By Marty Rocha

Tech & Business Editor, SNSPost

As the owner of an IT Consulting firm that provides technical support to hundreds of computer users across the Chicago area, I seem to have amassed a large amount of technical know-how, tricks, shortcuts, and ways to make using your computer on a day-to-day basis easier and less repetitive.

Last week I discussed how to (relatively) easily recover your Mac or PC from a hard drive failure using the powerful, built-in backup software.  This week, I’m going to take it a step further and discuss online, cloud-based backups, such as MozyPro or Carbonite.

I like to think of online backups as a “supplement” to any on-site backups I create.  Sure, this may seem redundant, but there this is by design.  It takes your backup scheme a step further by covering your ass should you A) Lose your computer, B) Lose your backup drive, C) Both get stolen, D) Your business or home suffers from a fire destroying all hardware, E) etc.  BUT, there are some limitations as to what can be backed up, how much can be backed up, and when it can be backed –  which is why I consider it a supplement.

First and foremost, I’ll discuss security and how online backups keep your data secure from prying eyes.  When you data is backed up to an online service, it is “encrypted” before it’s uploaded to your service’s data centers.  Most online services will have 2 or more data centers within the USA that house your data, redundantely – meaning that if one of their data centers are blown off the face of the earth, your stuff is still safe.  Encryption is used to make your data completely scrambled all the way up to where it’s stored, and can only be unscrabled by you or the Online Service.  This makes it nearly impossible to be intercepted and used by hackers.

Now, on to the limitations:

Your first limitation is that you can only backup certain types of files, and not a system Snapshot.  Usually these file types are limited to Documents, Pictures, Music, Movies, etc.  None of your Windows or Mac Operating System files can be backed up.  This is great for ever so important data files, but you will be stuck re-installing your operating system from scratch, re-installing and reconfiguring all of your applications, and go through the nightmare of reconfiguring, resetting, updating and all those other tasks that make recovering from a computer disaster take DAYS if this is the only method of backup you choose.

The next limitation is your internet connection.  If you have a slow connection such as DSL, a modem or Satellite, and have a large amount of data, your initial backup may take days or weeks.  In order to save time after the initial backup, only data that is new or has been changed is backed up in preceding backups, and this is done automatically.  Unfortunately, this is where I see a lot of online backup services fail.   While it’s mostly automatic, you do need to check on it on a regular basis – this service will be useless to you if you run into connectivity problems, or your connection is just too slow.  Nothing worse than going to restore a file, and realizing it never got backed up because it never got a chance to.

Because of the speed limitations, Most online backup services will only perform a backup once or twice a week.  Therefore, they will never be as current as your onsite backups.

When it comes time to restore, you’ll also find that an online service can take days to restore your data.    Once your computer has been re-built from the OS DVD, and you are online, restoring is usually as easy as downloading your online backups service’s software, logging on, and selecting files for restore.  That is always why it’s better to restore from your onsite backups first.

Online backup services have different pricing schemes.  Carbonite’s services are offered at a flat rate of $50 per year, while MozyPro’s pricing is based on how much data you have backed up.  This can get costly if you have a lot data.

Most online backup services have a retention policy of 30 days for each backup.  This usually gives sufficient enough time to go back and get data.  Your onsite backups usually retain the backups until there is no more space left on the backup drive, at which point it starts to recycle the oldest.

Apple recently released their iCloud service, which allows you to back up your data and automatically sync it to your other Apple Devices, including your iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc.  The software service is free for up to 5 GB of data, and after that you can purchase more space at a rate of 10 GB for $20/year, 20GB for $40/year, and 50GB for $100/year.   As an alternative, to iCloud, Amazon.com released a very similiar service called CloudDrive, with similiar pricing, but has more storage options.   The service works with both Mac and PC, but it does suffer from the same limitations as other online backup services, so you should not rely on it soley for backups.

With these limitations, you can see why I prefer to have an online backup service as a supplement to your onsite backups.  It is there to cover you in the face of the ultimate data loss disaster, but is not robust enough to keep as your only backup.  But, when combined with an onsite solution such as the ones discussed in last weeks article, you can be assured that you can recover from anything!

Please feel free to email me with any questions, comments or suggestions!  marty@snspost.com