When I Back Up My Files Online,
Where Are They Physically Stored?

Q: I know my files are stored in the cloud when I back them up, but where is the physical location in which they are stored? Is it secure?

A: When you store your files in the cloud, they are encrypted and go through the same security measures that financial institutions use with your credit card information. Though your files are backed up online, the service you are using physically stores the encrypted versions of your files at secure data centers around the country and/or the world.

For example, the top-rated Carbonite could not publicly share which specific cities or states their data centers are located in because of security reasons, but we do know that they have secure locations all over the US. Once you upload your files to Carbonite, they remain encrypted on their servers, which are housed in state-of-the-art data centers that are guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In these data centers, Carbonite uses RAID 6 technology. RAID stands for “redundant array of independent disks”. When Carbonite stores your files on their servers, your data is spread across 15 disk drives, with 3 copies of your backup set. Other online backup services have similar practices. In another example, the files you back up with MyPCBackup  are transferred using a 256-bit AES encryption and stored in the heavily-monitored Amazon s3 data center.

Check out the online backup blog to read more about security practices and other features. Compare providers and read our online backup reviews here.

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