Update: Be sure to checkout the followup to this article.

Recently at work we’ve had a series of drive failures.  We’ve had leaks in our server room that trashed our RAID array (even RAID5 won’t protect against submersion). We’ve had drive failures of age & use.  We’ve had raid configuration wipes due to power outages.  Time and time again, we’ve had unexpected failures that had us thinking we’ld lost everything.

All of this has gotten me thinking about my backup solution at home.  As of this writing, I have 12GB of music in iTunes, 17GB of photos in iPhoto, and about 10GB of other important stuff in my Documents folder.  All of this exists only on my Macbook (and my Time Capsule).  While the TimeMachine backup protects me in case I lose my laptop or suffer a hard-drive failure, it doesn’t protect me in the event of anything more serious like a Fire, Tornado, or Robbery.

So I’ve been looking around at some of the online backup options available, and I’ve narrowed it down to 3:

mozy idrive carbonite
Space 2GB for Free, Paid plan is unLimited 2GB for FreePaid plan is 150GB Paid plan is unlimited
Price $4.95/month $4.95/month, $49.50/year $54.95/year
Extras Can backup files in-use (locked)

Can backup Outlook Databases

 Built-in revision control”Timeline Restore” Remote file access via the Web
Concerns Separate “Home” & “Pro” plans

MAC only supported on MozyHome

 Mac client is rather recent

150GB Limit

 Mac Client is v1.0, rather recent
safe_copy_logo dropbox_logo_home ???
Space 150GB or 250GB 50GB
Price $50/year for 150GB,

$75/year for $250

 $99/year
Features iPhone App, Web Access

Sharing of large files

Windows, Mac, & Linux support

 Windows, Mac, & Linux Support
Concerns Meant more for sharing than Backup

So, what do you think?  Right now I’m considering Mozy, but I could go for either one.  I did just recently win an iDrive Portable, although the special features for the iDrive Portable doesn’t work on a Mac.

Update: So, I got a Tweet from “SafeCopy”, who I investigated and added above, and had a few users suggest DropBox.  You can see that DropBox is approximately 2x the cost of all the other options for some unknown reason.  From the latest information, I’m actually leaning toward iDrive or SafeCopy.

  • iDrive offers Revision support, automatically retaining the last 30 versions of any file, and letting you restore to any version.
  • SafeCopy offers sharing & an iPhone app for management.  Sharing would be nice to share the massive photo library with my folks.

So, any thoughts?

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