When was the last time you backed up your hard drive? When the computer started malfunctioning? When the blue screen of death came up? I guess all you could do was pray that you wouldn’t lose all those important documents you spent hours preparing?
Yep, been there, done that. Online backup systems take the pain out of scheduling and remembering to safeguard your data. And they’re inexpensive too. Here are my top picks.
Carbonite - www.carbonite.com
This is probably one of the most popular online backup systems available. For $49.95, this piece of software will live on your
hard drive, and back up every single file you need it to, including Windows files, photographs, documents, and anything else. The drawbacks include reported difficulties by some users in restoring their data, and pretty lame customer service.
Mozy - www.mozy.com
This one’s a little bit more expensive at $4.99 a month for unlimited backup. Mozy is compatible with Macs as well, and its features include two-hourly back ups, and options to filter files that you want to back up. You can’t, however, skip certain file types. If you want to test it out, Mozy offers 2 GB of storage free. For a fee, you can also ask Mozy to burn your backups to DVDs and mail them to you.
Jungle Disk - www.jungledisk.com
The things that work in favor of Jungle Disk are: 1. A great pricing system: You pay $0.15 per GB, so you don’t pay a fixed fee per month regardless of whether you’re storing 10 GB or 40 GB. It also means no monthly subscription fee, which is very convenient. 2. You can sort by files. If there’s a particular file type that you do/don’t want included in the back up, specify it and Jungle Disk will or won’t add it to your upload. 3. You can manage multiple users and file permissions for each user.
Xdrive - www.xdrive.com
Another very popular online storage company. This one’s owned by AOL, who acquired it in August, 2005. Xdrive provides a free 5 GB account to anyone with a free AOL screenname, so if all your important documents can fit into that 5 GB of space, this is the perfect solution for you. If not, you can get plans starting from $9.95 a month for 50 GB of storage.