Backup Software Buying Guide

With today’s reliance on computers and the internet, backup software for your computer’s contents is essential. Different users will obviously have different needs although there’s a solution for every user’s requirements whether you’re backing up your home PC or an entire businesses operating system from multiple computers.

Whilst corporate users are likely to use servers to backup their systems although for personal use there are a few options. Optical media, such as CD or DVDs are one option although they’re limited storage capacity and the time it takes to burn data to each device. Online servers are another method of backing up data and these are great for laptop users on the go. On the downside, they’re often expensive and come on a pay monthly basis.

The most popular option is currently backing up your data on a second hard drive. Their prices have fallen over the last few years and, depending on the size and whether or not it’s internal or external, they can be picked up for around £25. Internal hard drives are a little more expensive, available for around £50 although, for backup purposes, an external drive is more practical. They can be easily attached to several computers in turn and then stored in a secure location when not being used. Depending on how much data you’ve got to back up will essentially determine how much you’re going to need to spend.

When investing in your backup software be sure it is compatible with the media you’re using. Almost all backup software will write and restore from a hard drive with ease although when burning to CD or DVD require third party software. Whilst this isn’t usually a problem, you will need to have the extra software on your computer and, to save hassle, it’s probably best to purchase backup software that can deal with the entire process.

Security is another important thing to consider, particularly when using an Internet based backup service. It’s essential that the data you’re uploading to an online server is encrypted or you face the threat of identity fraud, especially when backing up tax returns or invoices.

Look for the ability to compress data when backing it up too when purchasing your backup software. Compressing it effectively reduces the storage space it takes up, which is particularly helpful if you’re using optical media or an online account that charges depending on how much data you backup. As important is how the backup software decompresses your data should you need to restore it. If you’ve sufficient storage space it might even worth forgetting about compression altogether although, if not, use a standard compression format or you might have to reinstall your operating system in order to get the data back.

Finally, an essential feature to any backup software is the option to schedule automated backups. People will occasionally forget to back up so this feature so a system that will automatically back up data, say every night, is important.