Lacie Cloudbox local and online backup device

Everybody ought to take regular backups of their valuable data, either ‘locally', meaning saving the backups on a hard disk connected to the computer or home network, or remotely.

The latter usually means using some kind of internet-based service but Lacie's Cloudbox offers the best of both worlds – a 100GB hard disk and a year's subscription to an equivalent amount of secure online storage.

It works fairly simply: connect the Cloudbox disk to your home network using the supplied network cable (it connects to your router or a Homeplug adapter, not an individual PC), install the software and then register for one year with the unique contract number that's included with every unit. Create a administrator account and password using the service, and you are ready to get going.

Initially Cloudbox is only visible to and usable by the administrator but using the browser-based control panel you can create folders for different users, allowing any PC on your home network (your partner's laptop, the kids' PC) to back up their data onto the Cloudbox as well. It will work with the supplied backup software and the backup software provided within Windows or you can just drag and drop files into the relevant folder on the Cloudbox.

Once your files are stored on the Cloudbox it will then quietly copy them to Lacie's internet service. Cleverly, this works even when the PC is switched off because the Cloudbox is connected directly to the internet through your home network. The Cloudbox will send you an email when it's finished copying.

We found installing the Cloudbox less than simple: even with help from Lacie's technical support people we were unable to get to the bottom of what went wrong. In the end after multiple resets and cable changes we were able to view the Cloudbox on our network and set it up. The supplied Assistant software refused to recognise the disk at all. Once set up, though, Cloudbox is easy for a confident user to administer. Once it's set up and running, the beauty of the concept becomes clear – you can just forget about it.

Or you could, if the disk was more capacious. As it is, because the supplied disk inside the Cloudbox is relatively small at 100GB, you will have to pick and choose what gets backed up. That's even more of a problem if several computers are sharing it over a home network, which after all, is the idea.

Given that you can buy a 1TB Lacie hard disk from Amazon for under £50 and get online backup for multiple PCs for under £100 elsewhere, the premium required for Cloudbox's convenience isn't quite worth it.