Do you suffer from slow internet? Then you might need to look into How to Get Faster Internet for Free because no one should be buffering in this day and age! But how are you meant to back up your files if your internet is really slow?

I’m discussing this today because I’ve heard many people say that they would like to use online backup in order to protect their valuable personal files, but believe that their slow bandwidth and large data volumes would make online backup impractical for their needs.

This is particularly true of home users with large drives full of home videos and high-resolution personal photo collections. Trying to upload 5 terabytes of files over a low-bandwidth rural Internet connection would certainly take a lot of time. But this should not restrict you from enjoying the many safety and security benefits that come from online backup.

With slower connections, it may be advisable to split data up into “archival” and “living” data.

Backing Up Archival Data

Archival data can roughly be described as information which is rarely changed or accessed. Within the context of your personal backups, a home video may be considered to be archival data. You may create a new edited version of the video which you’ll show to friends and family, but the source file will likely remain unchanged.

Archival data can typically be protected on a weekly or monthly basis. In order to protect this data, it’s recommended that you create 2 sets of backup copies. One version will be stored at your home, and the other should be stored at another location in case of a disaster. And both of these archives should ideally contain multiple point-in-time versions in case you need to recover a previous version of the data. Finally, both copies should be encrypted in order to protect privacy and prevent data leaks.

This is a time-consuming process, but it’s absolutely necessary if you want to protect these valuable personal memories.

Unfortunately, this kind of a backup process – when performed monthly – will put you at risk of losing no more than 30 days’ worth of data. This gap can be easily, conveniently and securely patched up by supplementing your archival data protection with a fully-automated real-time online backup service.

Backing Up Living Data

Living data can roughly be described as being information which is frequently accessed, frequently changed or has highly time-sensitive value. The classic example would be a monthly report which is due for a big meeting the following day. Losing this document at the last second could have serious consequences.

Many kinds of data – including work documents, letters, financial reports, personal projects and other files – change frequently and have high value or importance. This kind of data should ideally be backed up continuously. And because the data changes so frequently, it becomes necessary to back up this data every time a file is modified or changed.

Another example would be your email files, which are constantly being updated with information that is immediately important to your career. Losing a month worth of backups could cause harm to your professional reputation.

Of course, this kind of a backup process would be very difficult to maintain using the data protection method mentioned previously. Instead, live data must be backed up using a fully automated backup methodology.

Ideally this methodology should securely encrypt the data before sending it to a remote location for safe storage.

This is where online backup is a perfect fit. By limiting your online backup use to only a small segment consisting of your most critical and frequently changing files, you can maintain up-to-date backups without requiring several months to upload.

Even if you have limited bandwidth availability, you can still enjoy security, convenience and resiliency by protecting your live data in real-time using a fully-automated secure cloud backup solution.