Keith Kim’s Blog

Importance of back up (at home)

Posted by Keith under Cool Apps

I’ve lost data several times in the past. It was may be about hundreds of mega bytes a decade ago. Then recent lost, it was hundreds of giga bytes. Not all of the data is so important that I can’t afford losing them, but about 10% is critical — that 10% (and percentage grows as time goes) — are family photos and movies, financial records, emails, documents, files for my personal projects… — these I can’t afford losing.

Using CD, DVD, and External HDD, another computer (LAN, internet)

I used to back up on floppy diskettes, and then burned CDs, DVDs, then I started to back up on external HDD, but at the same time onto DVD and another computers via home LAN, even on some compuer over internet, using encryption and compression.

…It was getting out of hand, and as I get busier, I just started to back up to an external HDD only.

And several months ago, my external HDD crashed. I tried all the S/W solutions to recover, but was able to restore only half of them. Fortunately, the most important files, were also on DVD, and another computer on LAN. But still, I couldn’t recover them all.

Online Backup

So I thought may be this is the time to try out online back up. So I did a lot of reading of professional and user reviews/complaints. I found different people have different experiences, so some prefer one service over another, but for my computer running Vista Home Premium, Mozy was the best option. It’s only $5 per month with unlimited space. Yes, it is slower than burning DVD or back up onto an external HDD, or via LAN. With my DSL connection, the maximum upload speed is 768kbps.

But I already have done remote server back up using custom batch file with encryption and compression with scheduled job, and tried using another drive or another computer, and also external HDD, and CD/DVD. All have failed or too incovenient. (Did you know that CD/DVD only last a few years to several years?) And, after witnessing the fire on a neighbor’s house, I started to worry about that kind of disasters as well.

Like many other online back up, Mozy client integrates with the system nicely, and back up while my computer is idle, and I can adjust the its resource (CPU/bandwidth) consumption. And restoring file options - free online restore, or paid service for restoring files on DVD (and send to me via express mail). And, they have big fat data center with professionals.

I first tried 2GB Free Online Backup - Mozy, (and also tested other services like, Carbonite) and decided to purchase the service. I’ve been using Mozy Unlimited Backup for several months now, and I am extremely satisfied. It’s better than using an external HDD, burning DVD or LAN — no need to worry about that back up HDD crashes, or hassle of burning DVDs. It’s also very very cheap and transparent. I currenlty backed up about 50 GB, and it’s growing fast — family digital photos and movies are big chunk! By the way, the files are encrypted, so it is safe.

Try the free service and see for yourself.

Other Methods

There are still other options — buying hosting service and copy over all your files there, since these days, many hosting service give unlimited space/bandwidth. But they too can lose your files (or pay extra money for guaranteed back up service), and back up/restore aren’t transparent.

Or, if you don’t have a lot of files, at least buy USB flash drive, and store all your important files there and carry them with you — but if you lose it… oh well. You can buy more expensive USB flash drives with security features.

You can store your digital photos using online photo services — but either they have limited space, or you can’t get back the original files, or your photos have to be “public.”

So Do Backup!

Some people asked me “how often do people lose data? and how important are they anyway?” — I lost plenty of times even I backed up using different media and methods. And it is quite painful once it happens. For me, I do everything and I keep all the records on PC. May be a decade or so ago, not many people used digital camera (or even computers) but now everyone use digital cameras. You don’t want to lose your family photos and movies. If you store other types of important files like financial records, files for your personal projects, etc, then back up is a must — however you do it.