I seem to be a very lucky person indeed, as after having been entrusting the safety of my photos, music, etc to the whims of my computer for about the last fifteen years, I’m yet to have a hard disk fail on me.

I’ve decided that I must be due a catastrophic failure any time soon, so I’ve finally got my butt in gear and sorted out an actual backup procedure. I’ve had an external hard disk for a while now (a 250gb Red Lacie Brick if you’re interested), but beyond remembering to copy over my photos every six months or so there’s not much of a system there. And I take a lot of photos. Plus, if the house burns down then the external hard disk is probably going to be reduced to a pool of red goo. So I’ve decided to go for online backup.

After reading some good reviews I’ve opted to give Mozy a try. Mozy comes in two flavours - 2gb of storage for free, or unlimited storage for $4.95. Seeing as my photos currently take up around 100gb, I’ve opted for the unlimited option. Plus, if you pay for a whole year at once you get a month free, or three months if you pay for two years up front.

Sign up and installation are quick and easy. When Mozy first runs you make you backup selection from from a list of predefined sets (photos, movies, documents, etc). You can also add custom sets of your own choosing.

My first backup is now underway. With over 100gb it looks like it’s going to take a while - the “Time to finish” dialogue says “unknow” - I reckon at least three weeks! I’ll keep you posted.