Web-based Backup

Overview Whether you are a casual home computer user or use your computer for business, data loss is a tragic experience. This situation can occur if your data has not been backed up and the original data is damaged, erased, or otherwise "lost". Web-based backup may be the backup tool that you need to save you from the hassle of losing your files. Web backup isn't for everyone, though. Slow Internet connections and high online storage costs sometimes limit the amount of data that can be realistically backed up via the Web. However, as low-cost high speed Internet connections become more available and on-line storage prices decrease, Web-based backup is becoming more and more popular. For your Web-based backup needs, both commercial backup sites and free, or low cost, backup services can be found online.  

General Information Backing up your files is always a good idea. At some time you will probably experience the loss of your data. Even if you do back up your work often, the threat of power surges, data corruption, accidental deletion, and even natural disasters can all threaten the security of your files. Web-based backup (also known as an “edrive”) helps to prevent these problems by storing your data on a remote server. A Web-based backup offers different organizational and access features as well as data encryption for added security. One good site that provides a wide array of information about online backup is free-backup.info/brief-overview-of-online-backup.html. Here you can find links to other Web-based backup sites and current articles. Visit this Business.com page to view numerous "Virtual Disk Drive" sites that provide Web-based backup systems.  

Online Backup Web Sites Web-based backup sites have been around for several years, but the real explosion came in 1999 and 2000 when both the number and variety of on-line backup and file storage serves increased dramatically. Many of these services were offered free of charge. However, due to poor marketing and ineffective advertising schemes, many of the free and low-cost sites have disappeared. Today, many commercial Web-based backup sites are in operation. They offer features such as data organization, automatic backups, a wide variety of data access options, and a large storage space. Additionally, many of these sites gear their services toward a specific type of user, often a business and its employees. The following list of links provides only a small fraction of the number of commercial Web-based backup sites that are found on the Internet today. 

• www.backjack.com
• www.ibackup.org
• www.systemrestore.com
• www.xdrive.com
• www.filesanywhere.com

Additional Links Free Web-based backup sites are still available on the Internet. For example, this site offers a free file hosting system  which gives users up to 500 MB of storage space with unlimited bandwidth. The site www.myfilestash.com offers a similar service, also with 25 MB of free storage space. Another Web-based file storage site, www.storagesearch.com/edrives.html  provides users with information on online backup companies, including file storage and image hosting for free.  

On a different note, Liane Gouthro has written an interesting article about wireless access to Web-based storage space entitled “Web-Based Storage Goes Wireless".