The time it takes to do a backup is a function of a number of factors, including the speed of your computer’s CPU (for doing compression and encryption), the amount of data you are backing up, whether a full file is being backed up or just changes to it from the last backed up version, and the speed of your internet connection. As such, it’s extremely difficult to give a general formula for time. Our experience shows that full backups (i.e. your first backup) takes the longest, and then all incremental backups (using our sophisticated file change detection system) are extremely quick (on the order of just a few minutes for most users).

To help you in estimating how long a full backup will take, the table below shows the estimated time required to send one megabyte of data through the Internet using various modem types and speeds. When calculating the amount of data you will send over an Internet connection, remember that before documents are transmitted, our software compresses them to about 20% normal size. So, five megabytes of your data on your computer becomes approximately 1 megabyte when initially transmitted and stored on Divinsa’s servers.

To calculate the time in minutes required to transmit a compete document, divide its size by the connection speed, then divide the result by 6: Transmit time = (File size / connection speed) / 6