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Suffering a computer or hard drive crash is a nightmare most of us do not even want to contemplate. Our computers store our most valuable ideas, family memories and financial data. The very thought of losing items such as digital photos, income tax data, school homework assignments, business reports and so on can make you sick at the stomach.

The best way to provide yourself with peace-of-mind is to have a solid data backup system in place. This can be as simple as backing up your files to DVD or an external hard drive. A better option that works for you is to use software services that back your data up on the Internet.

These services, called online backup services, allow you to save your valuable data off-site conveniently, safely, and on a schedule, protecting your resources for a reasonable price. For as cheap as five bucks a month or so, you can backup all your precious files to a remote computer.

These backup sites works very simply. Instead of storing your backup files on local media, such as a server or DVD, you simply send your encrypted data over the internet to another computer at another location, and this other computer acts as your remote backup. Then, should you lose a file, you just connect to that remote computer and restore it.

In addition, those backup computers are, themselves, backed up regularly so you get, in effect, multiple off-site backups.

There are two main types of backup services: those offering software-based backups and those offering web-based ones.

Software-based backup requires you to install backup software on your computers. Using this software, you connect to the backup service, choose the files you want backed up, then transfer them over the Internet to the remote backup. While you can install this software on as many computers as you want, you need it to access your data so, if you are trying to access the data from another location or a new computer, you will need to install the software there. The upside of this type of backup service is that you generally can back up more files as you generally get more storage space.

Web-based backup services require no software on your computer other than a web browser. You use the backup service's website to choose what files to transfer and when. The upside is that you can access these backed-up files from many computer, not just from ones that have the backup software on them.

There are numerous benefits to data backup services online, including the fact that someone else does all the work, maintains all the backup equipment and media, and manages all the storage. The process can be made completely automatic and is simple to manage, requiring no fancy computer skills.

Online data backup services offer you the most convenient way to back up your files without having to remember to do it on a regular basis. These services are typically extremely easy-to-use and are recommended by many of today's top computer and Internet related magazines.