Data Security: 29 Services and Techniques to Backup Your Hard Drive
Published February 17th, 2008 in ToolsWeb designers, especially those who work from home, need to have a system in place to back up their hard drive on a regular basis. Unfortunately, this typically becomes a priority only after a disastrous loss of data has already occurred.
There are a number of methods to go about backing up a hard drive, and there are almost countless online services that can help you with this task. Some are free and others charge on a monthly or yearly basis. Personally, I would stay away from free services. If your data is important enough to backup continually, isn’t it worth paying a few dollars a month for a better service and peace of mind?
In this article we’ll take a quick look at some of the leading options for backing up your hard drive online, as well as link out to a few tutorials for doing things on your own. Many of the services listed here are extremely similar. Most offer automatic backups at time intervals that you can set and adjust. Free trial offers are very common, and they have been listed here whenever possible. Some of the free trials don’t even require you to enter any credit card information until after the trial period is over. In a few cases, I could not find prices on their website, which makes me a bit leery. The services and prices are most likely competitive, but with so many other options available, I doubt I would ever sign up for a free trial of a service not knowing what the full service will cost on an ongoing basis.
Award winning online backup from PC Magazine. License is $3.95 per month with storage costs of $0.50 per GB.
Prices as low as $39 per year for 100 MB and go up to $90 per year for 1 GB. There are other options for corporate accounts, multiple computers, etc.
30 day free trial. Home plans starting at $9.95 per month and business plans at $24.95 per month.
30 day free trial. Starting at $89 per month. Specializes in dealing with businesses.
$49.95 per year no matter how much you need to backup. 15 day free trial.
Prices start at $9.95 per month for 10 GB and go up to $299.95 per month for 300 GB. Free trial. Award winning service.
$2 per GB per month. Free trial.
30 day free trial. Plans start at 10 GB for $14.95 per month.
14 day free trial, no credit card needed. Plans start at $6.99 per month for 50 GB.
14 day free trial. $4.95 per month or $54.45 for one year.
Starts free. $2.99 per month for 2 GB.
30 day free trial. Prices start at $19.95 for 100 MB.
Prices start at $5.95 per month for 1 GB.
Secure Online hard drive 30 days free, starts at $431.90 for 5 users.
30 day free trial. Residential and business packages. Residential starts at $4 per month for 3 GB and business packages start at $20 per month for 10 GB.
Targets businesses, prices start at $75 per month for 5GB.
Free 30 day trial. Prices start at $1.95 per month for 2 GB.
Prices start at $19.95 per month for 4 GB.
2 GB free. For $4.95 per month or $49.50 per year you get unlimited backups and storage space.
Pricing not given.
30 day free trial. Price not listed.
Free trial, no mention of pricing.
30 Day free trial. I don’t see pricing anywhere on their website.
Remote data backup $35 per machine per month.
5 GB for free, 50 GB for $9.95 per month.
Stores backups of your data on the computers of your “buddies”. Free.
(Addition) Backup Technology
Offers online backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity. Prices are not listed on the site, but you can contact them for a quote or to request a trial.
Tutorials for Backing Up Your Hard Drive Yourself:
Lifehacker – Automatically backup your hard drive
A tutorial by Gina Trapani for Windows PC users. This method uses an external hard drive, an FTP server, and SyncBack freeware.
Mac OS X – How to backup and restore files
Mac users can get instructions here. There are a few different methods explained, including the .Mac backup application, third-party backup applications, and the manual method.
Lifehack – 4 ways to automatically backup your hard drive
A tutorial for creating your own script to backup your hard drive.
What’s Your Experience?
Have you used any of the services listed here, or others? Do you use some other method for backing up your hard drive?
20 Responses to “Data Security: 29 Services and Techniques to Backup Your Hard Drive”
I have been using Mozy since last August. I have been very pleased with it so far. Pretty much set and forget. No need to fuss with it. I even backs up locked files. One of the best investments I have made.
I’ve been using Sugarsync for about the past week and it’s been working so far. It’s currently in beta but it has a great feature set–your own website where you can access your files, plus you can access them from your internet-enable mobile phone.
It looks like it’s a really good service.
For the past few weeks I have been working with Nomadesk (http://www.nomadesk.com) and its quite a nice app. They dont sell it as a backup sollution but you can use it as that since they dont have any traffic/storage limits.
Had to call their helpdesk for a problem though but they are friendly guys.
I would like to add backup platinum, I just reviewed it on my site and it is a marvel
Awesome resource list. I’m sure it’ll help me when I move back to my home country and get broadband…
I’ve been using Sugarsync for about the past week and it’s been working so far. It’s currently in beta but it has a great feature set–your own website where you can access your files.
Thanks for this great list! I’ve only heard good things about Mozy, so I think I’ll try it out. But the price seems to be different from what you’ve listed in the post. From what I can tell the price for unlimited backup is $4.95 per month (without paying per GB), and that sounds great!
Wonderful list, Steven. I highly recommend Mozy. I’ve been using it for a few months now and I’m extremely impressed.
I have to confess I have always tended to think of the server I upload to as my backup. And of course my computer is the backup for the server. I know this is not a good arrangement. I will look into some of the options you have pointed out.
This is a great list!
Zenith Infotech also offers an excellent backup and disaster recovery solution, available through their resellers. Their solution is very good for small to mid-sized organizations. It’s a step up from some of the ones you have listed, both in terms of what it does for you but also in terms of price. I don’t think they are targeting sole practicioners as much as small shops (between 5 and 50) where a reasonably robust business continuity solution is needed.
Thanks for assembling such a great list of backup and recovery options.
Thanks to everyone who left feedback from their personal experiences. Sounds like Mozy is a popular choice, which I kind of expected. Part of the reason I did this post was to research options that would be more effective than what I currently do.
Thanks for this information
Fascinating resource list. it’ll help me a lot. Thanks for this information.
Great list! Thanks for a lot information available at one place. I have ’stumbled’ this page.
Could I recommend a website with everyday backup tips? Maybe someone would be interested. The website runs at http://www.backuphowto.info.
Using such a hdd will definitely save my data in safety
I use Storage Guardian myself, and really like their service
Have you checked out CoreVault? It’s a very reliable and very secure service.
My company ShareFile offers a http://www.sharefile.com/filetransfer/business-data-backup.aspx business data back-up solution. While we don’t recommend using us for backing up an entire hard drive, we are good for really important files.
I personally have used Box and the storage that comes with me.com. pretty good stuff.
I think i have a Mozy account, but never gave it a try.
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