I don't know about Mozy's offerings in particular, as I don't care about location redundancy. But I know that many of the online packages offer this as I came across it when researching products.

Who made such an argument? :confused:

It is only free on top of other costs, such as the connection. Just like my stand-alone backup to the server in the closet is free once I pay for the server.

There are start-up and ongoing costs to both approaches. What really matters is the TCO and that will shift in favorability over time.

What also really matters is being honest about the costs. I have trouble believing an IT type isn't "upgrading" their backup solution every couple of years or so. We know this because terabyte drives simply did not cost $50 a year ago or two years ago. This implies that they were a recent purchase. So you have to ask how much the backup solution cost before the terabyte drives were purchased. ;)

I seem to have stepped into Omni. Single backup is stupid. Oh, you do mulitple backup? Multiple backup is stupid because it's still in one place. What, you carry it around with you all the time. That's stupid.

And the alternative is...Mozy. One location? Wasn't that stupid a few minutes ago?

I use most of the above. 3 HD's, a safe, dual DVD's, one set off-site, Carbonite, and a bit of Smugmug. Yes, it costs money. How much is losing a lifetime (50,00+) of photos - digital and scans - worth to you? To me, it's more than a couple hundred bucks. YMMV.

Arguing over how much someone values/invests in backup is like my 10 yr old telling my 6 yr old how stupid she is for not liking spaghetti.

no kidding. :)

:D

You know what's really stupid?

Arrogance. Especially the arrogance of insisting that their method is the only good method for anybody and everybody, and that anybody that disagrees with them is stupid.

(I am using "them" specifically not to target any one individual. If the shoe fits ... )

-David

A good time to make my first post on here.

I don't have anywhere near as much data as some of you guys are discussing, but I have a solution that works well for me:

Documents & Crucial Files: Dropbox.com (works seamlessly online & offline, free or very cheap)
Photos: Flickr Premium
Everything Else: An old seagate backup drive that I update about once every 6 weeks.

Works a dream and with very little effort.

This person is right, SafeSync is currently half price and it really is unlimited. Full disclosure: I work for Trend Micro, and I use it for free (not counting the blood, sweat, and tears that make up my daily routine). You can see the details here:

http://us.trendmicro.com/us/products...nal/safe-sync/

I personally have been using it since the acquisition last year, and it's been great. In all fairness though, here are some other similar options, technically speaking of course:

Dropbox http://www.dropbox.com
SugarSync http://www.sugarsync.com
Box.net http://www.box.net
Windows Live Skydrive http://skydrive.live.com
Adrive (50GB free) http://www.adrive.com
IDrive http://www.mediamax.com/
Nomadesk http://www.nomadesk.com/
Elephantdrive http://www.elephantdrive.com/welcome/onlinebackup/
Syncplicity http://www.syncplicity.com/

One important distinction to point out is that Mozy and Carbonite are generally geared more for traditional backup scenarios (save my whole hard drive somewhere else). These other options listed above are more geared towards storing your digital life online for universal access and sharing (if you want). Under the covers they all back stuff up to the cloud, but the use case is slightly different. These solutions tend to be more interactive and useful across multiple devices, such as streaming your music in your browser or via an iPhone/Android app, synching files across multiple computers (save photos from your SD card on your PC and they show up automatically on your wife's Mac), or accessing that presentation from your coworkers laptop without installing a client/agent because yours died on the road.

Hope that helps the OP out.

Ryan

2 more I found right after I hit submit:

SpiderOak https://spideroak.com/
Quanp http://us.quanp.com/

Ryan

Amen!!!

@ryandelany thanks! Am trying SafeSync right now. First negative is that I can't use an '+' in my email address but I can overlook that if the software is great. Certainly the price seems right.

I have decided to switch to CrashPlan. There is a %15 discount through tomorrow (2/15) for Mozy users. The program lets you backup to the cloud ($), to another computer on your network (free), to a friends computer on the internet (free), or a drive attached to your computer (free). Everything is encrypted.

I much preferred the functionality of SafeSync from Trend Micro but because they do not encrypt my data on their servers I won't use it. Trend tries to rationalize not encrypting the data because it is not stored in one place. Other than that it was a great product, fast, easy to use and let me get at my files from any device I have.

I guess the years of It guys pounding into my head the need for back ups sank in because I back my stuff up every month to an external USB drive and keep a copy at work but still...
I have never lost one bit of data due to a hardware failure and if my house or work burned down I sure as hell wouldn't worry about data on my computer. What do you guys do that necessitates a backup of a backup of a back up and a fireproof safe? CIA? NSA?

I just backup online - I don't have 8 redundant backups. :)

I've been collecting MP3's for 15 years or so. I'd hate to lose my music library, especially since I digitized all my CD's. I also have my old tax forms, letters, projects for work. Photos are also a big deal, though I upload all the ones I want to keep to SmugMug.

I have lost count of the number of hard drives that have failed. Living in the country there is a lot of dust that hard drives and power supplies do not like.

As to what type of data is so important, I suspect there is no point in even attempting to discuss that.

Update: CrashPlan is so much better than Mozy. I just replaced my desktop with a new machine. In Mozy land that would have meant an entire replacement (and days of re-backing up). With CrashPlan I just told it this was a new PC that replaced the old one and bam, everything was transferred.