Personal (and business) Data Backup Solutions

A comparison of Carbonite and Mozy:

I used to read peoples' articles on data backup and recovery and assume those are the kind of people who NEVER lose data. On the contrary, I now have the feeling they are exactly the kind of chumps who just lost a ton of data and could just slap themselves silly for not acting on that voice in the back of their head telling them "you really need to back up sometime soon or you'll lose all this stuff." Well, I am one of those chumps, and here's my article.

Whether it's photos, songs, your resume or a year's worth of files for work, we've all got something very valuable to lose from our computers, and I've lost my share from each of those categories (and more).

I can certainly go into depth on a good external hard drive, but there's not too much to know there. Get a good deal, but don't go overly cheap. Some offer "one-touch" push button backups, which is basically a bundle of an okay hard drive with an okay backup software package. If it's simple and it works, go for it. Probably the best advice I can offer, comes from the perspective of what you are actually buying... it's not the data backup you care about, it's the recovery! So, if a solution does a great, comprehensive job of saving your data, that's great. But "where the rubber meets the road" is when it comes time for you to get something useful out of that ominous Terabyte of data.

My point - you know how to back up your data, great. Do you know how to get it back?

I'm middle-of-the-road about backing up my files. I carry around two external hard drives, a flash drive for very specific stuff, and at home, I've got a Buffalo Link Station hanging off my wireless network. At work, my code is pretty much taken care of by SQL Server backups and TFS, while I also use a few FTP sites to archive old web sork.

As you can see, this is not the model of a consolidated system I have going here. I recently decided to try an online backup system. Probably the most popular right now is Carbonite. I'm right in the middle of my 30 day trial, so I will defer a greater depth of knowledge to a more thorough review. Vinnie Carpenter's blog has a great comparison (more informative than it is objective, however).

http://www.j2eegeek.com/blog/2007/10/07/goodbye-carbonite-hello-mozy/

Here's where I need to provide my own commentary, but for now I'm just stubbing this in.

Regardless of what you choose, much like your AntiVirus plan, the best solution requires some overlap and you are ultimately responsible for your data. That's not to say I'm not constantly seeking that one-stop-shop. If it gets invented, and I'm ever comfortable enough with it, I'll let you know. It would save money, time, hassle... and actually do what it's supposed to do.