On-line data back-up (desktop, laptop, hard drive, email)

[maf763]

I'm looking into an online service for data back-up. Not a huge volume - word files, some powerpoints, pictures, and music. What are some of the better options?

Also, I have a desktop at home where I have most things but I sometimes use a laptop for work/travel. Do the services typically allow you to access files from any computer?

Thanks.

[BrianH]

I just have website hosting and use a password protected directory for backup in public space, else I dont throw it in the /www. Costs like $60 a year.

[Ellise]

I use XDrive-http://www.xdrive.com, 5 gigs free. As far as I know you can access it from any computer.

[Charley]

I have a flash drive attached to my computer. My son wrote a small batch file that runs once a day and copies anything saved on my hard drive since the last update to the flash drive. Total cost = $7.00 It works perfectly. Backing up was never easier.

Charley

[Bowie]

Originally Posted by CMTAD

I have a flash drive attached to my computer. My son wrote a small batch file that runs once a day and copies anything saved on my hard drive since the last update to the flash drive. Total cost = $7.00 It works perfectly. Backing up was never easier.

What happens to that backup if the house burns down?

That's why I keep a copy of my backup in a safe deposit box. I try to update the copy in the box monthly, but it usually gets done closer to bi-monthly.

I've also started converting my important documents to Google Docs. That way, they not only are backed up online, but Mrs. Bowie and I can access and update them from anywhere that we have a web browser. And it's free!

[Tek_Freek]

Check your account that you have with your ISP. Most give you "x" mega or giga bytes for use as a web site or other. I use mine to store files. I use FTP Explorer to copy files to the site.

The storage is free since you're already paying for it with your Internet Access and FTP Explorer (and plenty of others) is free.

[aaa12345]

search for "sky drive"...it's free

[Niners fan]

I use .mac for my personal documents. I generally like it but I had problems with the "improvements" Apple made for Leopard.

I just started using carbonite.com for my business back-ups. It backs-up all the files on all three servers every afternoon after we are done. It costs about $50 per year per computer. But we were using two USB drives that took about 20 minutes to back-up every day. Plus the drives were breaking about once per year so the carbonite subscription is actually cheaper than replacing the drives.

I'm not sure why we did just use a flash drive and take that with us every day but I like our new automated option.

I know that amazon has an inexpensive online back-up option.

[Tennis702]

Google's Gmail gives you 7GB of free storage. I have never tried it, but why couldn't you just start composing an email to yourself including attachments and then instead of sending, save as DRAFT instead? You could organize each DRAFT message by date or type, etc.

[swagger]

Carbonite.com

$50/year, unlimited space, set-it-and-forget-it.