Factors You Need To Consider Before Choosing Cloud Back Up Service for your Online File Storage

Data is extremely important and this is exactly why it should be backed up on a regular basis. People, who back up their data just once a month or never back it up at all, are at great danger of losing all their data. This can cost you huge amounts of money, when you consider how much time you used creating your files.

Maybe you have very important financial documents, company information, or employee records, which gets lost simply because you do not have back up. It is disastrous and frustrating. Fortunately, these disasters can be prevented from materializing by creating a good back up plan such as cloud storage.

Cloud back up is critical for protection of your most precious documents, music, videos photos and file. Online backup offers more than enough for storing all your files a highly secure location. A cloud storage server includes a set of extremely scalable servers that have web service interface which are used to store or retrieve data at any given point in time provided there is Internet connectivity. In other words, cloud storage is an unlimited amount of disk space stored in a secured location online.

If your personal computer crashes then you can get back all your data from cloud. Having all your critical data accommodated on an external server outside your office ensures that your data is safe even if your office if hit by an unprecedented calamity.

All online storage service offer top quality data encryption such that your personal data is encrypted the compressed in such a way that malicious people cannot access it. Cloud storage offers data redundancy that can be implemented internally. There are quite a number of cloud venders, which makes quite difficult to choose the best service. Before you choose any cloud storage service, several aspects are important to look at. The following are eight major factors that you should major in when considering any cloud service.

1. Security
   
   Security is the most important aspect you should consider when getting cloud storage. Ask yourself many questions concerning the security of your data during the selection process. Select a vendor who will handle your intellectual property with a lot of modesty and paramount discretion. See to it that the service the vendor offer includes a minimum of 256-bit encryption for data protection.
   
   
2. Performance
   
   A state of the art online backup service never prevents you from doing your work with ease. The service must have various performance modes including presentation mode, high performance mode as well as battery mode. Moreover, it should have the capacity to detect whether the computer is on high or low mode such then it can easily adjust to the backup process without affecting your computers performance in a negative manner.
   
   
3. Block level back up
   
   A cloud backup solution with no block level back up technology should never be an option for you. This technology splits huge files into relatively smaller ones and lets you modify them consequently saving on both time and bandwidth.
   
   
4. Customers support
   
   What happens when you are personal computer crashes or your hard drive crashes during the day? Will you be able to access your files almost immediately to get you running as usual? Can you reach your vendor through email or telephone to get the -problem rectified? How fast will he or she respond? Even a second of down time can cost your business millions. Never jump into a cloud solution before getting a clear picture of the backup recovery process.
   
   The service must be there at your disposal 24/7 all through the year. Ask the vendor to offer you at least three reviews from customers for further verification of the quality of the cloud service.
   
   
5. Restore options
   
   Confirm that the service has multiple restore options for restoration of deleted files and even restoring from original files or deleted files. Restore options must also accommodate mobile devices, web interfaces and be able to restore data to its original storage location.
   
   
6. Speed
   
   Every online backup service should use disk defragmentation technology to make the backing up process faster. A slow back up service decreases your level of productivity largely.
   
   
7. Simplicity
   
   The last thing anyone wants is spending hours trying to install and use cloud storage. Time is money and a complicated service, in effect can generate losses to you business. Everything must be run in a focal point to eradicate any possible needs of installing specifiable software to aid in backup. Get a cloud station where you can maneuver institutively when trying to retrieve your data.
   
   
8. Cost
   
   The cost of a cloud storage service is another important aspect that should never be overlooked. Check out whether there are any hidden fees before proceeding to make any payments.
   
   

Guest Author

This article is contributed by Leo Preston on behalf of BestBackUps.com who has reviewed almost 50 online backup providers.