Comments on: How to Create a Data Backup Plan

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:03:42 +0000

I currently use Mozy to backup all my data offline and it works great. I still don’t have a good solution for backing up my operating system though, everything seems too complicated, i.e. Acronis, cloning, etc. I wish there was an easy way to do this.

By: Simon Young

Simon Young — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:52:35 +0000

An alternative is using a gmail drive and your gmail account as an offsite backup….there are also free ware software. The problem with carbonite, mozy, etc… is you have to pay and the support is pretty bad…plus you run the risk of potential data loss like with what happene with Carbonite last year…when they lost 7000 customers data…just vanished..

By: Elise

Elise — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:07:33 +0000

@Lindsey

If the backup solution providers catering to home and small business users were so flawed, they wouldn’t consistently get good reviews from actual customers, and they wouldn’t be making any money. Most of them also provide excellent customer support, but you have to take the time to evaluate them to find the one that fits you best in terms of price and the level of technical support you will need. The average home user or small business owner doesn’t have the means to hire a dedicated IT person. Furthermore, as we saw with the Microsoft/Danger Sidekick debacle, even multi-billion dollar companies can’t manage to get a proper backup and restore it sometimes (probably more often than we hear via the media). There is no magic bullet when it comes to backing up and restoring data, but the key is to make sure you have multiple backups so that if one fails you can restore from the other. There are backup providers that have 24/7 support and cost less than $200 bucks a year, which I think is still reasonable for an individual, family, single proprietor, or small business (with five employees or less).

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:43:43 +0000

You make a good point about having two backups, because the reality is, you can never have enough backups. Hard drive are a great solution when traveling, but for your office backups … don’t look for the cheapest solution. There are online backup companies out there that aren’t just selling software; they actually work with small businesses to make sure backups run smoothly.

Backup My Info! monitors all of their clients’ backups DAILY to make sure everything is working properly. That way if clients are traveling or unable to monitor the backups themselves, they have a trusted vendor to troubleshoot for them.

The “easy to use” and “inexpensive” backup vendors are flawed in that they expect their clients to troubleshoot and restore themselves. Unless you have a dedicated IT person onsite that is monitoring backup activities daily, there is a risk that when a disaster happens, you will not get your data back

By: Elise

Elise — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:09:32 +0000

If you notice, the article is not written assuming that the individual has a home network and can manage multiple machines. There are a lot of people out there that just plug their laptop or desktop into their cable modem or DSL modem, and have never attempted any degree of home networking. It is far less likely that someone with a home network would this basic level of guidance.

If we ever do an article specifically about Backups using a home network, additional PCs, servers, and NAS devices will be fair game.

By: Warren

Warren — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:57:47 +0000

Hi Elise,

I agree with you that doing so is not a luxury everyone has, but your article was not entitled “Budget ways to backup your data”.

It’s like someone writing about the best cars for 2009 and not mentioning any luxury brands because “most” people would think it is too expensive.

I personally don’t think a HP MediaSmart server for $249 (LX version) is a huge luxury if it can backup all 5 of my PCs at home regularly.

Worth a mention I believe, we’re not talking about a SAN or anything like that and it’s becoming very popular in homes now.

By: Elise

Elise — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:14:36 +0000

Purchasing an additional PC solely for backups is not a luxury that a lot of people have. The options I referred to are budget friendly, easy to implement, and do not require maintaining yet another computer.

By: Warren

Warren — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:03:07 +0000

Good article overall, but I would have also mentioned buying a home server such as Windows Home Server. It automatically backs up your computers (including Macs) and allows you to easily restore a PC in under an hour.