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.

You are far more likely to suffer data loss due to hardware failure than is Carbonite, or Mozy. Research by Google shows that 8% of all hard drives fail within the first two years of service. That is 1 in 12 hard drives that fail within two years of the first use.

So how do you safeguard data with hard drives failing at such high rates?  Read on.

Carbonite, for example, maintains arrays of 1-terbyte, enterprise-grade hard drives. Your data is spread across 16 of these drives in a RAID-6 configuration. It would take three of these drives failing and your PC crashing at the same time before any data was lost--this is highly unlikely. These RAID-6 arrays are 36,000,000 times more reliable than the hard drive in your computer. Carbonite has redundant power, redundant Internet connections, redundant web servers, their data center is guarded 24/7, and entry is controlled by fingerprint ID locks.

The personnel at Carbonite's data center never handle unencrypted data. Remember, your data is encrypted twice before it leaves your computer.  Carbonite utilizes 448-bit Blowfish encryption to 'scramble' everything that is stored on their systems.

If you want an even higher level of encryption security, then choose a service that offers a private encryption key option.  At that point, the only way for anyone to access your data is with your key.  Keep in mind, that if you lose the key you will lose access to your data--no key, no data.

Bottom-line: Data is at much greater risk on the average user's computer than in the data centers of the top online computer backup services, like Carbonite or Mozy.

See our Carbonite review and our Mozy review for more information on these leading online computer backup services.