Every Dell netbooks are equipped with Dell DataSafe Online service as a standard feature. Suit with its self-explanatory title, Dell DataSafe Online works to keep the data in your netbook safe, by keeping it at online storage or also called ‘cloud storage‘ as more known today. This is simplified with the backup/restore function available in this service.

There are 6 packages available, but by default each Dell netbook allocated 2GB package with 1 year free subscription. The price is pretty steep, if you compare it with Windows Live SkyDrive that offers 25GB free online storage. Although it comes with backup/restore function, the price should be lowered to retain existing users who got their service free for the first year.

In case if you haven’t activated your Dell DataSafe Online, you have missed one of the useful features in Dell netbook. Let’s move on.

To get started, initiate Dell DataSafe Online,  which will first guide you to register an account.  Upon completion, you’ll be directed to the backup menu.

So now you’re ready to run the backup for the first time. Over here, you can accept the default backup plan, modify existing backup plan, or create the plan that suits your need. You can choose files/folders to get backed up as well as the backup frequency.

If that is the first time backup run, it will take approximately 3-4 hours to complete, depending on the size of data you have and your internet speed.

Backup is not complete without restore, so here we are at the restore menu. Again you have the restoration option to choose from. You can restore all files, restore only certain categories of files (eg music, email) or even specific files or folder.

After choosing files to restore, you can restore it to the designated restore folder created by the application, to its original location or other locations of your choice.

Besides backup and restore function, what’s great about this application is, you can share the backup files with others. From Dell DataSafe Online application on your netbook, it will open Dell DataSafe Web Portal, where you can view the structures of backed up files and folder. Choose desired files to shared and follow the instruction until completion. That’s all.