Last week I wrote about backing up your photos in “Worried about your photos?“. While I’d like to think everyone got their act together and started backing up their computers I kind of doubt that happened. Excuse my pessisism, but if backup was simple and easy more people would be doing it right? Thats where Blackblaze comes in. 

Blackbaze is an online backup software that makes backing up your important files easy. Set it up once and go about your life, Backblze will continuously back up your whole computer automatically.

Why Backblaze is cool:

• No DVDs, no hard drives to mess with.
• Backups happen invisibly as soon as files are added.
• $5/month, no matter how big your hard drive.
• Won’t slow down your computer. Really.
• Your online backup can’t be lost or stolen.
• Download your backed up files anytime (of course) or have them overnighted to you on DVDs or a hard drive.

According to the photography gurus at Photojojo, Backblaze is the best online backup software out there. They said: “we’ve tried Mozy, Carbonite, and CrashPlan. We’ve used Amazon S3, we’ve used hard drives. Backblaze is the first one that’s stuck. Please, for the love of photography, sign up for this thing. Your photos are worth saving!”

via Photojojo

We trust our computers to safeguard all kinds of documents–photos, movies, music, financial records. But how often are you backing up your computer? Weekly? Monthly? Never? If you aren’t making daily backups sooner or later you are going to lose something. While modern hard drives have improved significantly over the past decade, they are not infallible. So while losing those MP3s you downloaded last week might not be a big deal, losing a client’s wedding photos is a HUGE deal. 

If you are a Mac user Mac OX Leopard offers one of the simplest backup solutions around. You just need to buy any external drive, connect  it to your Mac, and Time Machine (Apple’s backup program) will automatically recognize and configure the drive. Your Mac will take care of the rest, backing up your important files every day. If an important file turns up missing or your computer crashes, Time Machine makes restoring your files super easy.

For the Windows users in the crowd, most external hard drives (such as those offered by Western Digital or Seagate), offer some kind of similar backup software. These utilities are often included free of charge and come pre-installed on the drives. Refer to the hard drive’s owner’s manual for more information or visit the manufacturer’s web site. 

When your data storage needs grow beyond a simple external hard drive, it might be time for a different backup solution. The most prolific photographers will eventually run out of space on even the most voluminous hard drives. I know when I got out on a shoot I can easily came back with 8GBs of new RAW files. Even after deleting the bad ones I still might have anywhere from 4-6GBs left. It doesn’t take long to start filling up even a 1TB (1000 GBs) drive. For the most demanding users, Data Robotics offers the amazing Drobo, the backup robot. Drobo is an external hard drive enclosure with space for up to four hard drives. As your data storage needs grow you can add new drives or upgrade existing ones. Let’s say for example you start with two 500GB drives. A few months later when these drives start to fill up, just add a third drive of any size for additional storage space. Want to learn more, read Terry White’s great review.

Whatever you do, make sure you do something. Even if you only backup once a month that is better than not backing up at all. If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments and I will answer them.