From the inconvenience of taking the wrong USB drive to work, to the abject horror of a hard drive fail, problems with data are never fun. Backing up your most important files online can be a real life-saver if disaster strikes. Here are five cloud services that can store, share and protect your data for a small monthly fee…

Best: Ease of use
Dropbox
2GB: Free I 50GB: £5.60 per month
Love: Intuitive to use. Phone apps. 2GB free
Hate: Limited data plans
Dropbox review I Link: Dropbox

Best: Apple users
MobileMe
£60 per year
Love: Easy to upload files. iPhone tracking
Hate: Apple’s premium pricing and relative lack of PC-friendliness
MobileMe review I Link: Apple

Best: Office documents
Google Docs
1GB: Free I 20GB: £3.20 per year
Love: Clean and simple web interface. Quickest on test for uploads
Hate: only 1GB of free storage. Basic look
Google Docs review I Link: Google

Best: Unlimited storage
Livedrive Backup
£3.95 per month
Love: Unlimited storage for a reasonable price
Hate: online uploads cost a little extra
Livedrive Backup review I Link: Livedrive

Best: Social networking
SugarSync
30GB: £3 per month
Love: Easy and automatic synching. Wide support
Hate: Slow initial uploads
SugarSync review I Link: SugarSync