What The Heck Is Free Automatic Data Backup?

There are a couple of meanings behind ads proclaiming free automatic data backup. Some are from paid services that will do automatic backups of your files for free. That’s part of what you pay for, although technically it’s not free. But what most people look for in a free automatic data backup program is something that is actually free. And these programs do exist.

Remote Sites

A lot of free automatic data backup shareware is more than two years old and may not be able to run with Windows XP or Vista. Also, these kinds of programs often just compress your files and place them on another part of your hard drive so that it’s all still on your computer. A lot of people feel their data is safer if it is in more than one secure place. The first is their computer and the second is on someone else’s website.

This is often called remote backup. The advantage is if you keep all of your backup discs in the same house as your computer. If your house burns down, then there is data on the remote backup website that you can call up. The disadvantage of remote free automatic data backup is that you do have to trust in the security of another company’s website. So, you may want to be very selective about not storing sensitive personal data on a remote site. But putting on a copy of your novel? Great!

Mozy Remote

One such free automatic data backup shareware program that puts data on a remote site is called Mozy. It’s young enough to work with Windows XP or Vista. It also can handle newer versions of music files such as mP3s, mP4s or WMVs. Because it’s a free automatic data backup shareware program, you “set it and forget it.” With some older programs, you have to manually initiate the backup process.

EZClone

There is another kind of free automatic backup program that helps you keep an extra copy of your data. These are called free DVD data backup programs. One of the most popular is called EZClone 2008. You can use it to make extra copies of your DVDs, your CDs, your music or even serious stuff like Excel spreadsheets, Word documents or PHP files. Some of these kinds of programs don’t run automatically, which can be useful, depending on what you are trying to save. Most of these programs are made for Windows only.