing up your data provides you with a source from which to retrieve it in the event data is lost from your computer. Common occurrences leading to data loss or corruption include the following:

• Viruses and malware
• Physical damage caused by accidents or natural disasters
• Equipment failure or malfunction
• Theft

Laptops are particularly vulnerable to being lost or stolen along with the files, programs and other data stored on them. Backing up your files, programs, and other data gives you the ability to restore all or part of the data you lost, but this option is lost if the storage source for your data is your computer’s hard drive.

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Why Is It Important To Protect Your Home Computers?

It is not only business owners who must be concerned about losing data from their computer. Think about all of the personal photographs and videos, many of which probably could never be recreated, stored on your home computer. Backing them up along operating systems, programs and other data ensures they will be available for retrieval in the event they are lost from your computer.

Cloud Backup Or Local Storage

Local storage refers to any hardware you have near your computer and used to store data you backup from it. Common examples of local storage media include:

• External hard drives
• Flash or thumb drives
• Discs

Local storage media tends to be simple to use, inexpensive and keeps the data you back up within your possession and control. Be aware that relying on local storage media as your only backup source has its drawbacks because they can be stolen, damaged or lost. A fire in your home that damages your computer would probably also destroy the external hard drive sitting on the desk next to it.

Cloud back up provides a reliable, offsite backup for your computer data. Cloud-based storage allows you to upload the data from your home computer to servers owned by third-party providers by using the internet. Storage of your data away from your home avoids the risks inherent with local storage media.

The data stored using cloud back up is readily accessible from any location as long as you have an internet connection. This offers a tremendous advantage over other forms of data storage, including thumb drives and external hard drives, which might not be accessible to you when you need to back up your computer.

An ideal backup plan combines the use of cloud back up with at least one type of local storage. For additional protection of backed up data, keep an additional local storage media containing your data at a location away from your home.

Before Making A Decision Between Local And Cloud Storage

External hard drives, flash drives, and discs have an initial cost associated with acquiring them. Bear in mind that local storage options have maximum storage capacities associated with them, so when you reach your thumb drive’s maximum capacity, you will have to purchase one with more storage to replace it.

Although some cloud back up services offer free monthly subscriptions, what you get is a very limited amount of storage capacity that most people use up before they have finished uploading all of their photos and videos. Paid services charge a monthly or annual fee for their cloud storage, but you can increase the storage capacity at any time simply by upgrading your plan.

Cloud back up services, such as Acronis, CrashPlan, iDrive, Carbonite, and Arcserve offer continuous backup as new data becomes available. This eliminates the need to remember to back up your data as must be done with some forms of local storage options. It also helps ensure that irreplaceable family memories and important data is preserved and ready for use when needed to restore your computer.

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