Online backup sites

I have my own automated backup system and at this stage don’t use an online backup service. However, two that I’ve heard good things about from various sources over the past year are Carbonite and Mozy.

Both offer plans that are less than US$5 per month, and Mozy has a free plan that allows up to 2GB of data to be stored. Mozy also has a Pro (business) plan for $3.95 per month PER licensed computer + $0.50 per GB per month.

I could see the free Mozy option being good for those who are on the road—if your laptop and/or portable storage device gets lost of stolen, you still have access to your data, assuming you have internet access.

Update 27 July 2008: Grant H, from the Lone Writers Special Interest Group of the STC, offered this long list of online backup solutions. He said:

There’s a host of them, at a host of prices. I’ve found Mozy, iDrive, Carbonite, Iron Mountain, and backup.com [now part of Symantec]. Not to mention a few roll-your-own services like Amazon S3, which in turn is used by Jungle Disk. Also consider Crashplan.com, iBackup, or SOS Online Backup. A number of other companies are getting into the game, such as Dell with DataSafe, or Symantec. And of course there is the Time Machine for Macs.

Ara Technica has a good review, while BackupReview.info only does backup reviews. BackupReview.info also lists more than 400 online backup companies in its directory and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.

Thanks for sharing this valuable information, Grant!

[Links last checked July 2008]