So the story goes like this. A friend calls me and says his wife got an error message on the computer and tried to fix things. Well what came up was “Do You Want to Restore Your Operating System.” Not understanding the consequences she said sure. A click here a click there and poof all of their data was GONE! I never had the opportunity to see if something else could have been done to the PC without restoring it from scratch. This family lost lots of photos, mp3 files, and other documents. IT CAN AND WILL HAPPEN TO YOU! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? Dang why all the shouting? Well because this type of stuff is common and far to many people don’t back up their data.

If you have high speed internet I am a big fan of online backup services like SugarSync and Mozy Online Backup. Both offer free trial accounts with 2GB of space. The SugarSync pay plan starts at $4.99 a month for $49.99 a year and gives you 30GB of space. SugarSync has very easy to use software including a free iPhone application. It allows you access to your files from anywhere you can share select photos and files with others as well. SugarSync also has a nice feature to keep select files in sync with 2 computers. I use it for my logbook program on my desktop and laptop along with a few other items. So if you have multiple computers and want access to individual files you should use Sugarsync. If you are looking for a way to simply backup files and only access them when you have a failure use Mozy.

The benefit of online backup is that your data is not sitting in your home where it can be destroyed by fire or stolen. I am not saying you shouldn’t do traditional backups to cd, dvd, or hard drive. This is just an additional layer of security.

Mozy offers unlimited data for $4.95 a month. Cheaper than Sugarsync doesn’t have as many bells and whistles. Mozy is purely for backup purposes and does not give you access to individual files.

Check out SugarSync. If you sign up we get a referral credit worth additional disk space.
Pricing:
2GB Account Free
30GB $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year
60GB $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year
Larger less popular plans available

Mozy Online Backup visit Mozy.com. This link also tracks referrals for us and gives us additional disk space.
Pricing:
2GB Account Free
$4.95 per month for unlimited data backup

Local Backup Software and Hardware:

The quickest and most popular option to backing up data is backing up to another hard drive. I am a big fan of network storage devices like the Dlink DNS-321. Cost is around $120 for the box and you put in whatever sized hard drives you like. You can then mirror your data. This simple means your computer sees the 2 drives as one. This way if one drive fails the other should still have a complete copy of your data. Great for general backup of mp3′s, bulk images, and documents. Check NewEgg.com for latest pricing.

Windows XP, Vista, and the new Windows 7 operating system all have its own basic backup utilities. If you are looking for something more robust to do local backups to hard drive or DVD check out FBackup. http://www.fbackup.com/

So don’t procrastinate and start backing up today!