The 7 Best Online Backup Tools For Windows, Mac OS X & Linux

We enjoy and depend on our computers for recreation, business and hobbies. They hold our favorite music and family photos, correspondence records and all kinds of business files and documents. A loss of any of these files renders many of them irretrievable and irreplaceable, and can be very upsetting. Fortunately it is all too easy to use one of the many online backup tools to protect yourself from this happening. The difference between local and online backup is significant. For starters, your backed up files are accessible from anywhere because they are stored online in the cloud. But more reassuring than that is the fact that they aren’t in same location as your computer, which means that should your home be subject to fire or flood, your documents, images, music, movies and any other file you’ve uploaded are all safe.

If backing up online is something you’re interested in getting started with, check out the summaries below to learn about some of the best online backup tools available to protect your files, photos and more!

Carbonite
Carbonite is a small application that runs in the background of your computer. When your computer is idle, it browses to look for any changes or updates to files and backs up what it finds. It is a very non-invasive and easy way to keep everything important backed up, and best of all it is automatic so you never have to remember to backup anything. Even in the unlikely event that your computer is stolen or destroyed, you can simply access the Carbonite website from a new computer to access all of your valuable files. Unlimited backup capacity with Carbonite costs $54.95 per year.

Mozy
Mozy offers online backup solutions for both personal home computers and multiple office computers. Taking a computer to have a hard drive recovered can be stressful, costly, and may not even work. Mozy offers affordable and easy remote backup to avoid data loss problems in the first place. Home users can get 2GB of storage completely free. $4.95 per month gives home users unlimited automatic backup of even the smallest changes to any files. MozyPro can be installed on Windows and Mac. Backups can be scheduled automatically for all office computers and a variety of restore options are available, all for a low monthly cost.

iDrive
iDrive has versions for both Windows and Mac. The installation offers a great variety of online backup options, including versioning, which allows for the restore of the 30 latest versions, as well as timeline restore and continuous data protection. Stored data can be retrieved from any location, even through most firewalls. Pricing is based on storage amounts in gigabytes; 2GB of storage is available for free.

Box
Box offers not only data backup, but collaborative work tools as well. Data can be backed up and organized into different files and folders to preserve organization. A widget can also be used to share files on a company website. Further, folders can be turned into an online workspace to allow colleagues to view and edit files. A full functioning search feature allows for easily finding needed files. In addition, Box supports mobile access for viewing and sharing files. Individual packages start at $9.95 per month and Business packages start at $15 per user per month.

Dropbox
Dropbox is an online storage solution that offers an easy way to backup, share and transfer files. Instead of relying on just one source of backup, you can store files across several computers and on the web. By installing a Dropbox folder on your home, office, and any other computer, you can automatically backup data and share information. Files saved in the Dropbox on one computer are accessible from any other computer with the folder and on the web. This ensures up-to-date backups across all your computers, or all your businesses computers, and easy access to files from anywhere in the world.

SOS Online Backup
SOS Online Backup is generally thought to be the simplest and easiest backup solution available. Winner of PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice for online backup tool as well as many other awards, it is the most awarded backup tool. SOS offers an incredible array of useful tools, including continuous data protection, unlimited computers, unlimited versioning, unlimited archiving, powerful recovery and mobile access. SOS has different downloads for home users, businesses and for servers. Like many similar applications, the fee varies with the storage size.

CrashPlan
CrashPlan offers backup support for Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris as well as backing up to multiple destinations. Backing files up to different internal and external hard drives, different computers and online are all possible. Unlimited online backup is available for $5.00 per month. CrashPlan Professional is also available for business and enterprise applications. It supports 10 computers and more, and is compatible across platforms for onsite, offsite and online backup. Offsite laptop is also available to provide the same quality of protection at home or on business trips. Professional pricing is based upon the number of computers be used for backup, and supports unlimited capacity for each computer.