Tropical Storm Ida is headed straight for me….so I am backing up everything I can. Why bother with backups? Because hurricanes happen. Fire and earthquakes do, too. Software and hard drives fail for mysterious reasons. To have years of work gone with the wind is not a good feeling.
Online storage services are a convenient way to store offsite backup copies of critical information. Some services that are free until you reach some level of use are docs.google.com, HP Upline, SOS Backup, Carbonite PCBackup,IDrive, MozyHome Online Backup, and Wuala.
Simply use your favorite search engine to find one.
If you need more than the basic free space, they all offer additional storage, costing from $5 to $30 a month, depending on how much room you need. Several of these services will let you make certain files available to other people while keeping other files secret and secure. Although all of them will work with both Macintosh and PC computers, some of them are picky about the Web browser you use. Experiment with several of the free services and find the one with the right fit for you. Then use it often!
I loved the Xdrive service that AOL used to offer, but they discontinued it in 2009. Now I upload backups to Google Docs.
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