Sunday, May 14, 2006

In Case of Disaster, Have a Backup Plan for Your PC - New York Times

In Case of Disaster, Have a Backup Plan for Your PC - New York Times: "If you don't want to depend on a device or the limited lifespan of digital media, you might consider online storage. 'This used to be something that was only available to large businesses,' said Stephanie Balaouras, a senior technology analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, 'but now we're seeing the emergence of a lot of niche players targeting individuals.'
Computer users can subscribe to a service like Iomega, Iron Mountain or My Docs Online for $5 to $50 a month, depending on the amount of storage and the level of security desired. "

I think this "megaserver" solution is the only one that makes sense longer-term, e.g., as more people routinely use multiple PCs, and both hard disk capacities and the amount of digital stuff people collect continue to rapidly increase.

I use a combination of Lotus Notes (hosted by 4t Domino, in my case) and Microsoft Groove to back-up stuff I use on multiple PCs. I used to also run Novell iFolder for my Burton Group work files, but iFolder stopped working (for no apparent reason) on my primary PC several months ago, and it looks like Novell is focusing exclusively on Linux for future iFolder releases, so I dropped it.

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