some great advice by the NYTimes' David Pogue, and I thought I should
share it. Actually, considering the amount of grief that comes to
PCVs after laptops crash, perhaps this does have something to do with
Peace Corps afterall...
Fewer Excuses for Not Doing a PC Backup
by David Pogue
If there's one New Year's resolution even more likely to fail than "I
vow to lose weight," it's "I vow to start backing up my computer."
After all, setting up and remembering to use a backup system is a
huge hassle. The odds are good that you don't have an up-to-date
backup at this very moment.
Fortunately, 2007 may turn out to be the Year of the Backup. Both
Microsoft and Apple have built automated backup software into the
latest versions of their operating systems, both to be introduced
this year. At the same time, an option that was once complex,
limited and expensive is suddenly becoming effortless, capacious and
even free: online backups, where files are shuttled off to the
Internet for safekeeping. Online backup means never having to buy or
manage backup disks. You can have access to your files from any
computer anywhere. And above all, your files are safe even if
disaster should befall your office — like fire, flood, burglary or
marauding children.
As it turns out, the Web is brimming with backup services. Most of
them, however, offer only 1 or 2 gigabytes' worth of free storage.
That may be plenty if all you keep on your PC is recipes and a few
letters to the editor. But if you have even a fledgling photo or
music collection, 2 gigs is peanuts. You can pay for more storage, of
course, but the prices have been outrageous; at Data Deposit Box, for
example, backing up 50 gigabytes of data will cost you $1,200 a
year. Nobody offers unlimited free storage, but lately, they've
gotten a lot closer. Two companies, Xdrive and MediaMax, offer as
much as 25 gigabytes of free backups; two others, Mozy and Carbonite,
offer unlimited storage for less than $55 a year.
(Note that this roundup doesn't include Web sites that are
exclusively dedicated to sharing photos or videos, like Flickr and
MediaFire. It also omits the services intended for sending huge files
to other people, like YouSendIt and SendThisFile; such sites delete
your files after a couple of weeks — not a great feature in a backup
system.)
XDRIVE This service, owned by AOL, offers 5 gigabytes of free
storage. It's polished, easy to use, and as fully fledged as they
come. Right on the Web site, you can back up entire lists of folders
at a time, a method that works on Macintosh, Windows or Unix. If you
use Windows, however, an even better backup system awaits. You can
download Xdrive Desktop, a full-blown, unattended backup program. It
quietly backs up your computer on a schedule that you specify,
without any additional thought or input from you. Better yet, a new
disk icon appears on your PC (labeled X), that represents your files
on the Web. You can open and use its contents as though it's an
ordinary, if slowish, hard drive. A Mac version of Xdrive Desktop is
in the works. As a bonus, you can share certain backed-up folders,
so that other people can have access to them from their Macs or PCs.
(This requires, however, that they sign up for their own free Xdrive
accounts.) You can view your backed-up photos as an online slideshow,
or organize and play your backed-up music files on the Web page.
Upgrading your storage to 50 gigabytes costs $100 a year, which isn't
such a good deal. But if your Documents folder fits in 5 gigabytes,
then congratulations; you've got yourself a free, effortless,
automatic backup system. Happy New Year.
CARBONITE This one's as pure a backup play as you'll find; there's no
folder sharing, photo viewing or music organizing. The Windows-only
backup software is completely automatic and stays entirely out of
your way, quietly backing up whenever you're not working. You get no
free storage — the service costs $50 a year — but you do get
something else few others offer: an unlimited amount of backup
storage. Carbonite is aimed at nontechnical audiences. It's sold in
computer and office-supply stores, for example, and it's the easiest
online backup software to use — in fact, to not use, since it's
completely automatic. The only change you'll see are small colored
dots on files and folders that have been backed up — and a Carbonite
disk icon in your My Computer window that "contains" all the backed-
up folders and files. At the moment, Carbonite doesn't back up
individual files that are larger than 2 gigabytes. It also doesn't
back up pieces of files, so if your 500-megabyte Outlook e-mail
database changes, the whole database must be backed up again. And, of
course, there's no Macintosh version. The company says that a new
version, due in April, will wipe out all three of these drawbacks.
MOZY In many regards, the recently introduced Mozy is a Carbonite
copycat. The price is $55 a year, storage is unlimited, an automated
background Windows program keeps your PC continuously backed up and a
Mac version is planned. Mozy offers 2 gigabytes of backup at no
charge. If you're willing to do the company's marketing for it, you
can nab another free gig for every four people you persuade to sign
up. Mozy is more flexible, too — and more technical. It can back up
only changed portions of files. You can specify times and dates for
backups (instead of offering only the Continuous option, like
Carbonite). You can view 30 days' worth of backups, too — a feature
that prevents you from deleting a file from your PC accidentally and
then finding its deletion mirrored in your latest backup. And Mozy
offers dozens of novice-hostile options like "Enable Bandwidth
Throttle" and "Don't back up if the CPU is over this % busy."
MEDIAMAX Talk about value. How does 25 gigabytes of free storage
strike you? The service began life with an emphasis on organizing
and sharing photos, video and music — which it still does well. But
its new Windows backup program, now in beta testing, adds automated
unattended backups of any kind of computer files, just like its
rivals. It's pretty bare-bones; for example, it offers no continuous
real-time backup, no choice of weekdays — only an option to back up
every day, every three days, or whatever. And you can back up only
folders, not individual files or file types. In times of disaster,
MediaMax will give you your files back, but won't put them in their
original folders. More important, the free account lets you download
or share only one gigabyte of data a month. That pretty much means
that to restore your hard drive after a crash, you'll have to upgrade
to a paid account. Still, when you're standing there, sobbing over
the smoking remains of your dead hard drive, you probably won't mind
paying $10 or $25 to get your stuff back.
SUMMING UP Now, there are some disadvantages to all of these
services. One of them is time: even with a high-speed Internet
connection, the first backup can take days to complete. Maintaining
your backup is much faster, of course, because only new or changed
files are uploaded to the Web. But if disaster ever strikes,
retrieving your files can also take days. (Mozy offers a solution
that gets you your files faster: a DVD of your files, shipped
overnight for an added fee. For example, to FedEx a 50-gigabyte
backup to you on DVDs, Mozy charges about $90.)
Then there's the security thing. All four companies insist that your
files are encrypted before they even leave your computer. But if you
still can't shake the image of backup-company employees rooting
through your files and laughing their heads off, then this may not be
the backup method for you. Corporate longevity may be a more
realistic worry. Since the Internet itself is very young, no Web-
based outfit has a particularly long track record. Any of these
services could be discontinued or sold at any time, which makes it
wise to make the occasional on-site backup, too.
In any case, the main thing is to have some kind of backup. After
all, there are only two kinds of people: Those who back up their
computers, and those who will.
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