External hard drives are fairly straightforward and allow users to save files from their computer on another separate hard drive by simply plugging the drive to the USB port.
Even so, online backup serves the needs of most people better for 3 main reasons....
#1. External drives fail at the same rate as the internal hard drive in your computer.
They will eventually crash or degrade, so the information you put on them is still at risk.
Online backup services on the other hand, store their information on multiple hard drives, which makes them much more reliable.
#2 It is up to you to store the hard media somewhere offsite every time you backup.
If your external hard drive is somehow lost or stolen you are toast. Needless to say, you will have lose all the backup information that you have been so diligent to store there.
Online backup services, on the other hand, store your information offsite, remotely, and safely on computer servers that are maintained by companies who do nothing 24/7 but protect your data.
In growing numbers, large corporations use the same online file backup services that are available to individuals because they know these services are secure and professionally managed.
#3 External devices are limited to the memory on-board at the time you buy them.
If you purchase a 250 GB external hard drive it will be able to store 250 gigabytes of information. If you need more, you need to either purchase an additional drive or delete some information of your existing one - not good choices to have to make.
One of the key objectives of backing up should be simplicity of operation. If you buy additional drives to store more information, then you have to know which data is stored on which drive, which is adding additional work to manage
your data.
Most all of the best online backup services like Mozy and Elephant Drive offer unlimited storage capacity.
The best aspect of deciding to backup online is you will never need to buy additional storage capacity or hardware and you will never need to edit which files you will keep or not keep or delete just because you have run out of hard storage space.
Finally, on a per gigabyte basis, external hard drives are more expensive than most online backup services, by approximately half.
Online backup systems are typically built around a client software program that runs on a schedule, typically once a day, and usually at night while computers aren’t in use. Some remote backup services will work continuously, backing up files as they are changed.
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