If you have never experienced a total data loss as a result of a computer crash, you really can't appreciate how devastating it can truly be. Think of all the sensitive material that you have on your computer that can never be replaced. Things like pictures, music files, e-mails and documents that were sent to you. All of these things may have special meaning to us and if they are lost because of a computer crash or other problem, we may not be able to get them back.

There are several different options when it comes to backing up your home PC. One of the most common options is to take it directly from your PC to a local backup drive. Many of these are external drives that tend to sit on your desk and collect the data that comes off of your computer. Although this may do good for you in case of a computer crash, if something should happen, you may find yourself totally out of luck. For example, what if a surge should hit and your computer and backup drive are both destroyed the very same time. Are you going to take the opportunity to move your backup drive to a secure location in all of the time? That hardly makes it convenient.

A much better idea is for you to have a remote backup server in order to store all of your sensitive data offsite. This is not only a good idea when it comes to a business, it is an excellent idea for home users who have data that they do not want to lose on their computer. There are several things that you need to look for in one of these remote backup services, however, in order to make sure you get everything that you need.

First of all, the backup needs to happen automatically. If you're anything like me, you're not going to take the time to manually backup your computer on a regular basis. You should be able to schedule these automatic backups to happen whenever you're not actually sitting at the computer, perhaps overnight, so that it does not slow down your computer while you're working on it.

You should also be able to browse the files on the remote server. This is an excellent choice to have, just in case you should have a corrupted file or perhaps a document that will not open. It would be a simple thing to log in to your remote server, browse for that file and download it from there.

One thing that should not be overlooked is that your information is secure, no matter where it is stored. If you are using a remote backup service, see that they offer redundant servers as well as multiple data locations in order to make sure that you are as secure as possible.