Comments on: More Online Backup Software, Book Winners and Weekend Reading

By: DG

DG — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:07:01 +0000

RAID will also not save you from viruses, trojans, and accidental deletions. Thinking of RAID as backup is trouble.

I use 3 USB drives in rotation. I keep at least one at my sister-in-law’s. I have 3 so that I am guaranteed to have one offsite and at home even when I’m in the process of switching drives.

One of my favorite lines is “There are two types of people: those who do regular backups and those who have never lost a drive.”

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:09:19 +0000

@CareyV – RAID has been around for many years, mostly used on servers. It does provide significantly better disk reliability, but it too can fail. We had a RAID controller card fail at work and therefore lost all data on all the RAID drives. Tape, USB drives, DVD’s or some other backup method are still necessary even with RAID.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:02:08 +0000

Another option with similar capabilities to Live Sync is Live Mesh. It allows multiple computers to be synchronized as well as keeping a copy of the files on the internet (5 GB limit) where you can access them from any other computer just by signing in at the live mesh website. You can also use it to remotely connect to your computers that you have installed Live Mesh on. You can then control that remote computer as though you were sitting in front of it (like remote desktop). http://www.mesh.com (free)

If you have lots to backup, then http://www.carbonite.com/ is a good option. It’s US$50 per year and there is no limit on size.

Another options is Jungle Disk and Amazon.com’s S3 service. Jungle Disk is a one time US$20 purchase and Amazon.com charges by bandwidth usage and amount stored (US$0.15 per GB), but is more flexible in how it works and therefore it’s also a little more complicated.

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:31:05 +0000

Thanks for the mention! Have a great weekend!

By: Steve in Montreal

Steve in Montreal — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:45:02 +0000

Sign me up for the draw. Thanks

By: FrugalTrader

FrugalTrader — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:44:47 +0000

Carey, I do not get paid for my recommendations of mozybackup or windows live sync. I do however get extra space with Mozy when I refer members. Personally, when I backup online, I only backup the important data and not the program files. Not many people have more than 2gb worth of important documents. Even if you did need the unlimited storage option, is $60/year really a huge sum? You should see what I pay for hosting MDJ.

Online backup is just another layer of protection. Your harddrives or usb sticks can become lost, stolen, or burn to the ground.

By: CareyV

CareyV — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:27:52 +0000

I have used SyncToy which is very good for desk top to laptop. That isn’t my official backup though. I use an external HD to back up all my computers daily.

Personally I think the online back up is quite useless because it is so limited in storage unless you want to pay a huge sum (I know you need to put these various links for your ideas so as to drive traffic to different sites and increase your income). If it’s for a small amount get a usb memory stick instead and you can carry it with you (I just bought an 8bg one for $20).

Another newer thing is a RAID drive. I bought 2 new computers (Dell) for my office and they both have them. It’s actually 2 drives running side by side with one mirroring the other so if one hd fails you always have your data…… up to the last second. My external back up is for protection against fire and theft.

By: FrugalTrader

FrugalTrader — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:05:08 +0000

FP, that’s exactly what I use live sync for now, to synchronize my media files. It’s pretty convenient cuz now I can pick which pc i want to upload pictures from the camera without having different media files scattered around hard drives.

By: Stephen Winters

Stephen Winters — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:01:11 +0000

Four Pillars: you can pick one folder or multiple folders to sync. It’s a great program.
There was a limit when it was FolderShare but it was for number of files and not total size.
From Live Sync website “You can synchronize up to 20 folders containing up to 20,000 files each. Files can’t be larger than 4 gigabytes (GB).”

By: Michael James

Michael James — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:59:20 +0000

Thanks for the mention. I guess I’m a low tech backup person. All my data fits in one double-sided DVD. So, I just burn one every once in a while.

By: Four Pillars

Four Pillars — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:30:10 +0000

I think Gwynn answered my question but…

Can you set it to just ’sync’ up certain folders? Ie I would love to sync the photo directories on our pc (where we download the pics) and the laptop (which serves as a backup).

By: Gwynn

Gwynn — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:20:25 +0000

I can give a thumbs up for Live Sync. It was formerly called FolderShare and I’ve used that for years without issue. The new Live Sync works just as well.

I did run into a limit on how much it can sync so it’s probably not good for backing up everything, but it’s certainly good for backing up key folders.

Cheers,
Gwynn