How often do you back up your files?  I know I’ve asked this question several times before, but with so much of our personal lives now being stored in digital format, protecting that data has become a critical part of our regular computer maintenance.  You do maintain your computer … right? :P
IDrive-EI recently found out about an online backup service that offers free accounts up to 2 GB for users, and an unlimited service for under $50 a year.  IDrive-E is an incredibly easy to use service that has many useful features not found with the competition, such as Mapped Drive support.  Considering how the service was free for the first two gig, I created an account and downloaded their IDrive-E Classic Interface software to give it a test drive.

After a quick backup of some hefty files, I can sum up my experience with this software in one word:  slick.

I’ve been looking for some insanely easy to use software for family memers as they have thousands of digital photos, a DVD burner, and yet never once made a backup of these digital memories.  In the last few years they’ve lived through several computer failures, and each time they lose data.  Some can be recovered, but in many cases, pictures and documents are somtimes lost forever.  What they need is something that will run in the background and back up their files intelligently everyday, or every few days.  But the software needs to be easy, and they don’t want to pay money for the service.

IDrive-E fits the bill perfectly.

There are several aspects of this service that I like.  The data is encrypted before being sent over the internet and archived, the backup schedule can be set to whatever you need it to be, backups are incremental (meaning that you’re not sending files again and again if they haven’t been updated), and you even have version control on files.  This can be incredibly useful if you need a copy of your resume from two weeks ago before you accidentally over-wrote it.

For people wanting to back up more than two gigabytes of data, there is a package available for $4.95 a month (or $49.50 if you prepay the year) and this will provide “unlimited storage”.  That said, according to their Conditions of Use page, unlimited really means 150 Gig.  This should be plenty for most people, as backing up large video files or audio collections shouldn’t be done online.

Are you using an online backup service?  What features do you look for when choosing one?

This has been a sponsored post obtained through PayPerPost.