Joan at Luxgen has written a review of her backup strategy and reading it has prompted me to do the same. I try to remember to review my backup strategy on a regular basis because things change:

• The data I want backed up changes
• The methods I use may not be suitable for increasing amounts of data
• I hear about new methods that might be better than what I use
• Is the automatic backup working?

External hard drive – I have two – a 1TB drive that I back up everything when I think of it. It’s in my office and my laptop moves between my office and the living room, so I have to consciously remember it. I also now have a 1TB portable drive, which I had to buy when I had to remove all my photos (except family history ones) from my 3 year old laptop for space reasons. Never rely on just one hard drive! I back everything up to it at the same time as the other one.

GoodSync is software that backs up or synchronises files. I use it to back up to the two external hard drives. I also use it to synchronise files between my laptop and my netbook, so my netbook acts as a backup, as well as allowing me to work seamlessly on documents when I’m out and about and have the changes appear when I synchronise them back to the laptop.

Dropbox I use Dropbox for things I am working on constantly. I tried using it for TMG (The Master Genealogist – family tree software) but it needed too much discipline, so I now use GoodSync for this. It’s better for Word documents, so I keep the courses and thesis I’m writing there, and can synchronise between my laptop and netbook. Files are also available to me online from anywhere, so I keep a backup of any presentations there too. I also use it to share files with clients and other volunteers at the Society. You can have a 2GB account for free, and pay for more space. If you introduce others to the service you are credited with an extra 250MB of free space, so if you sign up using the link I gave you you’ll be doing me a great favour!

Mozy – I’ve used Mozy for years and I wouldn’t be without it. It saved me once when my Outlook mailbox vanished one day, and I only lost about 12 hours worth of emails, instead of many years worth. I have to review the files I have selected to back up every once in a while, as new folders seem to be automatically included.

Backupify – This software backs up your Facebook and Twitter accounts. I played with it once but didn’t continue with it, for some reason that I can’t remember. I don’t back up the Facebook accounts and pages or Twitter accounts. I’m still not entirely sure of the need for it.

WordPress – I use the a WordPress plugin to schedule daily backups of my self-hosted blogs, and I have the backups of 5 different blogs emailed to me every day. It fills up my mailbox pretty quickly but it’s worth it. I delete old ones from my mailbox when I think of it. The blogs hosted by WordPress.org is not backed up, or at least not by me.

Gmail – I also have most of my emails picked up by Gmail, which is another backup of sorts. The ever-increasing amount of allocated space is ample for my needs!

Amazon – I recently read Dick Eastman’s discussion of the free 5GB made available by Amazon to back up files. When I went to Amazon my space was already available to me, as I have an Amazon account. You can increase the available space quite cheaply at $1 per GB per year, so 20GB is $20 per year, which is quite cheap really. As I thought about what I could put there that is less than 5GB I came across a problem, though. Actually, two problems:

1. There doesn’t appear to be any synchronising software, so I have to remember to move new and changed files, and I have to remember which ones they are. That’s fine if you create new documents regularly and get into a routine. I don’t.
2. The more online backups I do, the closer I get to my download limit for the month. I’m sure there is more scheduling I can do to get around this.

The decision I made about Amazon was to include more files in Mozy. I will have to do this progressively to avoid hitting my limit and putting up with appallingly slow speed for the rest of the month. I’ve added an extra 5GB worth of files and it’s almost finished uploading them! I will reconsider Amazon towards the end of the month, when I can see how my upload limit is faring.

So that’s my back up strategy, in its current phase of evolution. What’s yours?