Simple and Affordable Offsite Backups

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In a previous article, we already talked about the importance of adding an offsite backup solution for your files.  While you still should back up your data to an external hard drive, additionally backing up your data to a remote server can protect your important files should your computer be lost, stolen, in a fire or if your files are victim of a malicious virus.

Contrary to what many people believe, offsite backup solutions can be quite affordable.  I have been testing two online backup services that are quite easy to setup and use:  Carbonite and Mozy.  Both of these offer unlimited data storage for about $50 a year.  Mozy also offers free accounts for up to 2 gig a data and Carbonite offers a free 15 day trial – a good way to “try before you buy.”

Both services install a small application on your computer which operates in the background and will regularly search your hard drive for any new or changed files.  You can set Mozy and Carbonite to back up automatically or your can back up your files manually.  Both companies encrypt your files for security and offer you the options of choosing your own encryption passphrase.  

It is important to note that these are backup services, and not a virtual disk (like Jungle Disk).  This means that you cannot drag your files back and forth – any files you want to upload need to be part of your backup set. Both Mozy and Carbonite  include a Virtual Disk as part of their latest version.  While you can restore files by dragging and dropping, you cannot add files in this manner.  Mozy offers an additional feature that allows you to request your restore files on a DVD for an extra fee.

The one drawback is the lack of file versioning.  That is to say, any file you delete on your computer will automatically be deleted from your offsite backup after 30 days.  This can be troublesome if you accidentally delete a file and didn’t notice it until a couple of months later.  

Both Mozy and Carbonite work well under both Windows XP and Vista.  Mozy also offers a Macintosh version of its software called “MozyMac” which is still in beta.  From my tests, the Mac version still needs a little work as I did experience intermittent server drops and at times, the application would crash when attempting to select files for a backup set.  Carbonite has been promising a Mac version of its software for quite some time but it still has not been made available to the public.

One thing to keep in mind is that your initial backup can be quite slow.  Uploading is almost always slower than downloading so depending on the size of your initial backup, it may take you several days to several weeks to upload all of your files.  Thus, you will need a relatively speedy Internet connection.  Once your initial backup has been uploaded, any subsequent backups are much faster as both services back up incrementally; that is to say, only those files that have been changed or are new.

Both of these programs are easy to use and the small price tag is definitely worth the piece of mind.  You can download Carbonite at http://www.carbonite.com and Mozy at:  http://www.mozy.com.

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Tagged as: Carbonite, Mozy, Offsite Backup