One of the questions we get asked all the time is:

"Which external hard drive should I buy?"

As onsite computer technicians, we work with many different kinds of external hard drives.  In this external hard drive review we will show you why we believe that the Western Digital My Book Essential 3 TB USB 3.0/2.0 External Hard Drive is currently the best available for the average computer user.

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As online backup services become more popular we are beginning to notice that people are using these services as their only backup.  We do not recommend that you use an online backup service as your one and only means of safeguarding your data.

Online backup services should be used only to supplement a well planned local backup, i.e.,  backing up to your secondary drive, external hard drive, or burning to a DVD, etc.

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Besides testing and writing reviews of what we consider to be the best online backup services (See our Carbonite review, Mozy review, SugarSync review, or any of our online backup reviews.) we also take every opportunity to make the case for backing up online.

There is no single backup method that is 100% reliable.  But you can increase the likelihood that you will keep your data safe by using a quality online backup service like Carbonite, Mozy, SugarSync, Dropbox, iDrive, or iBackup, in combination with your local backups.

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With online computer backup services like Carbonite and Mozy, your data is stored and protected by cutting-edge security measures within state-of-the-art data centers. The average computer user cannot come close to matching this level of security. With viruses and spyware becoming a bigger problem by the day, not to mention loss, theft, hardware failure, accidental deletion, etc., it just makes sense to have your data backed up with an online backup service where it is safe and secure.

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You will never appreciate an online backup service more than when your hard drive crashes or when your computer is stolen, lost, or dropped.  There's no shortage of people who sing the praises of their chosen online backup service after having successfully recovered their cherished, would-be-lost data.   All of the online computer backup services we have reviewed, if used properly, offer at least an adequate safety net for these more dramatic scenarios.  But there are other causes of data that one should be prepared for.

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Are you at risk of losing data that is important to you?  Your work files?  Your cherished photos?  Your music collection?

For most of you, the answer is a resounding yes.

Every year 43% of computer users lose important data to hard drive crashes, burglary or theft, power spikes and failures, natural disasters, fires, and even accidental deletion.

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As most computer-savvy individuals now know online backup is a method of offsite data storage in which files, folders, or the entire contents of a system are automatically backed up on a remote server.  A growing number of companies now provide online backup services which routinely copy selected files to backup storage at the service provider’s offsite data storage vault.  Most of these services function basically the same: the service agrees to rent you server space for a monthly fee, allowing you can upload pretty much anything you want.  But what are the real advantages of such a system?

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1.  No Continuous Backup.

The best online backup services provide real-time backups.  This means that as data changes, those changes are transmitted instantaneously across the Internet to a secure, offsite data storage center.  If your Internet connection goes down, your online backup service can restore data from just moments before the interruption.  With tape-based backup, your last data backup could be several hours old.

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Mozy 2.0 has been released.

Here are some of the highlights:

For years we technicians have advised our clients to backup their data using a local external hard drive and an online backup service.  We have had great results with this combination and now Mozy 2.0 delivers this tried and true backup plan in their latest innovation named "2xProtect™".

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