11 Questions for Your Online Backup Service
There are many online data backup vendors available on the internet, and more coming on board by the day it seems. If you have read our reviews or subscribe to our newsletter you will be aware that not all providers are created equal. Many offer robust, sophisticated backup tools appropriate for protecting critical business or personal data from disaster while others fancy eye candy and unnecessary bells and whistles to get you on board. Unfortunately, there are bad apples in every bunch and a large number of lower cost solutions are cutting important corners in favor of economics these days. Before you trust an online backup service with your vital data, it is critical for you to understand what features are available and how important these may be to you.
Lets start with how secure is your data:
1. Does your online backup service use encryption when you transfer and they store your data?
Even though most services use encryption to safeguard your data as it travels the Internet, many do not use encryption when they store your data on their servers. Yeah that’s right, in fact some even state in their terms of service that encrypting your data is not permissible. Huh? In fact, for resources preservation they are counting that many people will store the same files, so they don’t have to back up the same file more than once. If someone else accesses that file, they could be giving them access to one of your files instead. Probably not a big deal if you’re just saving MP3 music or video files, but wouldn’t you prefer your personal information, say like passwords or financial information, be kept private and secure? Yikes!
2. How easy is their software to install? Do you need to hire outside help or get your brother-in-law to install and maintain your backup software?
Most online backup services are designed to be used by professional IT folks. Some of these services require intimate knowledge of Windows/Mac in order to make a backup. A couple great examples; did you know that your Microsoft Outlook email file is stored in a hidden folder multiple levels deep in your PC? Or your iTunes music is likely stored in your My Documents Music folder which can be tricky to find using your backup service software. If you didn’t know these then you may have a difficult time backing it up.
3. Does your online backup service keep multiple versions of files (versioning)?
To keep storage costs down, a lot of backup services keep only a single copy of each file. On the surface this might seem fine to you. However, if we dig a little deeper though, what would happen if some of your critical files got corrupted by a virus and you failed to notice until after your most recent backup? Yes, that’s right you just overwrote the good file with the bad. Ouch! This could be an interesting proposition when it comes time to recover.
4. Does your backup service update the whole file every time it changes?
Backup services lacking versioning features need to back up the whole file each time it changes. This is not so cumbersome for smaller files like Word documents, but backing up your entire mail file every time you get new mail is not feasible (or possibly databases). If your mail file is large (250 MB plus is not unusual), it could take many hours to back up just that one file. If you get new email message during that period, will backup start all over? Good question. Many services handle this issue by backing up nightly or worse only weekly. If disaster shows it’s ugly head, how much new email would you lose since the last time your backup ran? Well some services deal with this by not backing up your email at all. Be careful on this one.
5. Is your online backup continuous (syncing service)? Or does your online backup service only back up files when you tell it to (scheduled)?
To be considered an adequate backup solution, it is not enough to simply have an online storage repository on the internet. Periodically/randomly pushing your files up to your online storage will only work if you are fortunate enough to do so just prior to your PC dying. Our luck is not that fortunate, is yours? Keep in mind even if your online backup service has a scheduled backup agent that runs say weekly, how much data would you loose since the last point it ran?
6. What happens if your internet connection is interrupted, drops or you unplug your laptop to dash off to work?
Many online backup services work just like old tape backup software. The back up software looks for all the files that need to be backed up, and then transports everything as one big hunk of data. There could be a substantial issue here since most internet connections aren’t actually all that good at transferring big hunks of data all at one time. If your connection gets interrupted, or your service just fails to receive an a small chunk of data, many backups will fail and you would have to start over. Certainly not fun and is not going to work if you are using a laptop.
7. Will your online backup service delete files without asking?
Some backup services try to keep costs down by automatically deleting files that are no longer on your PC. From a cost perspective this seems nice, but lets think about this a bit. Well, ah, lets see, accidental deletion (user error) is probably the biggest reasons why individuals lose their files to begin with. That’s enough on that one.
8. How easy is it to access your data?
Will you be able to access your data remotely or through a browser? Some of the lower cost services will only allow you to access your files from the PC that backed them up. So potentially to restore them to another computer may require that you sign up that other PC for a new separate plan. We find that browser based access can really come in handy for sharing your own files while out on the road. Some services even allow you to share your files with others, secured of course please.
9. If you are having trouble restoring your data will your service provide you with a hard copy of your back up data?
Believe it or not in some cases a restore may not occur remotely; think disaster. In those cases you may need to ask the company for a hard copy of your data on CD’s, or other means, to recapture that information. Question is will your online backup service provide you a hard copy of your data if necessary, and if so for how much? If that information is not clearly stated your data could be up for ransom.
10. Does your online backup service charge you for every machine/device you back up? Can you back up multiple PCs, servers, or networks?
Much online backup pricing is based on a single device. If they state you can back up your PC for $7/month, they might really mean you can back up only that one PC for $7/month. If you want to back up more PCs or devices, that will cost another $7 for each additional device. Just be aware, what initially looked like a nice deal is often less interesting when it exceeds $30-40/month or more. We mention device rather than PC for a reason, many services also put restrictions on the types of devices you can back up. They may likely require more expensive pricing for a server, or they may not allow you to back up shared network drives or external hard drives. Can’t backup your backup external drive, that definitely would not work for us.
11. Is their rate plan excessively complex? What happens if you exceed your storage limit? Does your online backup service require you purchase more storage than you need?
Pricing for most online backup plans are based on increments of storage, so if you pay $7/month you can potentially store say up to 10GB. You then try to back up the 10.001th GB; the backup will fail and you will need to either delete various data or upgrade your plan. Be cautious here, to upgrade your storage plan, some services may require you to download and reinstall new software. Keep in mind if you have more than one PC this could become quite a juggling act. You may need to figure out how much storage each PC requires individually and deal with each plan separately. Each time a PC fills up its plan, you will have to go through this process again. If you are like us you are purchasing an online backup service as insurance and for piece of mind not for more hassles. I know we are not skilled jugglers (terrible), and definitely not what we were looking for in our online backup service.
We hope you use these 11 questions wisely to assist you in choosing your online backup service. The Online Backup Guru is your source for online backup information, reviews, and tips and tricks to keep your computer running smoothly and your data safe. Remember backing up your computer is like changing the oil on your car.
