Now that the NBN is here – in most Canberra suburbs – it is now time to talk about off site backup again.
Offsite backup is basically like Time Machine (operates in the background so you never need to worry about it) but instead of going to an external hard disk it is sent to a secure location in the cloud.
Why do I need offsite backup? (I can feel you asking)
Backup is – as I am sure you have gathered listening and talking to me for any length of time – a very important part of computer life. In fact it is possibly THE single most important thing if you have anything on your computer worth a damn. So an external hard disk, NAS or Time Capsule is great and a must for any computer user. But what happens if the same disaster that befalls your Mac also befalls your backup?
A flood? A fire? A theft?
In these cases the only thing saving you from a life time of looking in the mirror screaming whhhhhhhhyyyy is an off site backup.
Now an off site backup can take the form of another external hard disk that you regularly and religiously back up to and send to your brothers place across town or store in the boot of the car. This is free. Thing is though, not many people are that consistent when it comes to this kind of daily or weekly chore. A rainy day, sickness, holidays or a binge watching session of Madmen and all of a sudden it has been three weeks since a backup.
And I know what you are thinking… I have iCloud drive or DropBox. That’s backup… right?
Well yes, and no.
The files you have chosen to but into DropBox are backed up and the files on your desktop and documents folder are in iCloud (if you have turned that part on) but what about the files elsewhere? The Applications? Your Preference files?
An automatic backup, local or offsite, is always best and the best offsite backup – in my opinion – is BackBlaze. I have used BB for over 10 years and it has never let me down. Not once.
It’s cheap too, only $60.00 a year (US).
Should your local backup fail they offer a free file restore service via a web browser. If your backup goes up in flames and its the whole thing you need back then they will send you a snap shot of your backup on a hard disk via FedEx for an additional fee. I have had experience with this service and I can attest that they did precisely what they said they were going to do. I was mighty sceptical before hand.
I have recommended this before and a link is permanently on this website but in the past I have recommended caution. Those with ADSL connections would likely pay heavy upload costs and the time to get a full backup could take weeks but since NBN that has changed.
The backup will be in the cloud in no time and most NBN packages should offer very healthy (if not unlimited) upload and download limits.
I would encourage you to check it out here and sign up for the free trial but check with your ISP first to make sure you aren’t going to get punished for doing the most important task in computing… protecting your stuff.
Recent Comments