Like your dad, mine taught me that life truth at an early age.  While I tested it several times growing up what dad taught me turned out to be true again and again.  Here are a few that I ran into that you might relate to ranked by age for me:

-          12 Albums/Tape for .99

-          Free Stamp/Coin Proofs

-          Free unlimited brake jobs for as long as you own the car

-          Bumper to bumper warranty

-          Free Service included w/ purchase of new car

-          Any sign-up for Free Vacation/Car/$1mil/etc

-          Sign-up for Free for 30 days providing credit card, just cancel (victim of this one X times)

-          Transferable Warranty

-          Home Warranty for home buyer

-          Unlimited Backup for $4.95/month or $54.95/year

I would challenge anyone looking for a remote backup service to evaluation any service first.  Don’t give your credit card information to try ANY service.  Test it to see if it really works for you.  Ask questions of others (Research, Blog, References, Regulatory Compliance, etc) for their experience.   Think about it, if you are loading data to a provider where the volume exceeds the raw cost of the storage then what your dad taught you MAY come into play.  We also have a great resource that you can use “Ten Questions to Ask your Online Backup Provider”.

From my research, understanding being in the online backup industry and talking with customers of many of the providers (also testing myself) there are ways that many providers limit those that “take advantage of the system”; AKA using more than they are paying for.  The most common practices they limit the volume of uploaded data allowed per day (i.e. 100mb per day – less than 10 photos with digital most cameras).  Another common practice is “expiring old files”.  This can be as little as 90 days.  I personally take digital photos that I load on my PC, edit and backup for storage FOREVER.  It is NOT OK with me for files to be deleted EVER much less in such a short time.

We recently added a customer that tried several of the popular data backup services without success. The primary reason was our service and support.  When we talked with them about the above issues they admitted that they had seen both limits and deletions within the first month of us.  This is much faster that I had experienced, so I am creating new accounts of my own and trying again.

Lastly, I have another Truth about data backup:

“We manage our customer’s backups, other services manage credit cards.”
In other words, their customers won’t hear from them unless the credit card doesn’t work.
Our customers hear from us when there is an issue.

We look forward to helping you with your online backups.  Start your FREE Evaluation today, without any strings attached; only what you dad taught you!