Backing up is like exercising. It’s something you really should do at least once week. But it’s easy to put off until — wham! — one day your hard drive has a heart attack and you lose everything.
A number of online backup solutions are emerging to make the task much easier and automatic. New York Time personal technology columnist David Pogue reviewed four online backup services in a recent column and video. To keep the products straight. I created a comparison table:
| Product | MediaMax | Carbonite | Mozy | Xdrive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Streamload | Berkeley Data Systems | Mozy | AOL |
| Price | free | $50/yr. | $55/yr. | free |
| OS | Win | Win (Mac coming April ‘07) | Win (Mac coming soon) | Mac, Win, Unix |
| Storage Included | 25 GB | Unlimited | 2 GB | 5 GB |
| Paid Options | Free: 25 GB $5/mo. for 100 GB, $10/mo. for 250 GB, $30/mo. for 1,000 GB |
Unlimited | $5/mo. for unlimited | $10/mo. for 50 GB |
| Notes | Limited scheduling. Can only back up entire folders, not files or file types. Automation requires “XL” version (Win only). | Aimed at non-technical users. Completely automatic. 2 GB file limit. | Most flexible and technical. Can mail DVD of files. | Easy to use. Xdrive desktop (Win only) required for automation. |
Currently, I don’t use any of these services. I back up my entire drive to an external Firewire drive using SuperDuper. Then I use Apple’s .Mac to back up selected critical files such as Quicken data files, encrypted password files. .Mac costs about $100/year for only 2 Gig of storage. Some people think .Mac is a rip-off, but my wife and I get a lot of value out of it. But the storage allowances are skimpy.
In any event, both Microsoft and Apple are building more sophisticated back up solutions in the operation systems they are releasing this year. These new features and the services described above are a good thing. Backing up has been troublesome for too long.
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