So I recently rebuilt my mac after having it for many years and really messing it up. This wasn’t the Mac’s fault, it was mine for installing things that I probably shouldn’t have done. But I did. So I wanted to “start over” and reinstall all my stuff and get a fresh start. So I needed to back up all my important files which is something I should have been doing all along. I mean I had time machine running on a 32gb external hard drive…. But since my mac is 100+gb of space, it didn’t exactly all fit on that little 32gb drive. So I went out and bought a new external drive that time machine could use and have plenty of space.
But now I want to be even more cautious. See a backup needs to be safe and since my backup is attached to an external drive on my system it’s not protected from a fire, or burglary. I used to backup my files to DVD’s and put them in a fireproof safe but these days that would take over 15 DVD’s every week and that would get expensive and VERY time consuming.
So I looked at the various backup options and wanted to share my thoughts.
MOXY: I ready things I didn’t like. I’ll say I didn’t actually try moxy, but the reviews alone made me shy away from it.
CARBONITE: I tried this after hearing about it on TWIT TV by Leo and while I really liked the interface, I didn’t like that in the free trial they block all videos from being uploaded. Not that big of a deal if in the full version they allow video backups, but they don’t even tell you they block videos. It wasn’t until I read reviews elsewhere that I noticed my iMovie files were not backed up. Because of this and this alone I removed CARBONITE and tried another contender.
BACKBLAZE: I am impressed so far. The price is the same as Carbonite and Mozy, and I like that by default it backs up my video files, music, photos, documents, etc. I also love that BACKBLAZE allows external drives to be backed up, this is not allowed by CARBONITE from what I could tell. From a security standpoint I did set my own encryption key and will attempt later to recover files without it and see how well protected files actually are. Additionally I’ll be testing the recovery process to make sure it’s easy to get files back should I need to recover one.
Right now my vote is for BACKBLAZE (http://www.backblaze.com/partner/af0568). I liked CARBONITE, but the simple fact videos were not included by default and I didn’t see any mention of that on CARBONITES own utility without digging into the manual settings. I think this should be front and center, if those aren’t backed up by default even in the free trial, how can I be sure everything else is backed up?
Anyways, that’s all I got for now. But I wanted to shoot out this friendly reminder that if you have a computer you really need to make sure you back your files up. And not just once. Backups fail so you need at least 2 different backups. In my case I have one locally on an external drive and now I am trying online backup services and with a cost of $5 per month to protect your data or $0.16 per day, isn’t it worth that small amount of money to ensure everything you have is safe? And remember, if you are backing up your files today, and leaving those backups next to your computer or in your house, it’s really not a safe backup because your house could burn down, your computer and hard drive could be stolen… Be smart, do online, off-site backups to keep those family photos, videos, even your music collection safe.
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