There’s now a way to easily back up your pictures, songs and messages from not just your PC but also your phones and tablets in one place.
Singapore-based software vendor Acronis released a backup service this week that promises to give users a quick and secure way to have all their important data saved online, so that it can be restored should they be hit by a virus, for example.
The service, called True Image Cloud, lets users back up their stuff from Android and iOS devices, as well as Windows PCs and Macs, so they can keep everything easily in one place, ready for a recovery job.
The service comes at a time when users are faced with threats that are increasingly difficult to defend against.
Hackers, for example, have turned to “ransom ware” that encrypts and locks users’ precious data until they cough up a ransom to get it back.
What also makes Acronis’ new offering interesting is that it provides a dashboard for users to see the backups from various devices.
Other cloud-based services, such as OneDrive from Microsoft or Dropbox, often only synchonises data from various devices. The Acronis offering can restore an entire machine’s image, or all its contents such as settings and configurations.
It also provides unlimited cloud storage, with a promise that speeds are 50 per cent faster than the competition. And, of course, there’s encryption of the content to keep out prying eyes.
There’s no stopping a serious data breach, of course. Or when a PC decides to go belly up, along with the contents it holds in its hard disk.
But backing up your stuff on the cloud can go some way to making a recovery less painful. And only when you back up do you get to recover your stuff after a problem arises.
Like an insurance policy that provides wide coverage, the Acronis True Image Cloud service isn’t cheap.
It costs S$139.99 a year for one computer and three portable devices. For families, prices go up to S$214.99 for three computers and 10 devices and S$269.99 for five computers and 15 devices.
There’s a cheaper option if you simply use the Acronis software and back up your stuff on your own hard disks, instead of using the company’s online service.
This True Image 2016 software will set you back S$69.99 for each computer, S$109.99 for three and S$139.99 for five.
