Your thoughts: Easiest way to backup MSOffice Docs

The easiest way would be to get a basic Carbonite.com account and let it automatically backup your data on one of their cloud servers. Their plans start at $60/year (that is the plan I use). However, just one backup copy isn't the safest way to protect data from loss.

To be reasonably safe, your data should reside in three places: your computer, an onsite backup, and an offsite backup. Carbonite (or CrashPlan or Backblaze) can be used as an easy, fairly inexpensive way to get an offsite backup. The simplest and least expensive onsite backup would be to get an external HDD and connect it to your computer only when you update the backup (backup drives should be kept disconnected from the computer except when updating them to protect them from malware, etc.).

Keep in mind that any data that is not backed up will be subject to loss. While using a cloud backup service will backup data shortly after it is generated, it is far safer to also have an onsite backup that is updated frequently; a week is too long to go between backups. I backup my data at least once a day.

While Box might be a good offsite backup (I'm not familiar with Box), you still need an onsite backup of some kind, such as an external HDD, a thumb drive (if you don't have very many documents), etc. If your internet connection goes down, you wouldn't be able to access your backup until you got your connection back. It's also possible for Box to permanently lose your data (it's been known to happen with even the best cloud backup services unless you pay the bigger bucks for a business plan with georedundancy). By having more than one backup, if one should fail, you would still have the other one to fall back on.

I personally have a set of four backup HDDs for each one in my computer (I have three HDDs in my computer and a total of twelve backup HDDs). Two of each set are kept in a drawer except when updating a backup; the other two of each set are in a safe deposit box at my credit union. I swap the onsite HDDs in the drawer with the offsite HDDs in the safe deposit box no less than once a month, depending on how much data I add or change. Since any data added or changed since I put the HDDs in the safe deposit box would be lost if I lost originals and onsite backups (such as theft, fire, etc.), I also have a cloud backup service (Carbonite.com). I have enough data that, if I had to recover all of it from the cloud backup, it would take me weeks to months to recover it all. However, I can relatively quickly recover most of my data from the offsite data, then the rest from Carbonite, which will take much less time since there won't be nearly as much to download.

I could get by on just one onsite and one offsite HDD for each HDD in my computer (most people do). However if I were to lose both the original and the onsite backup HDDs, I would have to got to my credit union to get the offsite HDD. If this were to happen on, say Saturday morning of a three day holiday weekend, I would have to wait until the credit union reopened to get my data back. By having the second onsite backup HDD, I can be up and running again in as little as three hours instead three days. Any drive, including backup drives, can fail at any time, hence the added redundancy.

Most people do not go to the extreme I do (it is a bit anal) but I'm covered for just about any data loss scenario, including a meteor or asteroid strike that wipes out my home and credit union (they are only six miles apart) while I'm lucky enough to be out of State and out of range of the catastrophe (yeah, I know, I'm being silly now). All seriousness aside, I did have a situation once, on the Saturday morning of a three day weekend, where my main data drive became corrupted but still readable and, when I tried to update one of the two backup drives, the backup failed and the data on the backup drive was lost. Since I still had the second backup drive, I was able to reformat both the main data drive in my computer and the one backup drive that lost its data, then recover the data to both from the second backup drive. I knew what data had been added since I had last updated the backups so I was able to copy that data from the main data drive before I reformatted it to another HDD in my computer (I had just ripped several new CDs; fortunately, I was still able to access that data), then copy back after restoring the rest of the data. I was up and running in only three and a half hours instead three days.

sevenslater said:

Wow Jeannie, that's some pretty decent back-up system you have there! I have a lot to learn from you, even though I think I'll never get to that level;-) I personally have my data in only two places: On my computer and on my external harddrive. I know that can be dangerous, so I'm also looking for an option to store my data online. Since I have my own dynamic cloud server for my company's website (by 1&1), I was thinking of storing my data there as well. Do you think that would make sense, or is it easier to just sign up for Carbonite? Thanks for the advice!

Maria

p.s.: Sorry if this question sounds stupid, you might have notived by now that I'm not an expert on computers..

Thanks, Maria! Btw, it hasn't been all that long since I didn't even know what a backup was so don't think you can't learn. The people here at Seven Forums are extremely knowledgeable and helpful; they certainly have helped me a lot.

First, Maria, your question is NOT stupid! It's a question I wish everyone would ask, even if only to themselves.

Second, I took a look at 1&1 and would definitely be much easier to use Carbonite for your offsite backup and, depending on how much data you have now and how much you generate and change in a month, may even be cheaper. I'm not sure if Carbonite will take business from the UK (I suspect it depends on if they will accept non-U.S. credit/debit cards) but you can always contact them at www.carbonite.com to find out. Although a bit more work to set up, a paid plan with www.crashplan.com is another possible option. Both Carbonite and Crashplan have software that, once installed on your computer, works in the background to continuously check to see if you have new or changed data that needs uploading, then uploads it for you automatically (or you can set it to upload only at or during certain times). Unless you are actually going to use either for a business, be sure to check out the home/personal plans. I use Carbonite's cheapest personal plan.