Over the past few months I've had several friends ask me about backing up their data so I thought I'd share some of my experiences and recommendations with others.
Why use online backup services?
Backing up your data (photos, videos, music, etc.) is important whether it is online or offline (external hard drives, tapes, DVDs, etc.) Hard drives fail and you don't want to run the risk of losing those precious memories you have stored on your computer. Storage media is cheap these days so any method you find effective is a good start.
I used to do this. But then again I didn't have anything really that important to worry about. It wasn't until I started taking digital pictures and heard about these new online backup services that it even became apparent to keep them stored elsewhere. All I can say is I'm so incredibly happy that I took these steps years ago.
You see, just over two years ago my wife and I had the horrible experience of having our house start on fire. (Freak'n electrical fire in a 1 1/2 year old house... but that's another story.) The heat, smoke and soot that filled our house damaged all three of my desktops and two laptops. Even some of the storage media I had melted.
Luckily I had used an online backup service and was able to restore all of my photos, documents, etc. that were important to me.
There are so many online services. Which one should be used?
Several of the online services offer a solid range of features and are reliable. I won't speak to all of them as I have not tested them all, however I will speak to a few that have worked well. I actually use several.
Mozy
My first line of defense is Mozy. Mozy offers unlimited backup for $4.95 / month. Using the application is fairly simple. Once installed you can select which drives, folders, and/or files to have backed up. Mozy will do the rest. I would recommend selecting only important files. You don't need to backup your operating system or applications that you can install again.
Depending how much you backup the service may take several weeks to get everything backed up initially. This is mostly due to ISP upload constraints and not necessairly Mozy itself. Once it is all backed up it will handle any changes.
Other nice features include:
- Versioning - so you can roll back to previous versions of a file if need be.
- CPU / Bandwidth throttling - so you can control the impact on your computer's performance.
- Scheduler - so you can set it to run at times when you're least likely to be on the computer.
- Multiple Restore options - including online or DVD
My DropBox
My DropBox is less about backing up all of your files, though it will handle that. What I don't find quite as usable as Mozy is that MyDropBox creates a single folder that you put all of your files/folders in. It breaks the organization of the files I have on my system and requires a manual step to get files put online. The nice thing about this over Mozy however is that you can share your files with friends. There is a public subfolder that you can grant access to. You do get up to 2 GB of free space. I have not purchased anything beyond that myself.
I use this service to share files with friends or access certain files while I'm away.
Live Mesh
Mesh is a windows service that runs in the background and is more of a hybrid between Mozy and My DropBox. Some additional features that are offered are the abilities to sync multiple computers, add files online through the browser, and remote access your connected computers. I believe you get up to 5 GB of free space and I have not gone past that.
BackBlaze
BackBlaze is actually a service I found out about today. It is almost feature for feature with Mozy from what I can tell, however one advantage is that you can backup multiple computers for one monthly fee where-as Mozy costs per computer (last I knew). I have not tested the usability of this service however.
Picasa
Picasa is a free service offered by Google. It is a desktop application to manage your digital photos and videos. It is extremely user friendly and best of all... free. Picasa will not only manage your media on your computer, it will sync them to the web and create online photo albums for you to keep backups of and/or share with family and friends. I use this religiously as well.
Disclaimer
One thing to note is that with any online service be prepared to have another "backup" plan in case the service decides to go out of business. As far as I can tell the services I currently use are on solid ground and I have been using them for several years now.
I hope that this post is able to help some folks out there. I understand the importance of precious digital memories. I have quite a few pictures and videos of my new baby boy backed up online.
