Best Ways To Protect Your PC Files

Do you have the contents of your PC safely backed up?

I ask this periodically because there is a large swath of you thrill seekers who think your computer's hard drive is forever.

It isn't.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again – your computer's hard drive is a mechanical object and will fail. Your irreplaceable documents, your photos, your music, your videos could all disappear – POOF! – in a nano second. Or your computer could be damaged by fire, water or be stolen. All manner of disasters could conspire to rob you of your digital life.

Have I scared you? Good!

But you don't have to be scared. About a year ago on World Backup Day (which, this year, is on March 31, so you will hear from me again on this topic), I presented you with "How to Easily – and Cheaply – Backup Your PC," which explored the three primary backup methods: optical disc (DVD or Blu-ray), an external hard drive or a cloud service.

Being a belt and suspenders kind of guy, I employ all three. I refuse to lose any of my digital data. But I find a cloud service to easiest and most reliable method.

A cloud service is a virtual storage locker – you upload your digital belongings to a company that maintains a large warehouse filled with servers that safely store your data out of harm's way for a monthly fee. The cost is essentially an insurance policy to keep your files safe and secure and, in most cases, accessible from a variety of devices.

Pick One

In my backup piece of a year ago, I surveyed a few cloud service providers. But the product review site NextAdvisor has provided even more extensive reviews of the seven most prominent cloud-based backup services:

SugarSync

JustCloud

ZipCloud

SpiderOak

MyPCBackup

LiveDrive

Dropbox

NextAdvisor doesn't review some of the sites I mentioned in my earlier piece. NextAdvisor limited itself to reviewing services that performed automatic syncing – that is, the service automatically makes sure what's on your hard drive is also stored safely away. That's why the popular Carbonite backup site isn't included.

And Apple's iCloud or Microsoft's SkyDrive aren't included because it's designed for multimedia (photos, video) captured with portable devices, not for all-file PC-based files.

While not ultra-critical, NextAdvisor's reviews provide a terrific overview of each of the services that should enable you to make an informed decision. And each of the reviewed sites offer either a small amount of free storage or a free trial or both so you can decide for yourself if the capabilities and ease of use of each are right for you.

Not that I want to sway your decision, but I have been a happy SugarSync subscriber since its inception as SharpCast in 2006. Gizmodo also proclaimed SugarSync the "ultimate" cloud storage service in a September 2011 "Battlemodo" review post.

And I tell you all this so you DO make a decision. Not for the last time, I'm begging you – backup your hard drive!