Is your saved data, safe?

Information stored on hard disk of your computer is one of the most important assets nowadays. It is really important for you to backup drives, to save it from being corrupt and lost in cyber black holes. Local backup is a good practice but it cannot handle complex situations like calamities like fire and flood. Increasing cyber-crimes have further added complexity to the life and an unfortunate moment leaves you empty-handed. To avoid such situation online backups are preferred.
In my last article I have discussed about, how you can transfer big files over web and facilitate online collaboration. Other method to do this is to take online backup and share password among team. This has two benefits -

1) Information is never lost
2) It's really easy to share data.

How to back up?

Various software backup utilities are available and you can make good use of them, in-fact best one’s are inexpensive (free storage) or charge a very nominal amount and won't noticeably slow down your PC.

Best backup applications

There are several free online backup utilities available and all are good in some or the other way, I myself tested some of the applications and the preferred ones are listed below –

Mozy Home Online Backup is an automated online-backup service that gives 2 GB of free online storage space, enough to preserve all of the most critical files (word and excel files, financial records, bookmarks, outlook data and similar stuff). With Mozy you should avoid image backup or MP3 collection, as 2GB space might not be enough for that. MozyPro is also available at $4.95 per month to get unlimited data backup online. Mozy is compatible with Windows and Mac systems.

Carbonite Online PC Backup is simple and affordable. Once set, it will automatically backup all the data on your PC. But restoring a lot of data to a different PC presented some obstacles.

HP Upline (now discontinued) was easy to use and reasonably priced. It allowed media backup and file sharing but it lack some features like version saving, open-file backup, and ability to resume interrupted file uploads.

IDrive is slightly complex (more confusing) than any other online free backup service but partly redeems itself with quick uploading and many extra features not found elsewhere.

SOS Online Backup is both simple to use and powerful. Utility gives more technically inclined and impressively powerful set of features to play with. SOS backup the full set of files once and there after does incremental backups.

How secure is my data?

In general, data is encrypted at all stages while transferring it to servers, however different backup utilities employ different level of security levels. SOS Online Backup, for example, encrypts your data locally and then encrypts it again on the server—it can even scatter your data among several servers and file synchronization happens at the time of data recovery. Others, Carbonite goes so far as to give you the option of being the only keeper of the decryption key.
Beware; if password is lost, data cannot be tracked back.

What if I uploaded damaged file?

Most of the services keep copies of your files, from each backup upload session—handy. If accidentally you have backed up a corrupted version of a file, best services shows you each version file, numbered and dated in a right-click menu or in the program's interface. MozyHome, makes you pick through dates of the entire backup session. Most of the services keep versions only for a specified period of time, but SOS claims it never deletes them.

Getting the Data Back (data sharing)

Restoring data to a PC other than the one it originally came from... really separates the men from the boys. Carbonite, for one, fell down in this regard. It did eventually get the job done, but not nearly as easily as I'd like. Security comes into play here, too. Carbonite had an airtight security policy of requiring a download of the software in order to restore, so that decryption takes place only on my premises, not theirs. MozyHome, on the other hand, allows downloading an unencrypted ZIP file of entire backup. SOS leads the pack in restoration, making the process both simple and secure.

Recommendation

It's really difficult to cherry pick one of the service among so many available freely.  I found SOS Online Backup to be a clear winner and value pack among all of them, differentiation lies in ease of setup, use and seamless data recovery.
Again as I always write, this list is not exhaustive… I’m sure there are plenty more applications! Feel free to share them.

What all modes and services you use for your data backup?
- Local hard disk backup
- Ftp file hosting and online backup… which application you, employ for your use?