Any business owner will tell you that backing up is one of the most vital things that you can do to keep your business up and running. After all, you simply cannot predict when things will go wrong with your computer system. One of your staff might delete files by mistake, you could experience problems after a power cut or a key component of your system could fail and see you lose access to all of your company data.

The problem here is that most business nowadays really do rely on their systems to actually operate. Take all of the data you have stored on your computer system away, even for a few days or hours, and the chances are that your business will suffer.

One of the more recent innovations in the back up sector is the online back up. In the past businesses often made a physical back up where they ran a solution overnight on to hard copy tapes and then stored the tapes off site for safety. Whilst this offers a viable back up solution it is not necessarily the quickest way to restore data as tapes will have to be accessed and set up before your business can get going again.

Online back ups simply take away a lot of the actual hassle and time constraints that come with these older back up methods. Here, your data is backed up online rather than placed on to a physical storage medium. You decide when the back up will happen and then it happens automatically from that point onwards.

This also allows you to change schedule as you like with no major effort. So, for example, if your data changes considerably and you want it stored you can click a button for an extra back up to give you additional protection. In most cases, every time you back up online the company that you use will send you a report which also makes it a lot easier to work out what you have backed up and what you don't.

This can be a much easier way of making sure that your data remains safe. And, if the worst comes to the worst and you need data recovery then getting your data back is real easy too. Restoring online back ups often simply involves logging into your account management site and pressing a button to get your data back. You can choose whether to restore your entire back up or just elements of it which can also be real useful.

Many businesses find that this is an extremely cost effective way of backing up as your 'physical costs' are kept low. Do look for online back up companies that use encryption to protect your back up data, however, as this will give you added security especially if your data is business critical and you do not want it falling into the wrong hands.

It is also wise to pick an online back up company that stores your data on a variety of servers in different locations rather than just one server in one place. This gives you the additional peace of mind of knowing that your data can be accessed whenever you want.