You’ve been through that before. A smart-aleck technology columnist tells you to back up your computer files or else. certain abundant, you choose “or else,” considering making spare copies of your files is too much bother.

You don’t want to spend $100 or more on an external hard drive or figure out how to install the motorized backup software. Besides, whether your house is robbed or burned down, there goes your computer and your precious backup, too.

Unless your backed-up documents wasn’t home when catastrophe struck.

These days you can copy your files by the World Wide Web, and store them at a high-security documents center, with help from an online details backup service.

Not many consumers presently use online backup — only about 1.5 percent, according to a survey taken last year by research firm IDC Corp. in Framingham, Mass. But lots of companies offer online storage for small amounts of input, often at no charge.

Two firms promise to store every file you’ve got for as little as $50 a year.

Both of them have a Massachusetts connection. Last year, EMC Corp. in Hopkinton purchased Berkeley details Systems, a Utah company that offers Mozy, an online backup service for consumers and businesses. Meanwhile, in Boston, a homegrown outfit called Carbonite has offered online backup since 2006. Based on our tests, you can’t go wrong with either Mozy or Carbonite, but we’d give Carbonite the edge, thanks to its brain-dead simplicity and slightly lower price.

Carbonite costs $49.95 a year or $89.95 for two years of service. Mozy’s consumer service, MozyHome, charges $4.95 a month, or $59.40 a year — but you get a free month’s service whether you pay for a year in advance. In exchange, both companies say you can back up as much details as you wish. Mozy plus offers a free service that’s…

Orginal post by Top Tech News