If you’re like most people I know, backing up the important data on your hard drive is something you know you should do but you’ll get round to it some day soon, honest – Carbonite Backup solves this problem.

Same goes for your cell phone. You probably only back it up when someone else has lost their phone. I know I’m usually embarrassed at how long there is between backups on my cell phone.

And backing up my hard drive? Well, I kept meaning to get an external drive and use that. But somehow it never happened…

Then I heard about Carbonite Backup…car

It’s one of many available programs that work behind the scenes to backup the important parts of your hard drive without you really doing anything.

If you keep your important files in the “My Documents” section on your computer, this program really is as close to totally automatic as you can get.

The default is for the program to archive off all your files and then keep watch for any changes, archiving these off as necessary.

If, like me, you also store important files in other folders on your hard drive, backing these up is easy too.

All you need to do is open Windows Explorer or My Computer, navigate to the files or folders you want to backup, right click your mouse, choose the newly added Carbonite option on the menu that appears and then select “Back this up”.

It’s a lot quicker to do this in real life that it is to read about how to do it.

Carbonite won’t automatically backup everything on your hard drive. Which is fine as most of the stuff is likely to be Windows system files and programs you’ve installed. It’s easier to reinstall these from the regular setup options they offer.

But it does backup the important things. The files that you’d be upset to lose.

And because it’s not backed up to an external hard drive in your house but is securely stored on Carbonite‘s servers your data is protected even if the worst happened and your house burned down or was robbed.

The first hard drive backup takes a while.

This is because your internet connection is more geared to downloading files than uploading them.

So your first backup is likely to take several days to happen. Once the initial backup has taken place, the program is likely only a few minutes a day keeping your precious files backed up.

Another good thing about Carbonite is that they dpn’t impose a storage limit on the files you backup.

Many of the other companies I checked who were offering remote backup had restrictions on the amount of data you backed (let’s face it – do you know how much data you’re likely to need to store online? I know I didn’t until Carbonite calculated it for me).

Verdict

Remote backup of your important files is something you should strongly consider.

It’s a cheap form of backup and covers all sorts of eventualities such as hard drive crashes (the mean time between faults figures for these always seem to be a work of fiction), theft and disasters such as fire and floods.

And if you’re in the habit of accidentally deleting important files, chances are they’ll be in your backup as well.

Carbonite is highly recommended for the peace of mind it offers. It’s cheap and efficient. After the initial setup, you don’t have to do anything: your files will be backed up automatically.

Click here for a free 15 day trial of Carbonite Backup.