The focus here at Online Backup Deals is obviously online backup, but online backup should not be your only backup. It is always best to have more than one backup of your data and a local backup has a number of advantages over online backup. The most important is a local backup is faster. It is faster to do the backup and it is faster to restore from in the event your computer hard drive has met its maker. The question becomes what software do you use to manage your local backup. Windows does have a backup utility but I have never been a big fan of it myself. Mac users are better off with Time Machine, which is probably the best built in backup utility I have ever used.
If you want to manage an online backup and a local backup there are several companies that offer feature.
IDrive – IDrive offers IDrive Portable, which can be used with any external drive and can add online backup as well.
Acronis – I tested the Acronis online backup stand alone app, but Acronis True Image Home edition offers a full feature set for home users to backup their data to locally. You can then add Acronis online backup to manage both your local backup and an online backup.
Mozy – Mozy offers the ability to create a local backup of the files in both their MozyHome and MozyPro software. This creates a simple local backup that you can copy files from.
Norton – Norton 360 also offers the ability to have a local backup and an online backup. If you are a Norton user already it can be nice to have it all integrated into one software package.
Novastor – NovaBACKUP Professional offers an online backup option. Novastor does not directly offer online backup through the software but through partners. The Novastor product is a good product for local backup and there are several online storage services that
CrashPlan – CrashPlan also offers the ability to backup to a local drive or local computer.
External Hard Drives
To do a local backup you need somewhere to backup to. I have seen people that were very good about doing local backups every week make one huge fatal flaw, they would backup to the same hard drive that they were backing up! Their hard drive would die and the backups would go with it. Lately, I prefer using external hard drives for backing up. I used to use an extra internal hard drive but if the computer was stolen that internal hard drive would also be gone. With an external hard drive I can make a backup and then remove it from the computer and place it in a more secure location. I have a fireproof safe in my office that I store one of the external hard drives in.
Personally I prefer external hard drives from either Western Digital
or Seagate but there are lots of other reliable external hard drives you can pick up at your local computer hardware store or favourite online retailer.
Maintaining a local backup and an online backup is not difficult and then you will know that your precious photos, videos and files will be safe from all kinds of disasters. With a good local backup you can have the majority of your files restored quickly and then only need your online backup to restore the files that were created or changed after your last local backup.
Leave a Reply