A friend of mine posted on their Facebook account something to the point of “help my hard drive crashed and I don’t want to spend $2k to fix it!”  Well, I had bad news for them. When a hard drive crashes, you are pretty much screwed. Data recovery companies charge thousands (as you can tell) to try and pull your lost files. Unfortunately the success rate of this is pretty low. Not only are you missing your files, you’re now missing a large portion of your savings. Hard to max out your IRA when you slap down twenty Benjamins for your data recovery lottery.

So how do you avoid this? Well, there is no guarantee on electronics. So looking for a fail proof drive is out of the question. External drives are in the $100-$200+ range but you still need to back up data yourself or get another program to. But like I’ve said before, I’m lazy and need a setup that will cater to my do nothing attitude. So what do I do? I use Mozy. Mozy is a free online backup storage company that is super easy to use and provides you 2 gigs of backup space free. You simply point Mozy to the folder or folders you want to backup and presto – it does the rest. Here is the lazy man’s guide to get going

1. Sign up for Mozy.
2. Download and install the software. Mozy is compatible with Windows and Macs.
3. Check the directories and file types that you want to save during the setup
4. Set up a time to backup your files
5. Relax and know that your files will be safe in case of an accident

Is it really that easy? Yes, it is. Is it safe? Yes. You select the passcode for your data encryption and nobody else knows it. Of course, you need to remember the password in case you ever have to do a data restore. 

What I really like about Mozy is that they only backup files when you tell them to and there are settings to ensure that your bandwidth doesn’t get sucked up at the same time as you are watching streaming videos on Hulu or other websites. The progam is not intrusive and also works on external drives (no thumb or flash drives though).

Mozy also has an unlimited plan for $4.95 a month. I haven’t upgraded, but this is definitely one of the lowest cost backup plans available. They also have plans for business owners (as the 2 free gigs is for home use only). Want to know how to score more free space? Mozy has a referral program which allows the referrer to get 256 megs of extra space for everyone who signs up. I’ve added my reference code to the links here, but don’t feel like you have to use them. The peace of mind of saving possibly thousands by insuring your computer files for all my readers is the main objective.

Trust me, you’ll be thanking me the day you turn on your computer and it farts out on you. Sign up for Mozy today.