Gradual Panic!

I shudder in terror when I see how people treat their most vital data. Day in, day out I am presented with another user who has lost files dear to them and it’s sooo easy to avoid. Fair enough you may not be able to backup everything that you own, but your photos, your memories, that project you’re working on don’t need to be lost forever if your hard drive dies, just make sure you have a copy (at least one) somewhere else. I know it sounds so obvious but so many people just don’t. I don’t know if it’s ignorance or that they think that creating a backups would be a financial burden but you have to do something. Only today am I sifting throught the remains of a friends drive who has just lost everything for that reason I am writing this post is to tell you that there are sooo many options both for a fee or for free.

Splash the cash

OK so everything that you own is precious to you and you don’t mind putting you hand in your pocket to ensure it’s safety. Well my advice is to dig deep and grab something from the Western Digital My Book World Edition II range. What’s so good you say? Well, it’s tried and tested. I have 8 in the office and they are a reliable as hell. Coming in 1TB and 2TB models each unit contains 2 drives which are mirrored so anything that you backup to the unit is copied twice so even in one drive fails you have another precious copy. It plugs into your network so multiple users can access it and you can fully control its access via the web. It’s simple but simply perfect.

MobileMe – Now if I was going to pay someone to store my data online there may not be many names you can trust but as far as names go Apple gets my vote. Their MobileMe service as well as syncing all your iPhone info in the cloud and providing email and other services provides you with 20GB of online store via iDisk for £59 a year. Not bad considering you can access your files from anywhere in the world. And heck there’s a free trial.

Freebie Filestore

Of course if you ain’t in a position to spend a couple of hundred quid on hardware you can use some of the free options out there. They don’t offer a staggering amount of space but for free who cares. At least you can keep those vital files protected.

SkyDrive – This free service from Microsoft ties directly into your Windows Live account so if you already have a Hotmail address or MSN Messenger account you already have access to this service. Offering a staggering 25GB it’s only disadvantage is that you have to upload and download files on an individual basis but the big advantage is that you files can be accessed from any computer with a web browser. Now you can’t say fairer than that!

BT Digital Vault – Now this seems obvious but not eveyone realises that they have 5GB of free online store as part of their BT Total Broadband account. Like SkyDrive this too is accessed via your browser but it has a nifty Java app that allows you to drag and drop entire folders. Also for £4.99 a month you can up your quota to a whopping 50GB although 5 should be ample for that essential data.