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Backups - Introduction
Backups - Data Backups vs. Drive Images
Backups - External Hard Drives
Backups - Software for Data Backups
Backups - Online Backups |
Backups - Image-Based Backups
Backups - Seagate Replica
Backups - Windows Home Server
Backups - Small Business Server
Backups - Recommendations |
BACKUPS - ONLINE
BACKUPS
 There
are dozens of services to help you back up your data
online.
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Some
programs include
built-in services for
online backups of the
program data. (Examples:
Quicken & Quickbooks;
Adobe Photoshop
Elements.)
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Services
come and go like
wildflowers to copy data
to online servers, where
it will be safe until
the backup company goes
out of business. A quick
Google search for
“online backup” will
turn up too many
choices. I don’t know
anything about
this collection of
reviews but at least
it focuses on only eight
of the online backup
services and most of the
names have been around
for a while – Mozy,
Carbonite, BackBlaze,
IDrive, and more. All of
them are cheap, a few
dollars per month. (If
you enjoy being
confused,
here’s another set of
reviews that reaches
wildly different
conclusions.)
Typically the online
services install a bit
of software that runs
continuously with an
icon down by the clock.
You’ll identify what
data to backup (with
more or less effort),
then the software will
copy that data to the
online vault. Some of
them run at scheduled
times, others claim to
run kind of
continuously. Some of
the services will keep
different versions of
files as they change,
some claim to use
bandwidth intelligently
so the backup doesn’t
choke off your Internet
connection, some offer
unlimited space for a
fixed price and others
charge by the amount of
space used by your
backups.
I don’t
have any strong reason
to steer you to one or
the other. Any of them
will protect your data
if you understand how it
works, set it up
correctly, and make sure
it’s doing its job. Here
are a few thoughts:
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Online backups are
surprisingly slow!
If you’re backing up
several gigabytes of
data, the first
backup might take
literally a week to
finish. Don’t panic.
-
Mozy has been around
forever. I had a
poor experience with
it a couple of years ago
but that could happen
with any of these
services. The Mozy
software used to put up
this message when a
backup job was starting:
“Reticulating splines.”
See, it’s a joke – it
doesn’t really mean
anything, it’s just a
geeky sounding phrase
from a Sims game. It’s
not clear that the
startup of a backup
program is a good time
to make a funny joke. I
don’t know if Mozy still
tells funny jokes.
-
BackBlaze is
worth considering
because of the cool
video on the
home page of the
woman setting fire
to a notebook – plus
it’s easy to set up
and only five
dollars per month.
To give you an idea
of how opinions
vary,
here’s a writeup
from somebody who
found the simplicity
was just right, and
here’s somebody who
got pissy
because it was too
simple.
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I signed
up with
JungleDisk because
backups are stored on
Amazon’s S3 servers, so
theoretically my data
can be recovered even if
JungleDisk goes out of
business. I’m not
positive that’s true but
it makes me feel better.
JungleDisk is much more
flexible – it can be run
on multiple computers
and it offers complete
freedom to choose
folders to back up. That
works if you have enough
knowledge to identify
the folders with
important data.
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If your
computer crashes, you’ll
run a routine from the
service to restore your
data. Some of the
services let you access
your backed up files
from any computer in a
web browser; others
require that their
software be installed on
the repaired computer to
run the restore process.
It will be a slow
process in either case.
A few of the services
will send you DVDs with
your data after a crash
for an extra charge.
Let me
make one suggestion. I
want each of you to have
two
methods of backing up
your computers. If you
like the idea of using
an online service for
backups, choose one and
make it work - but also
do backups onto an
external hard drive or
one of the other types
of backups I’ll be
discussing further on.
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