I called a client early one morning last week, and was greeted with “I can’t talk now. We had a break-in last night and they took a load of computers.” Not surprisingly, what should have been the easiest part – restoring the data – turned out to be much harder than replacing the actual computers. Even with insurance, the cost in both time and money is pretty huge.

For some time, I’ve been using an automatic online backup system called backup.com. At midnight every night (users select the specific time), it automatically backs up whatever files I’ve specified on every computer that is running. More than once, I’ve used backup.com to recover files that I’ve inadvertently modified or deleted. And even if there’s a fire or theft, data is easily retrieved since it’s off-site.

Rates vary depending on the amount of storage required, but are quite reasonable. A friend recently recommended a similar service, Carbonite, which may be even more affordable for some users.