How do you back up your computer?

[momona]

My Seagate drive has just died. I swear I burn through these every few years so am thinking about going to the cloud.

I am currently using Carbonite on a trial basis but after it did the initial backup, I found it did not automatically back up any of my tax and accounting data so I had to go to each program and ask that it be backed up.

Does anyone else have any experience/review with Carbonite or any other methods? Mahalo!

[ATSMAN]

My Seagate drive has just died. I swear I burn through these every few years so am thinking about going to the cloud.

I am currently using Carbonite on a trial basis but after it did the initial backup, I found it did not automatically back up any of my tax and accounting data so I had to go to each program and ask that it be backed up.

Does anyone else have any experience/review with Carbonite or any other methods? Mahalo!

I tried Carbonite also and gave up. I am back to using my external 3TB hard drive backing up my desktop and for added measure I have another 1TB hard drive backing up a second copy of all tax related files and programs.

[TAXNJ]

Very smart

I tried Carbonite also and gave up. I am back to using my external 3TB hard drive backing up my desktop and for added measure I have another 1TB hard drive backing up a second copy of all tax related files and programs.

Very smart operational plan

[DaveO]

We are on a server client network so the workstations don't hold much, if any, data. At 10:30 each night the server backs up to an external hard drive and to the cloud. Each morning I have a status report in my inbox that shows this happened and if not I know I have to check into it. It is setup and managed by our IT consultant who also maintains the anti virus software and our secure portal for file transfers. We had two ransomware attacks last year and we were restored and back to work in a couple of hours each time. We upgraded our protection at that point and have been safe since. We have 7 workstations and the server and pay less than $300 per month for the service unless we have a problem.

[EA92]

carbonite works

I use carbonite and once you have indicated which folders that need to be backed up - it DOES "automatically" back them up
(it can be set to backup each time a file/folder is changed - not recommended of course - or backup each day, each week , whenever)
It is also relatively inexpensive!

[taxmandan]

I do things a little different, my tax software is on a portable hdd, so I do an encrypted backup to the server hard drive AND two high level encrypted thumbdrives (alternating between them each day). The portable hdd goes home with me for added security, if some chucklehead steals my computers or server from the office there is no tax software or client data on them. I haven't been comfortable yet with the security of the cloud storage for my clients' data. Those cloud servers are a big target for hackers the same way theIRS computers are, given the millions of files of data on them to steal. My little server is hard to find on the web and even a hack would get very little information. My state law says that if I store on the cloud and it gets hacked I'm liable for the loss by any client, even though I have no control over the cloud servers or their operation. So I'll keep it in-house for now.

[taxea]

External harddrive for full computer backup and USB thumb drives for individual folders in Win Explorer. I also have all of my program downloads on a USB

[momona]

I am beginning to suspect that Windows 10 may be the reason why the PC isn't recognizing the Seagate external drive anymore.

I called Carbonite and found that I need to get the small business plan because personal plans only copy files and documents but not data from general ledgers, payroll, and tax programs.

[S T]

I have not changed yet, but take a look at IDrive - I had a great chat and phone conversation with them

Sandy

[Rapid Robert]

Without testing, backups are mostly useless

Remember, if you never test your backup by restoring it from time to time, you're probably wasting your time.

[CVTax]

IDrive

i've been using IDrive. It works great. It will do auto backups and email you to let you know it's done.