How To: Backup Your Files Off-site…For Free

So lets say you have important documents on your hard drive. Stuff like tax returns, bank records, homework, electronic copy of your will, game saves, mp3s, and so on. Then one day you notice a slight clicking sound coming from your computer. It could be your hard drive dying or maybe just a roach stuck in a fan.

But you just don’t know.

Maybe your computer decides to give up on life without warning. No clicking. No defrag warning messages. Just a blank screen and a slight smell of ozone.

Perhaps its time to save some of that data before it makes a trip to binary heaven.

Sure, you could burn it to a CD/DVD, store it on a USB drive, or the ever reliable floppy disk. And what happens next? You label the media and throw it in a drawer or stack it neatly next to your PC to be forgotten. I’m taking about not even a picture on the side of a milk carton.

If you’re like me and you live in the great state of Florida, there’s the constant threat of wildfires, hurricanes, lightning strikes, killer bees, rednecks, and old people driving their car through your house. And quite frankly, your piddly little media backups sitting in your house, don’t really stand a chance.

And face it, backups are like health insurance. You don’t really ever use it…but when you need it, you need it.

Enter Mozy, stage left.

Mozy is a secure, online, automatic backup solution that takes care of everything for you. Think of it as a safety deposit of the 21st Century. All you need is a broadband connection and a PC with Windows XP. Sadly there isn’t a Mac version, but they are working on one.

So here’s a brief run down of how Mozy works:

1. Sign up for a free 2.0 GB account at Mozy.
2. Download their software to your PC and install it.
3. After it is installed, the software will walk you through selecting folders you want to back up.
4. Next you select the time and frequency to back up your data (for example, Weekly on Sunday at 2 AM).
5. The software runs in the background, using very little system resources.
6. When the backup time occurs, Mozy will encrypt the files and upload them to their servers.
7. You can backup your files as often as you like.

Now you got your files backed up and stored at an off-site location. Ideally, this is the best place to store your files.

You can also do the following with Mozy:

• Once you have files uploaded, you can log on to the website, and download the files to any PC. When you start the download, Mozy will decrypt your files and place them in a zip file for you. No additional software is needed.
• If you really want, Mozy will ship you a DVD with your data on it.
• You can backup multiple computers using the same account, as long as you don’t go over the 2.0 GB limit.
• Say you are at work and get a call saying your kid accidentally deleted a file you were backing up. No problem. You can restore files over the web back to that PC. In other words, as long as that PC is turned on and Mozy is running, you can restore files without needing to be sitting in front of the computer.
• If you decide to stop backing up a file, Mozy will hang on to it for 30 days…just in case.

In a nutshell, that’s about it. I’ve been using Mozy for a week or so and I really like it. The only downside is that Mozy isn’t blazing fast when uploading the files, especially the first time around. That’s why I recommended an AM time. And in case you’re wondering, Mozy does do differential backups, so only the files changed since last backup are uploaded. Thus minimizing upload time.

In short, give Mozy a try, It’s simple, easy, and free to use, The only thing you have to lose is your important data.

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