FAQ: The Best Online Storage and Offsite Backup
What is the best online storage option for me?
Offsite backup provide remote backup solutions to individuals and businesses wishing to maintain a secure backup for some or all of their computer files to protect them in the event of accidental loss. The best online storage solution for you will depend on a number of factors, including the number of computers you use, the maximum file size and the number of and the total storage space you require of your offsite backup provider. There is more detailed information on finding the best online storage right here on this site.
How can computer data get lost?
Easy:
- By fire, flood, or other natural disaster
- From viruses, worms, hackers, malware, and other online threats
- Through over-fragmentation, system overload, hard drive crash, or other common computer problems
- By accidental deletion or uninstall, improper transfer, or other human error
Having offsite backup and the best online storage service can cover your back in any of these cases.
But isn’t offsite backup conducted over the Internet? Won’t even the best online storage solutions expose my files to greater risk?
Most offsite backup services perform secure remote backups to the highest security standards around. Any data you remote backup is transferred to and from the best online storage company’s servers encrypted with at least 128-bit SSL encryption technology. And all offsite backups are usually stored on these servers using even higher security protocols, compliant with the most stringent government regulations. Some of the best online storage services are even backed up again and distributed to secure servers in state-of-the-art data centres in multiple geographic locations.
How much will offsite backup slow down my computer?
Potentially not at all, as the best online storage services use software that intelligently conduct offsite backup while the computer is idle. Some of the best online storage services also give you control over allocating bandwidth designated for your work or for offsite backup (sometimes called a bandwidth throttle), which conducts remote backups in the background while you work, but only at a rate that doesn’t consume the bandwidth you need to efficiently perform your online duties. The best online storage solution for you will never slow you down – though it will make you rest easy.
How hard is it to use an offsite backup service to perform a remote backup?
It takes no time at all, once you’ve set up your system, because the best online storage and offsite backup services conduct most remote backups for you automatically. Once you set the parameters and schedule for your offsite backup, the best online storage services handle it all from there, leaving you free to focus on whatever is most demanding of your attention.
Still, won’t it take forever for the offsite backup to store all the data on my hard drive?
Yes, if you weren’t using the best online storage option and were to offsite backup your entire hard drive each time. But chances are you won’t. What most people (and businesses) do is conduct an initial offsite backup of their entire system when they first use an offsite backup service. After that first, lengthy but comprehensive procedure, your best online storage service can use a feature like block-level backups or continuous data protection or incremental backups to detect changes to files and folders in your account (be they additions or edits) and does an offsite backup of just those altered elements.
View our list of the Top Online Backup Providers