If there is anything I?ve learned while working at Geek Squad, it?s this: back up all your data and do it often. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to tell a client that their hard drive has failed and we are unable to recover any of their important files. The looks on their faces is enough to make my heart break. Full filing cabinets worth of documents, entire libraries of music, and album after album of priceless family photos, not to mention important business-related pieces of information, have been lost because of hard drive failure. I?ve seen hard drives last anywhere between ten years and two days after buying a computer. Backing up your files is arguably the single most important aspect of owning a computer.

Luckily, there is an easy way to save your data. Carbonite is a tool that any business can benefit from. No more zip drives, no more tapes, no more floppy discs (but if you?re still using those, we need to have a talk). One of the main issues I see when discussing data backups is that not a whole lot of people know how to do it. Carbonite makes it easy. Just install the Carbonite software and they take care of the rest. Your files get backed up automatically to their cloud server. In simple terms, they get saved to the Internet. You can log in on any computer with an Internet connection in the world to retrieve them.

If you are leery of someone else having access to what files you back up, no worries. All the files backed up with carbonite are encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (or SSL). What this does is it puts a lock on your files while they are being sent over your Internet connection to Carbonite?s data center so even they cannot break in and see your private information. This can be useful for credit card transactions, shipping information, and other sensitive client data as well as your business?s inside data.
As for a price tag, Carbonite offers a Personal price, a Pro price, and a Server price. They cost $59.99/year, $269.99/year, and $799.99/year respectively for their basic features. The first to offer 250GB of space and the third offers 500GB. That should be enough to start off with as 250GB is enough space for around 50,000-60,000 song files depending on the quality. If not, there is an option to add an extra 100 GB of space for an extra $99.99/year. However, the cost of losing your important data is much higher. It?s always a great idea to be proactive about saving your information and Carbonite will make the process of backing up your files easy and worry-free.