If there is even a small chance something will happen, given enough time, it will. Yes... the White Sox will win the World Series one day... maybe in my lifetime. But I digress. You will lose data one day - guaranteed. Events, like earthquakes, fire, flood, the unruly teenager, or a computer virus, hard-drive crash, stolen laptop, or coffee spill, your PC will eventually lose your photos, music, videos, and important documents.

You can install the AltDrive software onto another computer and restore everything. We may be able to help recover the computer if the thief turns it on and we geolocate it for you.

This is fine, and a good start, but we think that offsite encrypted storage is best. Do you back up your data regularly? Are you sure you're backing up your important files? Are your computer and external hard drive stored in the same place, making both susceptible to the same risks, like theft, and fire or flood damage? What if you go on a trip and leave the drive at home? You can't backup or restore files while you're gone. And what if you take it with you? You can lose both at the same time! A single (or even mirrored) external drive is not a reliable as AltDrive's professionally managed and highly available remote storage system.

This is where AltDrive is sitting pretty for the forseeable future. The scene is littered with companies who decided (or had) to stop offering online backup. AOL XDrive, Hewlett Packard Upline, and Iron Mountain to name a few. Others, like Mozy, stopped offering unlimited backup. Some are chincy on the default backup settings so that big files like videos are not backed up. At AltDrive, we just redoubled our capacity. We are, by design, very efficient. This didn't happen by chance... it was an essential aspect of the business plan to implement such an architecture. AltDrive is here for the long haul, debt free, even while the biggies are exiting the market.

You download and configure a small computer application that installs in a few clicks and doesn't require a credit card to start using it for 30 days. This Internet backup application automatically backs up your photos, music, videos, documents, and other irreplaceable files and compresses and securely encrypts them. Then it sends them over the Internet to the offsite AltDrive secure datacenter in Seattle, WA where they are professionally managed.

Our storage system was developed with high efficiency and fault tolerance as key requirements. And, on average some people have a ton of data and others not very much, so it is 'even Steven'. There is a price break with the annual gold plan - $3.71/month (monthly basis). Similarly, if you sign up for the annual platinum plan, it is only $2.76/machine (monthly basis) for unlimited backup of three computers.

AltDrive Online Backup does not provide syncing or sharing features like Dropbox or Sugarsync. These are fine services, but we cannot recommend them for sensitive files because they have ongoing unresolved security issues.

It sounds like you're passionate about backup—and so are we. We still think you should try AltDrive's online backup because it's automatic, will save your data remotely, is hassle free, and is really inexpensive. Is is probably less expensive to use AltDrive than your home datacenter when you factor in the cost of power and time spent setting up and verifying your process.

Companies charge thousands to recover your data with no guarantee that you'll recover anything from it. For $3.71 per month ($44.50 annual plan monthly basis).