A service that stores your important computer files in the cloud so that you can access them from any place as well as simply holding them for safekeeping Think of it like a safe deposit box in the sky. Most services now offer many additional features like apps for your phone that allow you to access and share files, etc. But most importantly, your data is safe, should anything drastic happen to your computer. That could be a hard drive failure where the data is lost due to a seized up hard drive or worse, your house could burn down or be flooded or you could get robbed of your valuables.
The last point--the robbery is one reason alone to have offsite backup, since it keeps track of your computer location via ip address when it is backing data up. Therefore the moment the thief turns on your computer and gets it online, you would have a general idea of just where it ended up. But more importantly your data is safe because you can still retrieve it from your offsite backup account.
So what does this cost? Around $50 per year, or as I like to put it, the cost of buying yourself a large Starbucks Coffee once a month!
.. some companies will charge more but that is a good starting point... Personally speaking I would have it installed on every computer for the simple fact that it is safe, knowing that anything at all goes wrong, you can recover your data but then maybe you are only using the computer as an internet device for web surfing and your email is already web-based like Gmail, Outlook (hotmail) or Yahoo mail...here is my analysis about whether or not you should have off-site backup installed on your computer:
If you don't have data on the computer that you would lose, should the drive become damaged, or the machine is lost, stolen, in a flood or fire where it is unrecoverable, then having off-site backup is not required.. just don't complain if you lose something of importance.. With the advent of cloud drives like Google Drive you can essentially open and save all files there which is a good thing since you will then be able to access it from any computer when you log in to your google account. The Google Chromebook has been created based on a very small solid state hard drive, since it is an operating system based on you using it over the internet. This is also similar to an Android phone for example, where you simply sign in to your Google account and you immediately have access to your email, your contacts, calendar, etc. This is a good thing and for this reason you probably don't need off-site backup.
The thing is if you have ANY FILES that you do end up saving to the computer and don't have backed up any place else then you risk losing them and that is why you must look at the Large Starbucks Coffee analogy and whether it applies to you.
