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Agreed 100%, home PC back-ups are not optional in this day and age. Our home computer contains pretty much the entire record of my 2-year-old's life in photo a

Agreed 100%, home PC back-ups are not optional in this day and age. Our home computer contains pretty much the entire record of my 2-year-old's life in photo and video. If we lost that to a hard drive crash, I'd never forgive myself (not to mention what my wife would have to say). With software like Time Machine, an on-site backup is nearly automatic, and I've had an archive up and running on a separate server for the past two years. My next step is putting together an off-site backup system, in case of fire, burglary or natural disaster. My plan is to buy a couple of spare drives and leave one at an out-of-state family member's house, rotating them out when we visit for holidays.

jrwoodruff 17y ago
As an alternative to you holiday off-site backup plan, you could checkout backblaze.com. I haven't tried the service yet, but they offer unlimited backup space for $5/mo.or $50/year. The only reason I haven't tried this is I'm just not sure how long that initial upload would take, what with 500+ gigs of stuff to backup :) If you used to augment your full backup though, it would be a good last resort, failsafe backup
- sstrudeau 17y ago
  I've been using Backblaze. Love it. It's the perfect "I don't have to think about it" backup system. Cheap. Off-site. No worrying about usage limits. Automatic.
  - chime 17y ago
    Is Backblaze fast? I use Mozy and it really sucks. It's slow, the Windows app takes FOREVER to show me my files and the web-interface is just plain bad. I'm looking for an alternative but I don't want to switch to yet another app that's just as bad.
  - nooneelse 17y ago
    Anyone able to compare Backblaze and CrashPlan (I'm was about to start using it this weekend) from personal experience? Looks like several computers can be done with cheaper with CrashPlan, but maybe that misses something I should consider.
icefox 17y ago
Got a Time Capsule last fall, started backing up my macbook and didn't think about it after that. Working in the background, automatically, over wifi with a setup of minutes. Used it for the first time last week to recover a file. Paid for itself right there and then.
quickpost 17y ago
Good call on the offsite backup. I do something very similar to your idea. I rented a safe deposit box at my bank, and every month or so I head over and get access to it to swap out my hard drives with the latest backup. That way even if the house burns down, etc., I'm covered. It's low-tech, but it scales quite well. I can store multiple terabytes at a secure, offsite location for about $50 / year.

jrwoodruff 17y ago

As an alternative to you holiday off-site backup plan, you could checkout backblaze.com. I haven't tried the service yet, but they offer unlimited backup space for $5/mo.or $50/year. The only reason I haven't tried this is I'm just not sure how long that initial upload would take, what with 500+ gigs of stuff to backup :) If you used to augment your full backup though, it would be a good last resort, failsafe backup

sstrudeau 17y ago
I've been using Backblaze. Love it. It's the perfect "I don't have to think about it" backup system. Cheap. Off-site. No worrying about usage limits. Automatic.
- chime 17y ago
  Is Backblaze fast? I use Mozy and it really sucks. It's slow, the Windows app takes FOREVER to show me my files and the web-interface is just plain bad. I'm looking for an alternative but I don't want to switch to yet another app that's just as bad.
- nooneelse 17y ago
  Anyone able to compare Backblaze and CrashPlan (I'm was about to start using it this weekend) from personal experience? Looks like several computers can be done with cheaper with CrashPlan, but maybe that misses something I should consider.

icefox 17y ago

Got a Time Capsule last fall, started backing up my macbook and didn't think about it after that. Working in the background, automatically, over wifi with a setup of minutes. Used it for the first time last week to recover a file. Paid for itself right there and then.

quickpost 17y ago

Good call on the offsite backup. I do something very similar to your idea. I rented a safe deposit box at my bank, and every month or so I head over and get access to it to swap out my hard drives with the latest backup. That way even if the house burns down, etc., I'm covered. It's low-tech, but it scales quite well. I can store multiple terabytes at a secure, offsite location for about $50 / year.