I'm thinking about trying an online backup storage service...Does anyone have a favorite or recommendation? I've looked at Mozy and was just reading about Dropbox...

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks, Randy

I use Mozy on my Mac.

Works great, one of those "it just works" services, I don't even think too much about it to be honest.

And it's free

Cheers

Cris

Just free for under 2GB, after that it is all you can eat for $5.95.

I've been using Mozy for a few weeks now, and I'm a big fan. I like its backup method. You specify X CPU usage and Y amount of time, and it will wait Y minutes after dropping below X to do its backup, which takes a bit of CPU for the encoding process. That way it both waits until you're done with any intensive tasks, and it backs up just after you've done work that you probably want backed up.

If you wouldn't mind terribly, if you're going to sign up for Mozy, could you follow this link? It'll give both you and I 256MB extra space on the free account. If you're already there, you can do the same thing by entering "QB67E8" in the code box when setting up your account.

I keep a free account just to keep my household costs down. I use it to back up important files that aren't media, which fits nicely into the 2GB allotment.

*edit*
Oh, and the other option out there is Carbonite. I can't tell you anything about them, though, because they don't have a free account. They are $10 cheaper per year, though.

Matt, signing up for Mozy is on my to do list.
BTW, do you know if one account can protect two computers?

Technically, one account can. But if you're looking for unlimited backup, it costs $5/month for each computer. I just tried to find out if the free account supports multiple computers, and I'm not entirely certain. I believe it can, but you'll be hitting that 2GB barrier a lot quicker, of course.

I use the Amazon S3 service, via Jungledisk. This is a little different as it's storage rather than an automated backup, but it's very cheap and very simple.

Regards

Mark

Anyone using Carbonite should be very careful to check that it is backing up the files they think it is. When I tested it out last year I discovered that it had arbitrary rules about the type, size and location of files that it would backup. For example it wouldn't backup any exe files wherever they are or certain video files if they weren't in the My Documents folders or any file above a certain size that weren't in the My Documents folder.

None of these rules were visible or changeable via the UI, I had to write a bit of code to parse an registry entry that contained the rules to work out why it was refusing to backup certain files.

This may have changed by now, but it is something to be aware off. Thankfully Mozy just backs up what you ask it to.