With the ephemeral nature of the average hard drive coupled with rampant viruses, hard drive crashes are common. It’s a good thing, however, that file backups no longer require complicated CDs or external drives. CDs and external hard drive back-ups consume large amounts of time. Backups were usually an occasional event. The latest version of any file has a high likelihood of being lost in the event of a main hard drive crash. Online backup services, however, offer automatic or scheduled online backup subscriptions, with limited user interaction.
Some of these companies have free basic accounts, others opt for higher-end business services. Nearly all have proprietary software. An online backup comparison isn’t easy, since many of the companies offer very similar services. They also have equal levels of security.
One of the earliest such companies, mozy.com, doesn’t offer a free basic but does have a very reasonable basic account that is much bigger than most of the freebies. The next step-up account is equally reasonable with a mid-level price range. More storage is available at a small additional fee. Their software is available in Mac and Windows. Mozy also offers mobile apps.
Dropbox offers a permanent 2 GB free subscription. Paid subscriptions run from 50 to 100 GB. Dropbox offers manually set bandwidth limits so there will be no problems at high use times. Only the portion of the file that is changed is saved. Software is available in Windows and Mac. Mobile apps are also available.
An online backup comparison wouldn’t be complete without the Amazon Cloud Drive, though the service still doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. It seems to be primarily directed at MP3 storage customers. There is a free basic account available. From there, subscriptions range widely up to 1000 GB, which seems to indicate a business customer outreach.
Elephant Drive has been around a while. Both home and business users are offered free trials. Both subscriptions convert to paid accounts. Software is available in Windows and Mac. Mobile apps aren’t mentioned but are almost always available.
Most of these online backup services offer the same essential important features including high-grade security levels. There are variations by specialization, of course. A choice of an online backup subscription company will be a very individual choice. Happily, there are many choices available.
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