So we all know that it's important to keep an up to date backup of anything that's essential to our businesses. Client information, listing photos/info, business expenses, not to mention priceless family photos. What do you all use to backup your data? External hard drive, online backup, or the old fashion burnt CD's/tape drives? I'm looking for a good online solution (to protect against hardware failure, as well as disasters such as fire & theft). Can anyone recommend one?

I use Symantec's Ghost ($) [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symantec_Ghost](wikipedia)[/url] to make images of the harddrives to one of two USB drives. Every now and then I make a DVD hard copy.

There are free alternatives that do the same but are maybe not as convenient. For my laptop I use DriveXML (free for personal use) and BartPE (free). Not as simple to use as Ghost.

There are lots of options here, many of them free, so the question is like asking which car you like.

As part of Norton 360 you get 10G of online storage. The first backup takes forever, but after that all the backups are down during the night.

I use carbonite.

If you have a website then you can back up files in your hosting package. Slow!

I choose to use a flash drive. The data transfer is much faster and the drive is more realiable.

Or

If you have a network of PC's you can back them up on other PC's.

If you are looking for online backup, I have heard good things about carbonite, but I have not used them myself.

I use Mozy which is probably the same as carbonite. It runs in the background so I don't have to remember to do regular back-ups. I think both only cost around $5 per month.

Carbonite works for me and is inexpensive. It also allows you to access your files online with their remote access feature.

As I said above I use Carbonite. It works well enough for me. I once accidently deleted quite a few of my office records off my computer's harddrive. I went onto Carbonite and just restored them. It took all of 5 minutes. So for $5 a month it's good enough for me. Probably the only difference between Mozy and Carbonite is that Mozy is advertised by Shawn Hannity and Carbonite is advertised by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. So if you are a democrate you better find out who your favorite talk show host is advertising.

How secure is Carbonite? I have an external drive but I can't tote it around with me everywhere. A good online backup would be great. I like the idea of remote access.

Linda

I'm fairly sure it's as secure as anything. I suspect it's as secure as your online banking info anyways. Well not as secure as your external drive. That's pretty secure if it's out of your computer unless you drop it in the toilet or something.

Raided external hard drives FTW!
I also use a smaller laptop USB drive for on the go situations.