My entire weekend was ruined when my computer died early Saturday morning. I wasn’t entirely surprised. My computers tend to give up the ghost every 2-3 years, and the latest had lasted nearly 4 years. I wasn’t too worried. I have backups, right? Well, yes, sort of. For some reason, my backups stopped happening 4 months ago. I don’t know why. So my latest backup is really old. It’s time to move to the online backup model. After getting my new computer into a workable state, I researched online backup options, and thought I’d share what I plan to use (so you can too).

First of all, I was amazed to find Mozy. This service is free for the first 2GB (which is a lot of data), and unlimited storage is only $4.95/month. That’s pretty incredible. I don’t see myself needing the unlimited version any time soon, so I tried out the free version yesterday. I downloaded a program which set itself up and even suggested what to back up. I can change the suggestions, but I was happy with what it deemed to be important. I told it to back up during computer idle time, but I could have chosen a set schedule if I’d wanted. I don’t have much data yet, but it estimated it would take about 15 minutes to back it all up. I’m not sure if that ended up being true or not, since it happened when I went to bed. This morning though, it had all worked well. Here’s a screenshot (reduced) to prove it.

Here’s some facts from the Mozy FAQ.

• Is simple to set up
• Performs backups automatically in the background
• Encrypts all files on your PC before transfer
• Performs incremental backups
• Backs up only blocks that have changed
• Backs up open/locked files

Your first backup might take a while, but after that, the time will be shortened considerably. Mozy does differential backups, meaning it only backs up the files that have changed since the last time they were backed up.

I also plan to buy several thumbdrives for things like pictures and music that I’d want to be portable anyway, but I want to know that my important stuff (email, etc.) is safely backed up somewhere else, and that I can get to it anywhere, anytime. And the price (free) is definitely right.

(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

Posted on July 23rd, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Good Deals