Frequently Asked Questions
What are the things to be careful of with online backup?
The biggest thing to remember is that it will take time for the backup to be completed and if you do not have an unlimited broadband package you should know how much you are adding to the backup to ensure you do not go over your limit. That said, the backup software frequently checks your computer for changed files and new files and backs them up, by default every hour. Only these changes are sent over your broadband connection, so after the initial backup you should not use much more than you do now.
How long does it take to get my first backup complete?
This depends on two things, how fast your connection is and how much data you want to backup. An old broadband connection should manage over 100MB per hour and the newer FTTC connections should be over 7GB per hour. So, depending on how much data and the speed it could be minutes or it could even take a couple of week.
How long does it take to backup my files?
After the first backup is complete, your computer will be scanned every hour by the backup software for any change to the files and folders it has been told to backup and it will automatically backup these changes quietly in the background. So, unless you have added a lot of photos and video you can expect the backup to be completed in a few minutes.
What is the difference between backup, storage and archive?
All of these answers are framed for cloud based solutions.
Backup is a copy of the information you currently hold on your computer. Our backup solution keeps a copy for 30 days of any protected file, so if you accidentally delete a file or folder you can easily get it back onto your computer, the only restriction is you need to notice you deleted it within the 30 days. Our system also maintains version history for changed files, so if you change a document and save it only to realise you saved over something important or you do not like the changes it is possible to restore to a previous version of the file (up to 30 versions).
Archive is a permanent copy of information that you can not delete or modify. Archive usually comes with rules defining how long files are to be kept for, after which they would be automatically removed.
Storage is like a a hard disk or memory stick that exists on the internet, some or all of the content can cached on the local computer and the storage is, often, available to multiple computers and devices. This storage may have some backup features built in. Similar to storage is what many provide as ‘cloud’ services, however this does not provide extra space just duplicated space to make sharing files and information more intuitive and far easier. However, these ‘cloud’ solutions unless coupled with backup features leave you vulnerable to deletion to recover space on one device, typically a smart phone or tablet, resulting in accidentally deleting valuable or precious files from all connected devices.