The online services for personal file restoration, like Carbonite and Mozy, focus on backing up files from one computer and restoring them to that computer. Workgroup and larger business versions of these and hundreds of other online options make it easy to back up a file from one computer and restore that same file to a different computer. Whatever your file sharing model, you can find a hundred services that will support that model. Prices run in the range of a US$1 or $3 per gigabyte stored online per month. Services with extra management and control options will cost that much and more.

System restoration options focused on servers initially, but the pain of restoring individual Windows workstations presented an opportunity for the system restore vendors to fill, and they have. Unlike other restoration methods, system restore requires a bootable disk, usually CD but sometimes now DVD, to load enough of an operating system on the replaced or reformatted hard drive to start the restoration process.

Unlike file restoration tools, system restoration tends to rely on disk imaging rather than files. The backup sequence takes a "snapshot" of exactly what's on the disk, and restores that exact snapshot when you need to rebuild the system. Unless you take a snapshot every day, this backup process isn't really granular enough for most users who just need a file or two now and then. Hence the value of file based restoration options.

But improvements bring choices, and now some image-based restoration utilities offer ways to grab and restore individual files rather than entire disk images. Handier, yes, and reduces the types of backup utilities needed if you choose this method.

Remember, quit saying "backup" and start saying "restore" to clarify your thinking about data safety. Users hate backup, but they love restore. Give them what they love.