No need to keep a hard drive next to you –
avoid disaster by keeping all your important files online
Mozy
Free/$10 per month
(http://bit.ly/ubyvAQ)
Rating:
A free version with 2GB of space is a great
start, with the paid offerings starting at $10 a month for 50GB. Mozy focuses
on complete backups more than individual files, and you can order your data on
DVD instead of having to download it. Handy if you on a slow broadband connection.
Carbonite
$65 per year
(http://bit.ly/udE3Q8)
Rating:
Carbonite is a great fire-and-forget tool
for backing up all your documents, music and other media from one computer,
ready to be re-downloaded in the event of a crash. It’s not so handy if you’re
only backing up a handful of files though, and it’s a shame you have to
subscribe for a year in advance.
Free/$10 per month
(www.dropbox.com/plans)
Rating:
More a file-syncing tool than full-on
backup, but great if you don’t mind putting all your important documents in one
folder. Dropbox offers 2GB of free storage, the ability to go back to old
versions of files, and the option to run it on as many machines as you want
make it a very tempting offer.
Jungledisk
$5 per month + 1p per MB
(http://bit.ly/tK2T3j)
Rating:
While this one is slightly fiddly to set
up, you can be confident that your files are safe – it backs up to Amazon’s S3
cloud server, which isn’t going anywhere – and you only pay for what you use.
It works just like a hard drive with automatic backups and high-end encryption.
Livedrive
$10 per month
(http://bit.ly/ujrsUh)
Rating:
Livedrive’s basic offering of unlimited
backup for one PC for $10 per month isn’t bad, and features, such as 30
previous versions of all files an mobile access don’t hurt either. Pity its
Dropbox-style fie syncing costs extra though – even without its huge 2TB space,
it would complete the set perfectly.