New Year, New Goal.  Why 2018 is the year to start backing up!

Do you backup your computer? I can almost hear the majority of your responses. “No” or “Not as often as I should”. I would like to take 2018 to challenge you to revisit the topic of performing backups. Technology never stands still and like all technologies the reasons to backup and how you backup your computer have changed greatly.

We have all heard the great “What Ifs”. What if your computer fails, is stolen or destroyed in a fire? These threats still exist but a new and rapidly growing threat has appear. What if all your personal files/pictures/movies are taken for ransom? Ransomware is a malicious program that takes your computer and files hostage and will only release them if you pay the ransom. Lucky for us the answer to protecting our data is the same, regularly scheduled backups.

There are a number of ways we could perform these backups.  But if you are like me, you want the easy button.  And online backup is that easy button.  Like every solution online backup has its list of pros and cons.

Pros & Cons.

The biggest concern for most people is having to pay the monthly cost. Online backup has become a type of insurance and at $5/month ($60/year) it a reasonable cost to ensure that your most important files are safe. The average cost of salvaging data on a failed hard drive is ~$1200 and paying a ransom would run you ~$600.

The Internet is full of online backup providers. To help you get started on your new year, I would recommend checking out BackBlaze.

Reason to choose backblaze.

TL;DR
Online backup is the simple solution to protecting your data from accidental loss.