Put Your Data in The Cloud

Word of advice, friends: never, ever, ever, never place sole trust in your equipment to keep your data safe. Doesn’t matter if you’ve been keeping all your photos and documents on the same computer for 10 years and it’s been running just fine, there are absolutely no guarantees. I used to do backups a couple of times a year, but that was when all of my files could fit on two 700MB DVD-RWs. Ha.

But why waste a hard drive bay or USB port (for an external HDD) for yet another drive which only serves as a backup device? Why not keep your data in the “cloud”? For those unfamiliar with the cloud, it is derived from the term “cloud computing”, which is basically just like regular computing (store your files, check your email, run software and tasks, etc.), only it’s done completely on the internet. Pretty cool, hey?

A much simpler use for the cloud, though, is simply as online storage for your files, and as a backup service. One such service (and one I’m definitely going to invest in) is Mozy.com. They offer unlimited storage space, a solid program for keeping your stuff backed-up, and very reasonable rates. Probably not for the security freaks, the paranoid, or the conspiracy theorists, but it’s a great alternative to dozens of DVDs or an extra hard drive lying around waiting for your computer to crash.

I say I’m “going to” invest in it, because I currently have no data to backup, and so Mozy is of no use to me at this moment in time. Why do I have no data to backup? Because it’s all sitting on a hard drive in a data recovery shop down the road. Why does the data recovery shop have my hard drive and, thus, my data? Because the piece of junk went and had an aneurysm during one of the recent electrical storms that have been passing through my area, and my data became inaccessible.

Frustrating? Yes. Scary? Yes. A very expensive lesson learned about backing up your data? Heck, yes. Should have kept my data in the cloud.