Monday, September 17, 2007

Online backups

I'm quite happy to say that this blog post does not start with a horror story about complete data loss. Instead, I for once was ahead of disaster (knock on wood, nothing has happened yet). I really am not one for keeping up with backups. I almost NEVER backup and when I do it's just copying the data from one computer to another (I'm talking about HOME only here!). Backups are hard, there are many choices and all of them require you to get off your butt and do something to implement them. Some take more work then others to keep up with once implemented. When I started looking at backup options I knew I needed something easy to implemented, inexpensive, and very easy to keep up with (Doesn't everyone!).

I had heard that online backups had gotten better and better so I decided to check them out. I checked out several sites and concluded that Carbonite, and Mozy were the top runners in the online backup market (Links are referral links). Mozy has a nice interface and is around $50 for a years worth of unlimited space. Carbonite is really easy to use and is the same price for the same amount of space. Both are really nice and get high reviews.

As I tried them out I found that online backups made things simple. After installing the software I chose which files I wanted backed up, and off it went. Now when files change, or new files are added, it updates the backup. I don't have to stress about the last time I backed up our pictures, because I know that it's already been taken care of automatically. Some might say that an external hard drive is a cheaper faster way of backing up, but just remember that if something were to happen to your house (fire) that backup would be gone with everything else. My suggestion is to give both of these a try (Mozy has a free 2gig account, and Carbonite has a 15 day free trial) and choose the one that works best for you.

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