Mozy On Along

I've been checking out the options for online backup. You know the question, "If there were a fire at your house, what's the first thing you'd grab?" Assuming the kids were out, I'd have to grab my external hard drives. I have an older 150 GB drive that's full, and a newer 250 GB drive that's half full of all of my digital pictures and photoshop projects. Losing all of that.....would be a huge, coma-inducing bummer.

Right now I'm trying to win a free year at Mozy. The reviews I've read have been pretty positive, and if I win I'll let you know how it goes. I read on Ali Edward's blog that it estimated it would take 9 days to backup all her stuff. Duuuuude, that's a whole lotta stuff. It runs in the background, and then it back itself up on a regular schedule.

Even if I don't win, I'll probably have to sign up since it's only $4.95/month. Not bad for peace of mind. (p.s. I wasn't solicited for this review but I'd take a few free months if Mozy wants to give them to me).

Also, I like websites with a sense of humor. Mozy offers these alternatives to online backup:

Alternatives to MozyHome

• Burn a new CD or DVD every Sunday night and store it at your brother-in-law's office.
• Pay $200/year for an online backup service that uses old, mediocre software.
• Buy a $200 external hard drive and hope your office doesn't burn down.
• Do nothing and don't worry about backup. (We suggest closing your eyes, plugging your ears and repeating "I'm in my happy place, I'm in my happy place.")
• Run a cron job of rsync, gzip and mcrypt piped over ssh to your friend's server over his DSL line.