For customers using cloud services on their home or personal computers, there are a number of well-known providers. However, I need to explain some terminology when it comes to how you use these services.

The cloud services that many home users would recognize include: OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox and Google Drive. Technically, these services are known as file-sharing products. The idea is that you can store your data in the cloud and easily access it from multiple computing devices.

While these services offer a degree of backup, they are not what I would characterize as backup services. For true backup, you need to use a service like the one we use – Carbonite. Carbonite can back up all your data files whereas the cloud services require you to have your data in folders which they will then back up to the cloud. In other words, if I have files in Dropbox and also have files in my local document folder, Dropbox will only back up those in the Dropbox folder. Another difference between these file-sharing services and Carbonite is they limit what you can store online for free. For instance, I had to upgrade my iCloud paid service twice because of how much data is stored on my iPhone. Carbonite, on the other hand, is unlimited backup per computer.

Of the four cloud file-sharing services I mentioned above, which should you use? Or can you use a combination? all? Find out in the next blog post.

Find out more about Carbonite by visiting our backup page HERE.