An Online Backup Could Save Your Butt

In a pique of responsibility I recently bought a new ide/sata to usb converter. For those of you who aren’t geeks, that means a small device that allows me to use a fairly wide range of old hard drives to connect to my computer through the USB port. One of my computers did not have a backup drive in it and I thought the converter would be an easy and cheap solution since I have a bunch of old hard drives. I fired it all up, saw the external USB drive and immediately got the black screen of death and my internal hard drive wheezed to a stop. It could be serendipity, coincidence, a short through the USB cable to my computer or karma but whatever it was, that computer is now stone dead. I have not yet taken the time to trouble shoot the problem primarily due to the incredible, enormous frustration over trying to be proactive to protect my data and ending up with a steaming, smelly pile of crapola.

Where am I going with this you may ask? Since I have a bunch of computers I have my data backed up elsewhere but in discussing my disgruntlement with some golfing buddies, the comment was made that suicide would be a viable alternative to having their computer crash because they have no backup. If the contemplation of suicide is preferable to facing a crashed PC there is a possibility that regularly backing up your data would be a positive thing.

Online Backup by a company called iBackup may be a way for those of you who are uncomfortable trying to do a backup. They are setup for a wide range of clients and priced inexpensively enough for a home user. If you are interested you can check out their pricing table here, you can do an online backup for less than $10.00 per month. For me technical support for a product is crucial. I am always reticent to write about something that may have lousy support. I called iBackup tech support’s number and got through to Juan, immediately. I also tried their online chat for support and got Sam, immediately. The company has won some awards,too. Their software interface for Windows users looks like Internet Explorer. I don’t use a Mac but that interface looked pretty simple too.

Bottom line as an author, I would beat my head with my keyboard if I lost one of my stories. Luckily I have the technical expertise to have multiple paths of backup but it is apparent that many folks out there are not backuped up regularly. If you care about your work, back it up. iBackup may be a good solution for you, go to their site, check them out, run their demos and maybe try their free trial. Trust me, a good backup beats blooding your brow with a blunt instrument.