Computer Backup Recommendations

[Guest Car66]

Hi,

 

I'm a long-time reader of groovypost! Thanks for the site!

 

I run a home business and I'm worried if my PC dies i'm going to lose everything. I went to Fries and bought a usb backup stick but i filled it up so I think I need another solution.

 

What would you recommend?

 

 

Thanks!

[alexmvp]

Hi!

 

How much space do you have that needs to be backed up? There are several things you can do but remember, if you backup your data using a USB drive or spare drive, this does not protect you if your house burns down, theft, flood etc... So although it's better than nothing, it's not the BEST solution.

 

Personally I use MOZY. It's a great service and if you don't need more than 2 gig's it free. I prefer it over ADrive because Mozy is owned by EMC AND, the data is encrypted even with the free account. ADrive however gives you 50 gigs of data so that's another good option.

 

Whatever you decide, my recommendation is to stay with the Online backups. It's simple and you know your data is safe no matter the incident at home!

 

Hope that helps!

[Steve Krause]

Hi Car66,

 

You bring up a really good question and Alex has done a great job pointing out most of the important things to think about. I agree with Alex however that the end solution we reccomend will be based on the amount of storage you need backed up:

 

Hi!

How much space do you have that needs to be backed up? There are several things you can do but remember, if you backup your data using a USB drive or spare drive, this does not protect you if your house burns down, theft, flood etc... So although it's better than nothing, it's not the BEST solution.

 

I went through this exercise at home a few months back when I sold my "backup" server and needed to find a new place to backup over 500Gigs of Photos, Music and other personal documents (taxes, receipts etc....).

 

Like Alex, I started off by performing a comprehensive review of all the "Cloud" storage vendors I could find and in the end, I selected Mozy for several reasons (Financial backing, security, price). I created an account and started my backup however quickly abandoned the idea once I realized it was going to take several weeks at the upload speeds I was experiencing. I knew it was going to take awhile but I never actually sat down and did the math being that I thought my Verison FIOS would make short work of the task...

 

In the end I took a 2 tier approach. For the majority of my data, I purchased an external 1 Terabyte Firewire drive ($120.00) and now perform monthly backups. I keep the drive in a fireproof safe bolted to the floor in my Garage. The most "CRITICAL" documents and photos which absolutely cannot be lost (under 2 gigs) are now safely being stored at Mozy.

 

Hope this helps!

[Guest Car66]

Hi!

 

thanks for all the info guys. i have about 2 gigs of data that needs to be backed up. my quicken books doesn't take up that much space. I'm glad I read your posts! I was about to goto costco and buy a larger USB stick but instead I went ahead and setup a free account with mozy and I'm all backed up.

 

Thanks again!

[shockersh]

Hi Car66,

I keep the drive in a fireproof safe bolted to the floor in my Garage.

Hope this helps!

 

 

That was my intention as well.... I bought an eSATA drive and put it into a CADDY I had lying around. The "idea" was I would perform the weekly/monthly backups and then pull it out of the caddy. Only problem was, I quickly needed the space so now I just leave it in the system and I'm right back where I was a few months earlier....

 

Not to mention I was to lazy to take the drive to work with me (which was my plan). Oh well... If anyone sees a good deal on NewEgg or Tiger, plz let me know!