Anyone use this online back up service?

good price. I use mozy.com. creates a virtual back-up drive on your computer. they have a free service level but I have too much stuff so I might have paid $80 for a year.

the thing I found, from experience, with backup services is how they back up your files and how you can get them back makes a huge difference. I almost lost everything back in June and had back up through Norton360. Their system is so convoluted and there is no rhyme or reason to the way they store your backup files (imo). Then, you have to call them to get your stuff back, they log on to your computer, set it up....

long story short...I never got anything restored from them.

Hi trishworks4u,

Thank you for sharing your observations about online back up services.

Yes, it is a good price at onlinestoragesolutions. Honestly, I am feeling cautious about them right now. Surely several here have tried them and has something good or bad to share?

Also, thank you for sharing Mozy. Actually, I do have them on my list of back up services to explore and have been to their web site.

Another quick question: Is Mozy Webmaster friendly? In other words, for that $4.95/mo. for unlimited back ups, do they also back up things like .exe files, or do they only back up data files? I have bought and downloaded quite a bit of software over the years for private use that I have archived and want to keep. My biggest hurdle is to back everything up and keep it all mirrored while keeping it all automated and simple. (Ultimately, I want a "set it and forget it and don't worry about it" system.)

I tried BackDrive last week for about a day and that seemed too buggy for me. They claim to back up all your files, but they really just backup data files and not .exe files, etc. which was a total deal breaker for me. I want to back up all my files exactly mirrored to my hard drive and, ideally, the ability to restore it all with a click of the button if ever need be.

I talked to onlinestoragesolutions and they claim they can do all that I am wanting for this price but I am battling some serious doubts.

I have had three major crashes happen to me in the last 10 years.

1) One crash happened on my old computer (my hard drive bit the dust). I did have a tape back up then but that stopped working about a week after the hard drive crash.

2) Another crash happened with my Web host (some fluke error where they were unable to recover any data and it was a total loss... lost my list of 4000+ cuz I assumed they had automaticallly backed stuff up so I didn't, mainly because I wasn't sure how at the time. I learned!)

3) Then just a couple weeks ago a virus somehow by passed my security software and hit my computer HARD and deleted a portion of my main external hard drive where I back up my files.

FORTUNATELY I had 99.9% of everything backed up on a second external hard drive that happened to be off when the virus hit and I only lost a days worth of work. If my second external drive would have been on, however, that virus might have wiped that drive out too?!!

I also have done manual back ups to a different location here in town, but that is a HUGE pain and I do have a portion of my files backed up to my host, but that isn't ideal either.

This last crash made me decide I better start looking into one or two actual online back up services to preferably do it all automatically because I just have way too much to risk losing now and way too little time to worry about all this and not enough discipline to constantly manually back it up myself nor the confidence to hire just anyone else to do it for me.

Bottom line: This latest crash got me REALLY thinking that I need a simple back up system to help me back up the backed up back up and then back that up too and never back it all up to one place because you just never know.

Mark

Go with Amazon.com Prices so low they are almost invisible. Space so big you can store 2 or 3 computers full. You don't have to spend your hard earned money each month on server space and bandwidth you are not even using. You don't have to worry about your site crashing because you had a little too much traffic at the same time. Your site won't even slow down when thousands of people are watching your streaming videos.
Amazon's S3 is a simple storage system that can hold all your files for virtually no cost at all. S3 is an online storage service that you can use like another hard drive only it's stashed way out there in cyberspace with unlimited storage that you only pay for what you use.
That's my ad copy, by the way, not Amazon's.

I just recently started using Safe Copy as my online backup. I have previously used Jungle Disk (Amazon) and Carbonite. So far I am liking Safe Copy the best. Very easy and user friendly.

I use Online Backup Service by FirstBackup, only $3.25/mo - Free Trial! which comes with software to install on your computer. You select what files or folders you want to backup and can set for nightly backups. You are charged for the space you use. But the real advantage is that it can be automated so that you dont have to remember to do the backup.

Use something like Acronis True Image to do a local backup to an external USB hard drive which is very easy and simple. This can be a full backup of your entire hard drive.
Use FirstBackup for only data files, your my document folders and maybe email.

Acronis is simple to use in case of hard drive failure it will do a restore so that all your Applications are still inplace, installed and Activated so you dont have to go through that hassle again. Then get your latest backup of data which will put you back in business.

John

Thanks to all who responded. I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. I have placed your recommendations on my to do list to explore.

Actually, I did my own research on this company before posting here and found both positive and negative feedback about them at various online forums; along with posts by the company responding to the negative posts TRYING to explain what happened and appearing to try and correct the situation?!!

I didn't want to say anything about my research until after I'd heard from others here first... with hopes somebody has been or is still a customer of theirs and willing to share their journey with their service, whether good, bad or mediocre.

I do not plan to choose this particular company as a "main" online backup. BUT since they offer PayPal and I do have $19 to "burn", I might try this company anyhow (mainly out of curiosity) but use an old computer to back up files that are not important, just to see how it goes and what ends up happening. (Even though I'm 99% sure I already know what will happen.)

After starting this thread I actually called up the company and explained everything I wanted in online back up and they said their service could do everything I mentioned with no problem.

I then asked them how long it would take to back up 130 Gb with their online service and they told me around 2 hours with a fast connection.

I told them I had a cable modem (which downloads at 2.89 Bps and uploads at 0.25 Bps according to speedtest.net) and again they told me that it should still only take around 2 hours to upload 130 Gb with them.

OK. My math isn't the best but doesn't that sound a bit "too good to be true?"

So here is another question...

How long would it REALLY take to upload/download 130 Gb of files in my current scenario?

(I believe I read the upload norm to be around 3-4 Gb a day or less for most other online back up services... depending on upload speed?)

Who else can contribute? I would love to hear from any and all as this is a topic of pure curiousity for me and I would appreciate any and all input.

Thanks,

Mark

Mozy is terrific. Yes, you can backup .exe's, etc., select different backup sets, plus 'file manager' type individual selection for files, folders, etc.

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: I had a complete catastrophic drive failure a few months ago. Though I had to go onto mozy.com to authorize the 'new' machine, I was able to do a full, flawless restore.

Saved my bacon, and once set up I hardly even remembered I had it!

Mark

I am wondering why don't you buy an external hard drive? Plug and play, a one time price and you can store up to 1/2 Tetabyte on some models.

You can try a new UK based service at Online Storage

They are currently offering 512GB of storage for free.

The best ones backup when your computer is idle, so you don't have to remember to do it. Also they should keep several copies of files so you can revert back to an older one if a file is corrupted.

I still think Mozy is the best. We have it on all of our computers in the office. It has saved our butts on several occasions

I use druva and have been thrilled with the service. $4.50 for their enterprise package.