Back Up Your Precious Things

If you have ever lost a term paper, a precious photo, or important tax information, or seen your computer crash without warning and no recovery, you know that having a backup strategy for all your computers is important. What would happen if your computer was stolen, or burned to a crisp in a house fire?

One approach is to back up your computer information to an external disk drive or even a USB thumb drive, but if your house is destroyed, that won't help you. The best approach for backup today is to use a service that is quietly and constantly copying your computer's information to a secure site somewhere far, far away.

Several services are available for this, including:

Backblaze
Carbonite
Crashplan
Dropbox
Jungledisk
Mozy
SugarSync

Most of these services are free to use if you store small amounts of data, say up to 2 gigabytes of data. For larger amounts or for extra protection they charge about $5 per month or less thereafter for unlimited storage, and include software for your smartphone so you can see you backup files on a cell phone, or through a web site.  Each service has different features, so look through the reviews to see what makes sense for you.

How it works:

These services will install special software on your computer. The software transfers the data (in the background, while you're working or idle) from your computer to the company's secure storage site, somewhere deep in the mountains or in a high security vault at some undisclosed location. Each time you save something or make a change to your computer, the work is stored on your computer and a copy is kept in the "cloud" far away. These services are designed to be secure, encrypted, and safe. If your computer is lost, damaged, or destroyed for any reason, the backup is always available through a web site or in some cases the service will send you a backup disk.

A few reviews of these systems include:

Published 7/16/2009
http://gigaom.com/apple/mozy-vs-carbonite-mac-backup-smackdown/

Published 3/10/2010
http://www.help2go.com/content/reviews/6-online-backups-comparing-carbonite-backblaze-jungledisk-more.html

Published 3/22/2010
http://www.wirefresh.com/crashplan-triumphs-in-comparison-of-online-backup-services/

Published 12/22/2010
http://www.macworld.com/article/156511/2010/12/whatonlinebackupservice.html

Published 2/11/2011
http://lifehacker.com/5749845/the-best-alternatives-to-mozy-for-big-or-unlimited-backups

Published 4/2/2011
http://www.techwizbackup.com/carbonite-vs-mozy

Published 11/26/2011
http://gigaom.com/cloud/backblaze-now-backs-up-whatever-youve-got/