Remote desktop access makes data and applications on your home or business desktop computer available from a laptop or other internet-connected computer located elsewhere. This is convenient if you frequently travel or spend time at another residence such as a summer home. However, there are some drawbacks to remote desktop access, and several alternatives are available which may be preferable depending upon your situation.

An advantage of remote desktop access is that you don’t have to spend time copying data to disks, a pen-drive, or CD-RWs to bring with you, and there isn’t the potential that you will forget to copy an important file. Your home or business computer’s hard drive is also less likely to fail than some types of removable media.

However, a drawback is the fact that the computer you will be remote accessing will have to be left running and connected to the internet while you are gone, which will likely increase your electric bill. GoToMyPC.com (a service of this type) indicates that an “always on” internet service like cable, DSL, or ISDN must be used for the computer which is to be accessed, along with Windows 2000 or a newer version of Windows. System requirements for the computer which will access it are lower.

In addition to copying data to removable media and bringing it with you, other options include using an “online desktop” or a online file storage service. An online desktop service lets you access a variety of browser-based programs and store data to a remote hard drive on the service’s server, while an online file storage service enables you to upload files to its server and access them from any internet connection.

One of the better options for bringing large amounts of data with you is a USB pen-drive; it is very compact, and most have capacities of 64MB-8GB and can be used with new and relatively new computers. A portable Zip drive and one or more Zip disks can also hold a large amount of data and be used with a wider variety of computers. Standard 3.5″ disks can hold more than many people believe, including fairly long PowerPoint presentations and large numbers of documents.

Overall, using remote desktop access is a good choice if you need to access both data and specific applications on another computer, but other less expensive options with fewer technical requirements shouldn’t be overlooked.

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