Back up your files with Carbonite’s end-of-year deal

TL;DR: Get 40% off all Carbonite backup services through Dec. 31.

Cloud backup services for your computer are valuable because they present an additional layer of security to ensure you never lose your precious photos, videos, documents, and other files. Unfortunately, local backups aren’t enough. The great thing about these kinds of services for your computer is that you don’t even have to think about them — they run automatically and continuously in the background, scanning for changes and uploading as needed. The bad thing? It’s often easy to put off actually signing up for a service and getting it all squared away.

Carbonite is making it easy to pull the trigger and subscribe to all the cloud backup services you know you need, and with an awesome discount of 40% off all their offerings through the end of the year. Here’s the rundown on what they have, the kind of discounts you’ll get, and what we recommend.

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With the basic plan, you get unlimited backups of all your computers — Windows or Mac — to Carbonite’s secure, encrypted cloud server for a low, yearly fee. It supports regular files and photos, and if you ever need a snapshot of what you have uploaded or quick access to a backed-up file, you can access them from any device. It’s a great option if you have simple backup needs — just set it up and let it run on a single device.

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If you need a little more file protection, consider Carbonite’s Plus plan. Along with everything in the Basic plan, you get virus protection thanks to Webroot. This plan also comes with the ability to back up external hard drives, and — crucially — video backup (if you have kids or pets, this is a big one). If you work with a lot of videos or just want that extra layer of security, the Plus plan is better.

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If you have a catastrophic loss of all your files — your hard drive crashes or your posses-sions are destroyed in some sort of disaster — you want to get up and running as quickly as possible. The Prime plan will do just that. Not only does it include everything in the less expensive plans, but if you ever need to restore all your files, Carbonite will send hard drives of your files to you for just $10 per incident. It makes the recovery process as painless as possible.