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I’ve seen some serious horror stories of people experiencing something really, really frightening: forgetting regular computer backups.

And they weren’t even people who didn’t know better or have half a clue. They were top earning online business people, whose livelihood was their computer. Something somehow went wrong, and POOF. Sometimes literally POOF.

And of course, they exhorted one and all to please, please remember to back up all their files on a regular basis so that such disasters would  not befall them.

It’s not hard to do or time consuming, but do YOU do it? If so, do you do it often enough? Do you think you need to?

I didn’t.

Right now, you’re thinking, “OK, here’s the part where he tells about his computer suddenly bursting into flame/melting into a puddle/leveling the neighborhood with a huge explosion. Better grab another cup of coffee, this is gonna be good!!”

Nope, sorry, nothing that dramatic. Some years back, when I was brand new to all this Internet kind of stuff – so new I thought safelists and paid email really could make money for me online – I completely fried my computer.

I sat down at it one day, flipped the switch and nothing happened. My computer had died and a doorstop had been born. Very technological “Circle Of Life” sort of thing.

My current computer guy is a family friend who took a look at it and declared the cause of death to be pretty much everything: viruses, spyware, malware, all those be-wares you always hear about. There was nothing to salvage at all.

These days, I know a little better, and I also know about these things called files that I work with that need backup. All of them, but especially the ones I created. The problem is I don’t make the kind of money online those others do, and I know my memory’s probably worse about such things.

I remember the stories later, but not the backup. Stories interesting and scary, backups not so much.

I decided to check out an online automated backup service, because I could:

1) regularly back up files for storage away from my computer

2) let THEM remember to do it.

I checked out a couple and decided to go with Mozy Online Backup.

For $5 a month, I could back up and store a whole bunch of stuff either on a schedule of my choosing or automatically. By going automatic, I can also tell it not to backup and slow me down while I’m busy and using X capacity at the time. There’s a free version too, but unless you’re planning to stand still and do nothing, a monthly data storage budget the same as most people’s daily coffee is well worth them doing it for me.

I’m no math whiz, but $5 a  month or a new computer or recreating needed files – and I’m a technophobe, not a technophile – was pretty much a no-brainer in my case.

How’s your math??

Dan